However, before the AOS application is approved, the mother unfortunately dies. Her son thus no longer qualifies as an immediate relative of a U.
An elderly legal permanent resident father petitions for his alien child, but before the adjustment is approved, the father dies. As in the case above with the U. A legal permanent resident father files an immigration petition for his year-old alien daughter.
After the visa petition is approved, but while the AOS application is still pending, the daughter gets married. Consequently, since she is no longer an unmarried child younger than 21 years old, the daughter no longer qualifies for adjustment.
Marriage-based changes in circumstances: A U. However, before the AOS application is approved, the two divorce. The adjustment will thereafter be denied, and the now ex-husband will not be able to apply for an AOS based on his former U. However, before the adjustment is approved, they separate. However, before he can file an immigration petition for his wife, he dies.
The alien wife can actually still qualify as an immediate relative for adjustment of status if she and her deceased citizen husband had been married for at least two years and were not legally separated at the time of her husband's death.
Employment-based changes in circumstances: An outstanding researcher is the beneficiary of an approved immigration petition under the EB-1B category. Before her adjustment petition is approved, however, her employer withdraws the research position offer.
However, after her NIW petition was approved, the alien decided she no longer wanted to work in her previous capacity and thereafter started a new job in an unrelated field. This is not so much a hypothetical as an important consideration: If an adjustment is based on an EB-1B outstanding researcher or any employment-based petition that requires an approved PERM labor certification , the alien beneficiary should work for the petitioning employer for days after the I has been filed.
Statutory bars to adjustment include: Unauthorized employment Unlawful status Failure to maintain status Aliens who have engaged in unauthorized employment, or who were not in lawful status at the time they filed their AOS applications, or who have failed to continuously maintain their status for even a single day since their entry in the United States are barred from adjusting status.
As with many prohibitions, however, there are exceptions to the above. These include: Immediate relatives i. If a violation of status is a "technical violation" that occurred through no fault of an alien, said alien may still be able to adjust status. Examples of technical violations include: -An individual or organization's failure to act on behalf of an alien where such inaction directly contributed to the violation of the alien's legal status.
Employment-based immigrants who have been out of status no more than days in the U. USCIS also recognized that sometimes the adjudicators request full range of information when only a small amount is needed to make a final decision, so it wastes examination resources through the review of unnecessary, duplicative, or irrelevant documents.
The petitioner may have certain days indicated in the NOID notice to respond. If the petitioner does not respond within the prescribed period, the petition may be denied. I and my wife also filed the I application, and we just get fingerprinted. We were told that we need to wait for the FBI name check.
What is the procedure of the "FBI name check", and how long it would take? A: All applicants for a U. Citizenship and Immigration Services USCIS , the Federal agency that oversees immigration benefits, performs checks on every applicant, regardless of ethnicity, national origin or religion.
FBI name checks are also required for many applications. The records maintained in the FBI name check process consist of administrative, applicant, criminal, personnel and other files compiled by law enforcement. Initial responses to this check generally take about two weeks. In about 80 percent of the cases, no match is found. Of the remaining 20 percent, most are resolved within six months. Less than one percent of cases subject to an FBI name check remain pending longer than six months.
Some of these cases involve complex, highly sensitive information and cannot be resolved quickly. Even after FBI has provided an initial response to USCIS concerning a match, the name check is not complete until full information is obtained and eligibility issues arising from it are resolved. How could my wife get Employment Authorization Document to work in U.
It is important to understand that the aliens with EAD can work for any employer, and do not need other work visas, such as L1 visa or H-1B visa. To be eligible to receive the Employment Authorization Document, the common way is for an alien to file Form I application after the Form I approval for immigration visa application Green Card application. There are other ways to be eligible to apply for EAD, including L-2 visa holders spouses of L-1 visa holders , and asylum applicants.
A: The U. If the Form I application is based on the approved Form I petition in which the employer is a sponsor, the employer can always withdraw or revoke the I petition if they want. If the Form I petition has been approved already, and the Form I has been pending for days, the employer can still revoke the approved Form I petition.
A: The concurrent Form I and Form I petitions are supposed to permit the alien applicant a number of benefits, including availability of work permit card EAD , advance parole for international travel, and similar benefits to the accompanying family members. Under the U. Q: My employer recently filed Labor Certification for me. Since my wife needs the work permit to work in U.
