How can I petition for my boyfriend if I am a green card holder?

You cannot file the petition until you get married. It takes a few years. The form is an I-130.

You must be a U.S. Citizen to petition a fiancee: *Fiancee Petition* A Fiance Petition needs to be prepared. This is a petition that will allow your fianc?e to come to the U.S. in a relatively short period of time. Usually, it takes around 6 to 9 months for the petition to be approved at immigration in the United States. Subsequently, the approval would be sent to the U.S. Consulate or Embassy in your fiance's home country. When your fiance comes to the U.S., you will have ninety days to get married. Our firm can prepare the entire Fiance Petition and make it so it goes smoothly and correctly. You have to have physically seen your Fianc?e in the last two years.

Only a US citizen may file a fiance petition. If you marry, you can file for him while you are a greencard holder, but the wait time will be many many years. The best option may be for your boyfriend to look at employment based visas.

You can only petition for your husband, not a boyfriend. The petition is submitted on Form I-130.

You cannot petition a boyfriend. You can petition for a spouse but as a green card holder, the process is going to take about 3 years. He is better off trying to get an employment based visa, which will be faster than you petitioning for him.

You cannot petition your boyfriend as a green card holder. Only US citizen can. If you marry him, you can file petition but it will take about 3 years for him to immigrant.

Only US Citizens may petition for Fiance visas (K-1). Your boyfriend will need to become your spouse in order for you to petition for his residency while you are still an LPR (green card holder). Upon marriage to you, he would be classified (for immigrant visa availability purposes) as a family-based F2A which, based upon the May 2012 USDOS Visa Bulletin for most nationalities other than Mexicans and Philippinos, shows a current waiting period due to the classification being "oversubscribed" of approximately 2 years (processing currently individuals with priority dates of 15 November 2009) before an immigrant visa would become available for him to move forward and ultimately complete the process. One alternative for you both might be for him to seek and obtain one of the nonimmigrant employment-based visa classifications independently (i.e. dual-intent L, H, E), enter the US on one of those and remain in that NIV status until such time as an immigrant visa were to become available to him as your spouse under the existing visa quota system.

You have to get married before you can file a petition. Since you are a legal permanent resident, your "husband's" visa is not immediately available. In other words, according to the USCIS processing times today, he has to wait around three years before he is able to come o the U.S. on an immigrant visa.

The answer is that you must first get married before you can file for him. Fiance petitions are only permitted where the petitioner is a US citizen, residents cannot submit an application for a fiance. So after you and your fiance marry, you can submit a Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, with USCIS. Average waiting time on these petitions is currently less than three years. Keep in mind that there are numerical limitations on the visas available in this category so this means that the wait can either be longer or shorter depending on supply and demand on the visa numbers. What I would suggest is that you marry, file the paperwork, get his place in line and wait. If you become a US citizen, the wait is far less, but the deal is that he may actually get here in advance of you becoming eligible to submit an application to become a naturalized citizen (currently you would be required to be a resident for 5 years). This is not the most difficult of processes to handle, but an attorney can certainly help you make sure that the forms are completed correctly and then assist you with the guidance needed for later on when the visa becomes available and you have to handle the work associated with applying for the immigrant visa through the US Consular Office abroad. Good luck.

You can petition him but it will take 2 to 3 years. The better option is maybe wait until you get your US citizenship. Then the process takes 6 to 12 months outside the US, or 3 to 4 months inside the US. I would recommend consulting an immigration attorney before getting married. Sometimes it is better to wait : ).