Children of Green Card holders who had applied for special visas and who had lost their places in their line for US Green Cards, will now be given priority. A US Circuit Court of Appeals, recently decided that the USCIS had wrongly determined that the children above age 21, of Green Card holders are ineligible for special visas.
According to the current US immigration law, children above age 21, are ineligible to immigrate in derivative status under the Green Card applications filed by their parents. But the parents who obtain Green Cards may sponsor the aged-out unmarried child, through the 2B preference category. But this process is not so easy as we think and the child will be separated from its parents for years together. Child Status Protection Act was passed by the US Congress in the year 2002, in order to solve such issues and to keep the child from being separated from its parents.
One of the most common ways to obtain a green card is to have a family member who is already a United States citizen petition to sponsor the foreign national.
Now the appeals court has ordered that such children who had lost their places when they turned 21 must be given priority and this decision is a result of the lawsuits filed in the year 2008. According to the court's decision, children of Green Card holders who had turned 21 may keep the priority date that they had obtained when their parents filed applications for derivative visas, on their behalf.
According to Attorney, Carl Shusterman, thousands of children living in and outside the United States, who turned 21 during the permanent resident card process, may now reclaim their places in the line for US residency. These aged-out applicants will be helped out through the Child Status Protection Act. And this act will allow the applicants who aged-out during the process, to retain the original date of application.
Judge Mary Murguia stated that The Child Status Protection Act, allows the aged-out beneficiaries to retain their priority dates. And the appeals court ruled that the USCIS has wrongly made these aged-out applicants to file new applications for permanent resident status in the United States.
The new judgment of the appeals court requires the US immigration officers to consider the original priority date while processing the new applications filed by these applicants. Judge Milan Smith said that these aged-out applicants who will be given priority will now move forward in the line and may become eligible for US residency faster than the other applicants.
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