Practice Area
Two families can file the same petition on the same day and wait wildly different lengths of time. The reason is a distinction most people have never heard of, and it is the first thing worth understanding about your own case.
Filing a petition is not the same as having status.An approved petition establishes the relationship and your place in the queue. It does not by itself let you stay, work, or travel.
Where you fit
If you are the spouse, minor child or parent of a U.S. citizen, you are an immediate relative. Immigrant visas for immediate relatives are unlimited, which means a visa number is always available and you are not waiting for the queue to reach you. A parent qualifies only where the citizen child is 21 or older.
Everyone else falls into a family preference category. These have a limited number of visas each year, so a petition establishes your priority date and then you wait for it to become current.
Whether you are waiting, and for how long, also depends on your country of birth. The State Department publishes the Visa Bulletin each month showing which priority dates are being processed. Waits in some categories and countries are measured in years, and the bulletin can move backwards as well as forwards.
Nothing about this is a reflection of the strength of your case. It is arithmetic in the statute, and knowing which side of it you are on changes what you should be doing right now.
The preference categories
Who the petitioner is, and whether the beneficiary is married or over 21, decides the category. Small facts move people between tiers.
What to gather
The relationship has to be proved, not asserted. Bring what you have to the consultation, even if it is incomplete.
How we work
This practice handles petitions and adjustment of status through qualifying family relationships. You work directly with the attorney handling your case, not a rotating intake team.
Most of the value is in the review before anything is filed. A petition that is going to run into a problem usually shows it in the history, and it is far cheaper to find that at the start than after a request for evidence or a denial.
If your circumstances mean a family petition is not the right route, or not the only one, you will be told that rather than sold a filing. The quickest way to find out is an immigration consultation.
A pending family petition and an immigration court case interact, and the court’s timetable does not wait for USCIS. If both are live, they need to be handled together rather than by separate people who are not talking to each other. See removal defense.
Common questions
If you are an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen, visa numbers are unlimited and you are not waiting in a queue for one. If you are in a preference category, the wait depends on the category and your country of birth, and it is published monthly in the State Department Visa Bulletin. Anyone who quotes you a fixed timeline without knowing both facts is guessing.
It is your place in line, established when the petition is filed. In preference categories you wait for the Visa Bulletin to reach your date before you can move to the next stage. Immediate relatives are not subject to this wait because visas in that category are always available.
It can. Age and marital status determine which category a beneficiary falls into, and both can change during a long wait. Congress addressed part of this problem, but the rules are technical and depend on dates and filings. This is worth reviewing with an attorney well before the birthday rather than after it.
A petition establishes a relationship, and being out of status does not by itself prevent one from being filed. Whether the beneficiary can then get a green card without leaving the country, and what consequences departure would carry, is a separate and much more consequential question. Do not act on it without advice specific to your history.
No. An approved petition establishes the qualifying relationship and your priority date. Work authorisation is a separate question that depends on what else you have filed and what status you hold.
Proof of the petitioner’s citizenship or residence, documents showing the family relationship, any prior immigration filings for anyone in the family, and a note of every entry and departure you can remember. If documents are in another language, bring them anyway.
General information on this page reflects published guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at USCIS green card eligibility categories and the U.S. Department of State Visa Bulletin at travel.state.gov. Visa availability changes monthly. This page is general information, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
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