A Green Card — officially known as a Permanent Resident Card — grants foreign nationals the legal right to live and work permanently in the United States. While marriage to a US citizen has traditionally been seen as a common pathway to obtaining one, an immigration attorney has now highlighted that marrying an American citizen no longer guarantees a Green Card, especially under the current immigration policies of the Trump administration.
Green Card holders, formally called Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs), can later apply for US citizenship after fulfilling specific requirements, including continuous residence for one to five years and maintaining good moral character.
According to immigration attorney Brad Bernstein of Spar & Bernstein, marriage-based Green Card applications are now under much stricter scrutiny. Authorities are prioritising proof of genuine marriages and are increasingly alert to cases that may appear to exist only for immigration benefits. One key factor triggering fraud investigations is when married couples do not live together.
“If spouses do not share a home, then their Green Card case is already going down,” Bernstein said. “Being in a relationship does not get you a Green Card. Living together gets you a Green Card.”
In a Facebook video, Bernstein further explained that immigration officials actively check whether couples live together full-time. He added that immigration authorities do not accept excuses for couples living separately — whether due to work, financial reasons, education, or convenience.
He warned:
“If you’re not living in the same house every day, immigration is going to question the marriage. Once they question it, they investigate. And once they investigate, they are likely to deny. If you want a marriage Green Card, you live together — period.”
According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), even a legally valid marriage can still be denied if it is determined that the couple entered the marriage without the good-faith intention to live together as spouses, and instead aimed to circumvent immigration laws.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also taken a tougher stance on other immigration programs. Recently, the US Green Card lottery — formally known as the Diversity Visa (DV) program — was temporarily suspended after a suspect linked to a mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of an MIT professor reportedly entered the US through the program.
The Green Card lottery typically grants up to 55,000 permanent resident visas annually to people from countries with historically low immigration rates to the US.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced:
“At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme.”