Visa Lawyer Blog
Any Immigration attorney with clients from the Philippines, China and Mexico, knows about the suffering of families from these countries due to the lengthy visas backlogs. Now immigrants across the country are suing the federal government to try to get their adult children into the country without another lengthy waits, sometimes decades.
Under U.S. immigration law, children 21 and older cannot immigrate under their parents’ applications for green cards. Under the Child Status Protection Act of 2002, aimed at preventing children from “aging out” due to lengthy processing times, means these grown children should be allowed into the country soon after their parents file new paperwork on their behalf. But the government argues that many of those who aged out during the wait are now new applicants and must start from the beginning. They want them to start all over, this will result in many years of wait for these relatives.
The waiting crisis resulted in other social crisis. The dilemma has prompted many immigrant parents to urge their adult children to remain single while the lawsuits are pending or until they get green cards. That’s because permanent residents cannot apply for their married children to get green cards and must wait to become U.S. citizens to be able to do so.
Read the Buffalo News article about this problem here