A: The Labor Certification is an immigration process step. Its goal is to "protect U. The Labor Certification is a process of proving that there are no qualified U. If there are qualified U. The Labor Certification itself does not give the alien beneficiary any work authorization. Also, the alien worker must have a job offer from a U. A Labor Certification is typically for a particular U. But an alien worker can use an EAD to work for any U. Also, the law forbids alien workers from paying any of the costs associated with an Labor Certification, but alien workers are allowed to pay any and all of the costs associated with the EAD application with USCIS.
The Form I application for status adjustment has been pending for more than days. Because the employer's business slow, I changed my job using the AC rule after the day of Form I pending. My new position gives me a different position title, with the same duties as the job described in the PERM Labor Certification form the previous employer. Will the job change and new job title affect my pending Form I application?
A: The AC rule's determination is governed by duties of the job rather than the job title, because the job titles often differ between companies, even for very similar positions.
The AC rule uses the terminology of "same or similar job classification. In many situations, this does not present a significant problem. It is important to know that the job duties are generally important, not the specific job title. Q: Are adjustment of status interviews always required for Form I application? The alien applicant will receive its decision on Form I application by mail in writing, without an interview. However, if the alien applicant are applying for Green Card of Form I application based on marriage, the applicant mat be called in for an adjustment of status interview.
But then, I was laid off by my employer due to the company's business problem, and found a work in a small company with a lower pay. A: For the impact of the unauthorized employment during the EAD gap on the pending Form I application, the I applicants should keep in mind two points. First, k provision makes I applicants still eligible for I approval, if since last admission to the U. As a USCIS rule, a foreign national is barred from adjustment of status Form I application for certain immigration-related violations.
The alien applicants who are not in lawful immigration status on the date of filing the Form I, or who have failed to maintain lawful immigration status since entry into the U. The rule is true of those who violate the terms and conditions of their admission inthe United States.
The alien applicants who engage in unauthorized employment are also ineligible to file or obtain approval of the I However, Section k provides a helpful exception to these general rules for those who may have violated their respective statuses for a limited period. In calculating days, they should aggregate both the days of unlawful stays and the days of unauthorized employment.
Consequently, even if the unauthorized employment has lasted less than days, the alien can be ineligible for I application approval, if the total period of unlawful stay AND unauthorized employment add up to days or longer. Consular offices and military installations abroad. Therefore, I cannot file Form I application inside U. S to get my Green Card. What is my solution? Please help! A: There are two primary paths to U.
Another primary path to U. Many immigrants become eligible for a U. Green Card through a petition filed by a family member Form I approval or U.
The employment based immigration categories require the U. The family based categories require that a U. If the immigration petition is approved Form I approval or Form I approval and if you are the beneficiary of the petition and living outside the U. Q: I recently received my Green Card, and I am planning to travel outside of United States for more than one year due to my work and family reason. How to keep my Green Card in the United States? A: A Green Card holder U. A reentry permit can help prevent two types of problems: 1 your Green Card becomes technically invalid for reentry into U.
A reentry permit establishes that a Green Card holder did not intend to abandon U. If you are a Green Card holder planning to travel outside of U. Green Card holder wishes to leave the United States for a period of between 1 year and 2 years, but does not want to be viewed as having abandoned the U.
But you can request to pick up the reentry permit approval at a U. The reentry permit itself looks similar to a passport, and will contain your photo. It will normally expire after 2 years. Q: I need to prepare the immigration medical exam for my I status adjustment.
What conditions would make an alien applicant inadmissible on medical grounds? A: Many U. The immigration medical examination must be done when applying for an U. The purpose of the medical exam is to determine if an alien applicant has any health conditions that need attention prior to immigrating.
The waivers can be granted for Class B medical conditions. While it is natural to worry about the outcome of the exam, an alien applicant should be prepared to helping you relax. There are a few exceptions, such as refugees and fiances adjusting status who are usually for situations where the person already had a medical exam overseas, as a condition of coming to the United States, and therefore does not need to repeat the exam for the next application.
