MUA

Hi,


Apologies if this conversation had already taken place, but I was not able to find in a thread.


We are looking at sibling sponsorship and before she actually goes ahead I just wanted to ask a few questions.


1) If sponsored by sibling how long will it take for first stage of application
2) Once we get at first stage are we then able to purchase a business and change application to business application
3) We also have a daughter with Cerebral Palsy, would she be able to immigrate with us.


Your help and guidance is greatly appreciated.


Regards
MUA

ian-mstm

The first stage of the application is approval of an I-130 petition and then waiting for the priority date to become current. For a sibling sponsorship, you're looking at about 13-15 years.


Why not just purchase the business and apply for an investment-based visa? That's going to be a lot faster. You can also pursue the sibling sponsorship, because you are allowed to have multiple active visa applications in process.


Yes, but it's going to be very expensive to purchase healthcare insurance... and having a special needs child is going to be somewhat problematic - although not with US immigration.

Ian

scrubbedexpat099

How old is your daughter?

MUA

My daughter will be 16 years old this year. I do have two sons 13 and 9, but have no worries with them settling in.

scrubbedexpat099

All of them are likely to have aged out by the time you visa number becomes current, youngest one has a slim chance.

So not a US Immigration issue.

MUA

13-15 years is a long time, don't think I could wait that long.
Will look into investment-based visa, how long is this process?
I realize healthcare will be expensive, although you mention its not problematic with US immigration, does that mean she will pass the medical? (obviously each case is different). Greatly appreciated.

ian-mstm

That depends on the visa - but I'd give a rough estimate anywhere from 8 months to three years. It'll depend on how much money you have to invest, where you go, what type of business, the ability to hire US citizens... stuff like that. Fortunately, we have many members with a lot of experience with investment-based visas, so they'll be able to help guide you along.


US immigration is really only concerned with whether or not she's a threat to others or a threat to herself. CP isn't contagious, so no issue with the first part. I'm pretty sure CP isn't likely to cause her to self harm, so likely no issue with the second part either. If there's a problem at all, it'll likely revolve around health insurance - although, to be fair, whether or not you have health insurance isn't a deal-breaker from a US immigration perspective. Still, when the time comes, you'll want to get a letter from her doctor that briefly states her medical history, medications, and prognosis.

Ian

Elvira

Steve_

You'd most likely be dead by the time you got a visa if you applied for 4th preference at the moment.

I worked out based on the most recent State Dept. statistics from the NVC that a person who applied in June 2011 (which is as far as USCIS have gotten with processing petitions) who is not subject to the per country limitation would get a visa in November 2041, assuming that everyone eligible actually applies (which isn't likely, a lot of them would be dead by then).

And that's if the petition was filed in June 2011 - if you filed it today, well USCIS is currently sitting on another 900,000 petitions that they have yet to process and the quota is 65,000 per year. So you can easily add on another ten years (bear in mind a lot of that 900,000 are people subject to a per country limit), so you're looking at 40+ years to get a visa that way.

It's still worth filing the petition because Congress will undoubtedly do something at some point to cut the backlog, but even if they do, you'll be waiting many, many years.

You'd be an LPR, so you can do pretty much anything you want. But you're not going to get it doing it the way you've suggested.

The US doesn't really care about medical conditions that an immigrant has, provided they aren't contagious - you have to pay for healthcare, remember.

However the child would no longer be a child by the time you got a visa, there is a law that protects against aging out called CPSA, but it wouldn't help with a fourth preference application.

What you could do as Ian suggested is apply for E-2, which is a non-immigrant visa that requires a "substantial investment" and it cannot be a subsistence job. Then when an immigrant visa number becomes available, you apply for adjustment of status to LPR.

The problem with that idea is that your kids would age out at 21 and have no legal status in the US and it's extremely unlikely a visa number would be available before that happened. I suppose you could cross your fingers and hope Congress does something before that happens, but it's a big risk.

Steve_

EB-5 at the moment seems to me to be extremely risky, at least the regional centre version of it does because the thing is supposed to sunset on Sept. 30.

USCIS is currently taking 18 months to process I-526s and 17 months to process I-829s. So 18 months + six months to get a visa, then 21 months before you can file I-829, then another 17 months and you're well over 5 years before you get full LPR status.

And the wait time is progressively getting longer at the moment so I would guess more like 6 years.

And that of course assumes you've got $500,000 burning a whole in your pocket, or more accurately $600,000 once you add on the "franchise" fee and the lawyer's fees and the USCIS fees.

The biggest problem I think is that Congress and USCIS are threatening to move the goalposts, so at any point during that six years they could for example stop counting indirect job creation for the purposes of the I-829 and the whole thing goes up in smoke.