iniaki

OK, so my cousin recently became a U.S citizen. She has filed a 130 petition for her parents but she has a brother who is under 21 years of age.

So she has to file 2 seperate 130 for each parent. My question is when she files the 130 say for one parent, couldn't that parent put their other minor child on the same petition?

BTW, her attorney said no but I'm just not sure.

thanks for the help

dreamercon

Her attorney is correct. The other minor child can immigrate only based on a separate petition from your cousin or on a separate petition from his parents once they become permanent residents.

Derivatives of immediate relatives can not immigrate unless they have a separate petition. (Except for children of widows)

iniaki

Really, ugggh, that sucks. I thought it may work since the child is under 21.

iniaki

Thanks for the quick reply.

dreamercon

That only works for employment cases or preference based family immigrants...

iniaki

Ok, but what does "preferenced cased family immigrants" mean?

dreamercon

Preference based family immigrants are those that need to wait for their priority date to become current - such as siblings of US citizens or sons and daughters of citizens. Those can grant derivative status to their family members.

S Folinsky

Idle curious question: why do you doubt that the attorney said "no?"

Observation: it is known for attorneys to say "yes" to that question -- but only once.

S Folinsky

Historical note: The Immigration & Nationality Act of 1952 created three classes of immigrants: "special immigrants", "immediate relatives" and "quota immigrants." In 1965, "quota" classification was eliminated and replaced by "preference" immigrants. These days, we need not talk all that much about "special immigrants" -- but in essence, there are the "immediate relatives" and the numerically restricted "preference" immigrants. [I will not go into "non-quota" immigrants which was replaced by "non-preference." By 1978, there were very long waiting lists for non-preference visa numbers and none were available. Many adjustment applications were kept pending for a long time for those visas to become available again. In 1990, the non-preference was eliminated and completion of those cases was allowed.]

In a quirk of the law, "preference immigrants" allowed for "accompanying or following to join" status for spouses and "children" while it was not accorded to the unrestricted "immediate relative" classification. In the 1961 "Gordon & Rosenfield" treatise on immigration law, it was opined that this was an "obvious oversight" in the 1952 law and would no doubt be corrected in the near future. It is now 2010, and that has yet to happen. The current "Gordon & Mailman" treatise has excised that language.

For decades, this was a "no harm, no foul" situation since there were no backlogs in the equivalent of today's FB-4 classification! And even when backlogs developed, there were no backlogs in what is today's FB-2 -- so the kid could follow the parents in fairly short order.

So today, we are stuck with an allocation system that was first established in 1952. The world has changed since 1952.

General comment only. No advice given nor intended.