But the person might need to provide evidence of up-to-date vaccinations. Q: My EB1A application has been approved. Now my I application is pending. What kind of checks will be included in this background security check? A: To ensure that immigration benefits are given only to eligible applicants, USCIS adopted background security check procedures that address a wide range of possible risk factors. Different kinds of applications undergo different levels of scrutiny. USCIS normally uses the following three background check mechanisms but maintains the authority to conduct other background investigations as necessary: 1 The Interagency Border Inspection System IBIS Name Check— IBIS is a multi-agency effort with a central system that combines information from multiple agencies, databases and system interfaces to compile data relating to national security risks, public safety issues and other law enforcement concerns.
The FBI fingerprint check provides information relating to criminal background within the United States. Q: My wife and I were born in different countries, and we are waiting for the immigrant visa to become current to file Form I application to get our Green Card. A friend of my mentioned the "chargeability". How could I use my wife's visa number for "cross-charge" to file Form I application? A: Immigration to the United States is numerically limited.
This is controlled by an annual allocation of immigrant visa numbers. Each family-based immigrant category and employment-based immigrant category has its own limited immigrant visa number.
Additionally, there is a per-country limit of 7 percent of the total immigrant visa numbers. The maximum number of family-sponsored and employment-based preference visas that can be issued to citizens of any country in a fiscal year. The limits are calculated each fiscal year depending on the total number of family-sponsored and employment-based visas available. No more than 7 percent of the visas may be issued to natives of any one independent country in a fiscal year. Because of the combined workings of the preference system and per-country limits, most countries do not reach this level of visa issuance.
The foreign state of chargeability is a United States immigration concept — it is the country determined to be the applicant's origin. In general, the applicant's country of birth will determine their country of chargeability. For certain applicants born in oversubscribed countries such as India and China, approval to be chargeable to another country can significantly reduce the waiting time for their adjustment of status or consular processing of their green card application.
This process is also known as alternate chargeability. The basic rule of chargeability is that one is charged against the quota for the country of his or her birth.
This determination is not tied to citizenship or nationality. A person born in a particular country is subject to that country's quota. For example, a potential immigrant is born in India. He subsequently becomes a Canadian citizen. Unless this individual fits within one of the exceptions discussed below, he will still be subject to the backlogged quota for India, even as a Canadian citizen. In some circumstances, an immigrant can cross-charge to the country available to his or her spouse provided that the spouse is immigrating also.
For example, cross chargeability would usually be available if a person born in India were to marry a person born in Canada. Historically, this would mean immediate eligibility for immigration benefits under the Canadian quota, rather than many years of waiting under the heavily-backlogged Indian quota. By signing Form I, the sponsor agrees to use resources to support the intending immigrant named in the affidavit, if it becomes necessary.
An affidavit of support is a document an individual signs to accept financial responsibility for another person, usually a relative, who is coming to the United States to live permanently. The person who signs the affidavit of support becomes the sponsor of the relative coming to live in U. The sponsor is usually the petitioner of an immigrant petition for a family member. An affidavit of support is legally enforceable; the sponsor's responsibility usually lasts until the family member or other individual either becomes a U.
The submission of this affidavit may make the sponsored immigrant ineligible for certain Federal, state, or local meanstested public benefits, because an agency that provides means-tested public benefits will consider the sponsor's resources and assets as available to the sponsored immigrant when determining his or her eligibility for the program.
If the immigrant sponsored in the affidavit does receive one of the designated Federal, state or local means-tested public benefits, the agency providing the benefit may request that the sponsor to repay the cost of those benefits.
That agency can sue the sponsor if the cost of the benefits provided is not repaid. A joint sponsor is someone who is willing to accept legal responsibility for supporting the family member with you. A joint sponsor must meet all the same requirements as you, except the joint sponsor does not need to be related to the immigrant. You cannot combine your income with that of a joint sponsor to meet the income requirement.
A: If you have applied for a Green Card within U. Citizenship and Immigration Services , as the last step in your immigration application process. For employment-based Form I application, it is very possible that the interview will be waived. But for marriage-based Form I application, these will be certainly an interview. If you are called for an interview for some reason, with proper preparation, you should not fear the adjustment of status interview, and it does not mean that your application for adjustment of status has been singled out for extra scrutiny.
