My Chinese friend’s parents are legal permanent residents in the US so I told her she could possibly qualify to immigrate to the US with a family sponsored immigrant visa, preference second B: Unmarried Sons and Daughters 21 years of age or older of permanent residents.
I was checking information and found the Department of State Visa Bulletin for September 2002. In a table halfway down the page it says the “Priority Date for Family Based Immigrant Visas” for China, category 2B is 8JAN94. Does that mean that the people who applied that date are now getting their visas? Do you have to wait 9 years to get the visa? I cannot interpret it any other way but it seems ridiculous that the waiting list is 12 or even 22 years for some categories. Can someone explain? If she applies now and has to wait nine years and gets married in the meanwhile, would she lose her place in line?
As to your initial question, I believe that you are reading the information correctly. Due to the low priority of the class, the alloted visas available are used up quickly as they are issued. The backlog grows every year and the net result is years of waiting.
Regarding your second question, I don’t really know. I would imagine that she might lose her eligibility if she marries before the visa is granted, but I couldn’t find specific reference to that.
Unless, of course, she married a US citizen, in which case it would probably help her get here faster.
That is how my application started. My parents are Resident Aliens, and sponsered me after I was over the age of 21. The process started, for me, in October of 1991.
In February of 2002, I finally got my Green Card.
I was told on several occaisions to not get married for the reason that it changes you legal status, and that yes, you would have to start the whole process over again. In fact, when I went for my interview in Montreal, they asked to to sign something which was basically saying I wouldn’t get married until the process was over. It was a year between signing that and getting the card, but like I said others, including immigration lawyers told me to not get married.
ditto on all that, my fiance is Polish after 3 years she is finally coming here (for good hopefully)… I asked about a student visa and an immigration visa to the consulate, so that I might have a plan B in case the fiance visa was not approved… they told me not to do it b/c in most cases (with enough money) fiance visas are granted to the US applicant. But to answer what I came for, they also told me I could start as many different visas as I wanted, just a warning though, it’s quite expensive. Citizenship of someone mentioned plus cash is what INS wants to see. If those two can be presented in a timely fashion then you’ll get your shot. Isn’t it disgusting how much money we (INS)makes off of this process? I get sick anytime I think about it… best of luck to your friend sailor…adam and emulsified are right unfortunately…
Well, I think waiting 9 years is just out of the question so she’ll look for other possible avenues. Who the heck plans 9 years ahead? I don’t know what I’m doing a couple of weeks from now!
Just to note that priority dates don’t move in real time. The fact that it’s only up to 8 Jan 1994 now doesn’t mean that next month it will only be up to 8 Feb 1994, for example. Sometimes they move more quickly, sometimes less. It all depends on where the INS chooses to allocate its resources at any particular time.
sailor, all of your initial impressions are correct, unfortunately. So is ruadh’s answer, although another (perhaps the main) part of the reason the numbers move so slowly is because of yearly quotas set by legislation for each visa category.
And believe it or not, there are plenty of people who plan that far ahead, because it’s their only way to the U.S. and/or out of the countries they’re in now. One H.S. buddy of mine came when his father finally qualified for a green card as the brother of a U.S. citizen; his uncle had come as a refugee in the aftermath of the events of 1956 in Hungary, and my friend finally made it to the U.S. in 1984!
If your friend gets married, she won’t qualify under her current category, but depending on whom she marries, she may qualify some other way…such as the spouse of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Either of these will get her to the U.S. faster, although none of these is exactly what one might call “fast.” If your friend wants to get to the U.S. quickly to be with her family, the way to go is probably an H-1B work visa, depending on her professional qualifications…what does she do for a living? I might be able to offer some concrete advice.
Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal (IANAL, of course, but I do this stuff for a living).
Eva Luna, I thought that the spouse of a U.S. citizen could be granted citizenship a year or less (on the request of the U.S. citizen), and that the approval time for the spouse of a green card holder was on the order of 3-4 years. That wouldn’t be terribly swift, but certainly faster than the OP’s scenario. Are those time estimates not true as a general rule? Does country of origin for the person coming here make a difference?
Fillet, I think you’re confusing citizenship with permanent residency. In order to be eligible to file for citizenship, there is a waiting period of 5 years after obtaining permanent residency (3 if you’re married to a U.S. citizen the whole time). There are a few other exceptions to the waiting period for spouses of active duty military personnel, etc. You also have to meet a bunch of U.S. residency requirements, pass an English and civics test, and not have criminal convictions, among other things. (This is obviously the Reader’s Digest version; immigration law is extremely complex and has all kinds of exceptions, plus it changes all the time, especially lately.)
You are correct in that the country of origin for the spouse of a U.S. citizen won’t make a difference, as people in this category are not subject to any yearly quotas. The only thing holding them up is INS processing times for the I-130, which varies according to the jurisdiction where it is filed, but can be up to 2 years or so.
If the foreign national spouse is in the U.S. and files the I-130 simultaneously with an I-485, Application for Adjustment of Status, they are adjudicated together; some friends of mine did this here in Chicago about 2 years ago, and are expecting the approval any day now (a few months after the birth of their first child). If the foreign spouse is overseas, the I-130 has to be approved first, and then the person gets to experience the joys of consular processing, the timing of which also depends on jurisdiction, but generally runs another 6-12 months. All these times, of course, are dependent on there being no problems, i.e. INS doesn’t lose anything, the applications are complete when filed, the fingerprints clear the FBI the first time around, etc.
So in short, yep, it’s significantly faster than the scenario in the OP, but not fast in the normal world (i.e. non-INS) sense.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up for me, Eva Luna. I should have realized that what I thought I remembered from a recent discussion was too simple to be true.
Eva Luna, I am hesitant to give any more details about my friend on a public board even though her name would not be mentioned and nobody could really identify her but I am doing this in my own initiative without asking her and I feel I should not publicise her personal information. I generally do not like to take things to private email because by discussing things on the board other people can learn but in this case I would ask you if I can email you the information.
I was told by one lawyer that on average the ratio is about 1 week of priority dates to one month of real time. So if this September the priority date is 8-Jan-94, next months’ priority date would be 15-Jan-94.
Over the course of about six years, I found that that ratio, for the most part, held. INS offices are overloaded with cases and understaffed.
sailor, I’ll have to e-mail you, because I am even more protective of my privacy than you are. I don’t mind choosing on an individual basis where my address goes, but don’t want to publish it for the world to see. So here goes…
