Green Cards
Family Immigration Green Cards
Family reunification is the bedrock of United States immigration policy. In 1965, the 89th Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, a sweeping law that did away with the national origins quotas and put in place the modern system of immigrant admissions the country largely still has today—a system weighted toward family reunification, with a lesser emphasis on employment-based migration. In fact, the act granted 74 percent of all permanent visas to family reunification categories.
Do you have an American citizen parent, sibling or child (over 21) willing to sponsor you for residency?
As a U.S. citizen or Green Card holder, you can sponsor your immediate relatives to reside permanently and work in the United States. However, there are a lot of technicalities involved in this seemingly simple but complicated process. U.S. citizens can sponsor their spouse, unmarried sons and daughters, married sons and daughters over 21 years and siblings. However, a Green Card holder is limited in the sense that he/she can only sponsor a spouse or children. Thus, if you are a Green Card holder, you cannot sponsor your parents or siblings to reside and work in the United States.
How Long Must My Relative Wait to be Sponsored?
When applying for a family-based adjustment of status or consular processing, you need to understand that there are millions of other people around the globe currently on the waiting list. For some category of persons such as married sons and daughters or siblings of a United States citizen, the current wait time is over ten years depending on the applicant's country of chargeability. However, some family members such as spouses and minor children can get their application much faster without having to wait in the line.
Every month the United States Department of State publishes the wait times known as the “Visa Bulletin” for Green Cards based on family sponsorship and employment sponsorship. You can monitor these bulletins at any time. If this is an option that is of interest to you, please contact us so we can further examine your situation.
What Happens If My Child Turns 21 Years Old While Our Green Card Case Is Pending?
United States immigration laws defines a child as a person who is both unmarried and under 21 years old. If someone applies for lawful permanent resident (LPR) status as a child but turns 21 before being approved for LPR status (also known as getting a Green Card), that person can no longer be considered a child for immigration purposes. This situation is commonly referred to as “aging out” and often means that these applicants would have to file a new petition or application, wait even longer to get a Green Card, or may no longer be eligible for a Green Card.
Congress recognized this problem where many children were aging out due to large USCIS processing backlogs, so it enacted the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) to protect certain children from aging out. The CSPA went into effect on August 6, 2002. CSPA does not change the definition of a child. Instead, CSPA provides a method for calculating a person's age to see if they meet the definition of a child for immigration purposes. The calculated age is the child's “CSPA age.” This allows some people to remain classified as children beyond their 21st birthday. However, CSPA does not change the requirement that you must be unmarried in order to remain eligible for classification as a child.
How Do I Calculate My Child's CSPA?
Generally, if you are a United States citizen and petitions for a child, the age of the child is frozen as long as he or she remains unmarried. However, the situation is different for LPR petitioners, VAWA self-petitioners and employment-based preference or diversity visa (DV Lottery) who are subject to the family preference category. To calculate your child's CSPA age, you should subtract the number of days your petition was pending (pending time) from the child's age on the date an immigrant visa becomes available to that child (age at time of visa availability). See the formula below:
Age at Time of Visa Availability - Pending Time = CSPA Age
Example:
Peter is 21 years and 2 months old when USCIS considers an immigrant visa available to him. His United States parent's petition was pending for 6 months. Calculate your CSPA age as follows:
21 years and 4 months - 6 months = 20 years and 8 months
We have helped hundreds of clients and family members solve complicated immigration problems and you too can become one of our happy clients. We encourage you to take advantage of our free initial consultation to discuss your case.