An immigration interview is a normal part of the process, allowing USCIS to confirm the information you have provided, and review all the facts with you present. USCIS may skip the interview in some cases, or requires only the immigrant to attend, not the petitioner or sponsor, if the petition case is especially clear, and not likely to involve fraud or other complicated circumstances. If you applied to Form I adjusting status, based on marriage to a U.
The interview is to ensure that the marriage is genuine, and not merely entered into for the purpose of obtaining a Green Card. Q: I have a Form I application pending, can I accept a job promotion as a manager from my employer, and remain eligible to Form I application to adjust my status to U.
The alien applicant's job duties for each position, the SOC codes for each position, and any differences in the salaries will be the determining factors, as to whether the alien applicant remains eligible for Form I adjustment of status.
Whether the new position is considered a demotion, a simple move, or a promotion within the organization, the alien applicant's job duties must be sufficiently similar. USCIS adjudicator will review the totality of the case, based on the regulation in INA section j and c of AC21, to evaluate the job mobility within the same or similar occupational classification, for qualifying alien applicant with the pending Form I adjustment application.
Now, I need to file Form I for myself, my wife and my son to get the Green Card for my family members. A: If you have family members as your dependents to file Form I applications after the employment-based Foprm I approval, then you should file a Form I as your financial support for your dependents. The Form I is legally required for many family-based and some employment based immigrants to show they will have adequate means of support after immigration to the U.
Generally, the following intending immigrants need an Affidavit of Support: 1 Applicants for family-based immigrant visas; 2 Applicants for employment-based immigrant visas where a relative filed the immigrant visa petition. This job offer must be in the same or a similar occupational classification, as the job offered to you in Form I that is the basis of your Form I If the USCIS adjudicator determines that the evidence does not meet the standard for the Form I application, the additional evidence may be requested from the petitioner, or it is called Request For Evidence RFE With the change of immigration regulation, rules on adjustment of status become more restricted.
The ineligibility to filing I application include: 1 An alien entered the country in illegal way or in transit without a visa; 2 The alien is employed in the U. Consulate Processing A: Consular processing and adjustment of status are two means to the same end - obtaining permanent resident status in the United States.
The exceptions for the application fees are listed below: There is no fee for applicants who are filing Form I based on having been admitted to the United States as a refugee; Applicants of 80 years of age or older are not charged a biometric fee; Applicants under 14 years of age: filing with the I application of at least one parent have a fee with discount. As the person completing Form I, you are the sponsor. By signing this form, you agree to financially support an immigrant who applies for adjustment of status to become a lawful permanent resident.
In most cases, the sponsor must be the individual who filed the immigrant petition for the intending immigrant. If the individual who filed the visa petitioner or a substitute sponsor signs this form, but is unable to meet the financial requirements, another individual must also sign a separate form as a joint sponsor to meet the financial requirements.
Q: I had a H-1B visa vefore. I have accrued more than 2 months of unlawful stay in U. What are the penalties for accruing unlawful stay? The Form I application is for people who has valid visa or status in the United States. If you came to U. You can find the date that you are expected to leave U. If you apply for a visa or status renewal, you should make sure to submit the renewal application, such as Form I application, to U.
Once you have submitted your renewal application, you can lawfully stay in the United States while awaiting a decision. Based on Asylum Status — If you were granted asylum, you may file Form I after you have been physically present in the United States for 1 year.
You may only do so if you still qualify as an asylee or are the spouse or child of a refugee. Based on Cuban Citizenship or Nationality — There are 2 situations where Cuban nationals may apply for lawful residency.
In each situation, paroled means you were allowed to enter the U. You are a native Cuban citizen, were admitted or paroled into the United States after January 1, , and have been present in the United States for at least 1 year; or. You are the spouse or unmarried child of a Cuban citizen as described above, were admitted or paroled into the U. Based on Continuous Residency in the U. Form I also allows you to apply to change the date that your permanent residence began.
If you were granted lawful permanent residence in the United States before November 6, , are a native or citizen of Cuba, or are the spouse or unmarried child of an individual that meets either of these scenarios, you may change the date of your permanent residence. You are given the option to change the date to either your date of arrival in the U.
Do you have an immediate family member that is a U. Citizen or is a Green Card holder?
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