F2 Visas - Student Relatives

Someone recently asked me a question about immigration benefits for F2-visa holders.

An international student’ spouse and minor children may be issued an F2-visa enabling them to join the student during his or her studies in U.S.

International students who wish their immediate families to join them in the U.S. must therefore demonstrate to the USCIS that they can fully support their family members for the visa validity.

The objective of the demonstration to assure the U.S. government that foreign families do not become public charge. This is because public assistance such as welfare, food stamps, medical care and housing assistance is not available to nonimmigrant visa holders.

Minor children can be enrolled in primary education in the U.S. but international students’ spouses are prohibited from studying or working under the F2-visa. However, an F2-visa holder can request a change of status to F1-visa if he or she wishes to study. The normal international student visa requirements must be met.

Extended Family Migration

Although family migration is an excellent benefit for reuniting families in the diaspora, patience is the essential ingredient when undertaking the slow multi-level migration process.

I've always been under the impression that my 16 and 18 year old siblings, because of their minor status, would qualify for residency along with my parents. Not so!

If your relative qualifies for residency, he or she must enter the U.S. and then petition for his or her immediate relative.

For example:

My married sisters’ children and spouses do not qualify for residency under my siblings’ visas. My sisters, after becoming U.S. residents, will have to start petitioning for their spouses and children.

Does anyone know of an easier way around this?

Family-Based Migration

Immigration through a family member is the easiest and relatively "quickest" means to obtain U.S. residency, especially for citizens and residents' immediate relatives.

Qualified relatives are classified using a preference category system and the visa processing time depends on the category which relative falls under. There are four family preference categories and relatives in categories three and four wait the longest for a visa number because they are not classified as immediate relatives.

The USCIS's Preference Category list is below:

First Preference: Spouse, fiancé (e), parents, unmarried children (regardless of age) of a U.S. citizen.

Second Preference (2A): Spouse and unmarried minor children (under 21) of a permanent resident.

Second Preference (2B): Unmarried children of a permanent resident.

Third Preference: Married children (regardless of age) of a U.S. citizen.

Fourth Preference: Brothers and sisters of adult (over 21) U.S. citizens.

Carl Shusterman, former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) attorney, discusses how the new immigration reform bill would affect family-based immigration.

Form I-824 Filing Change

My parents' final visa processing was delayed by approximately five months due to minor mistakes I made along the way. It is important, as I stated in my submitting applications post, to follow submission instructions in order to avoid processing delays.

The "Application for Action on an Approved Petition" -Form I-824, must be submitted to a new location beginning on Feb. 19, 2010.

The change is part of USCIS's transition to "centralize form and fee collection" with the objective of increasing processing effeciency.

Form I-824 is used for three purposes:

Request an approval notice to be sent to another U.S. Consulate
Request an approval notice to be sent to a U.S. Consulate for derivative family visas
Request a duplicate approval

The new address list provides detailed I-824 submission information.

Migrant Worker Petition Revised

If you are a first generation immigrant like me, the green card lottery or green card through work are your primary routes to U.S. permanent residence. Both options are neither easy nor guaranteed.

I've heard of international students advancing to the highest level of education with the hopes of increasing chances of securing a permanent employment offer, but the 2008-2009 economic downturn changed this.

The Employ American Workers Act (EAWA) prohibits U.S. businesses that received economic stimulus funding under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) from "displacing American employees" by hiring foreign workers.

Bank of America, in March 2009, quickly rescinded employment offers to 50 MBA graduates in compliance with the Act.

The USCIS, in a move to ensure strict adherence to the EAWA, on Feb. 5, 2010, announced a revision to Form I-129 "Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker." The revised Form I-129 includes a question about whether the employer received TARP funding.

Does meritocracy still have a seat in the American economic structure?

Visa Statistics

I found the NVC's visa statistics. It is the most useful official information pertaining to visa numbers that I've come across so far.

What is great about it is that the tables show the number of visas that are issued per country and per preference category for each year.

Have a look here.

As you will see, there is no consistency in the number of visas issued for each fiscal year.

Visa Bulletin

Today marks six months to the day I recieved my siblings' petitions approvals. I still haven't heard anything from the NVC.

I've read as many forums as I could find on siblings petitions and the common thread seems to be that it is a ten to twelve-year process.

Two reasons keep me optimistic though:

1). The visa bulletin (p.3) states that:

"The annual per-country limitation of 7% is a cap, which visa issuances to any single country may not exceed. Applicants compete for visas primarily on a worldwide basis. The country limitation serves to avoid monopolization of virtually all the annual limitation by applicants from only a few countries."

2). Most of the forum threads are placed by individuals from over-subscribed countries. And based on my reading of the visa bulletin, I understand that highly populated countries set the curve for the visa number waiting list. The country and preference category cap therefore mean that migrants from countries with a significantly lower migrant population in U.S. may have relatively short waiting times.

China(mainland born),India, Mexico and Philippines are currently oversubscribed.

Anti-Immigration Reform - What Are They Saying?

I was curious, after my post yesterday, about what anti-immigration groups think about the proposed bill so today I spent some time reading the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR)'s website.

This is what FAIR and other anti-migration groups are campaigning for:

Reduce migration numbers - currently at about one million (legal and illegal) migrants per yer.

Moderate legal immigration numbers - moderate refers to "stabilizing the U.S. population by limiting legal immigrants to less than 500 000" per annum.

Eliminate amnesty - FAIR argues that immigration options that re-label illegal imigrants' status weakens immigration policies.

Abolish asylum abuse - asylum must be reserved for genuine cases of immigrants fleeing persecution in their home country. See IzIzWe.com's humanitarian visa section on refugees and asylees.

Protect wages and quality of life - it is argued that the current guest worker program may be undermining opportunities for poor Americans, i.e. immigrants avail themselves for exploitation by agreeing to work for lower wages, thus undermining opportunities for equally qualified Americans. I read an article in The Observer a few weeks ago, and the same argument is being made in United Kingdom.

Penalize employers - enforce greater employer policing as a means to reduce illegal immigration.

Migration equality - abolish migration discrimination which results from migration preferences. For example:
The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996 which states that "any native or citizen of Cuba who has been inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States after January 1, 1959 and has been physically present for at least one year; and is admissible to the United States for Permanent Residence."

Thoughts?

IzIzWe is Launched!

I am excited to announce that IzIzWe -"the place for immigrants" was launched in Jan. 2010.

Thank you Ian for your invaluable input. I owe you a trip to Zimbabwe :)

The Migrant Forum is still under construction but will be launched shortly.

Happy migrating!

Immigration Reform 101

Immigration policy rests high on the political order in this country and 2010 promises this topic will be hotly debated. Fast forward to the midterm elections and the political pundits will have a field day with immigration reform!

I have been thinking about immigration reform. What is it? What does it mean? How will it affect me or anyone I know?

From what I understand, the bill seeks to do the following:

Visa Reforms: Unclog the visa backlog by evoking unused employment-based visas and family sponsored visas from fiscal years 1992-2008.

Judicial Review: reverse a 1996 law which currently prohibits the courts from reviewing Department of Homeland Security’s decisions on immigration cases.

Legalization: Award a conditional six-year nonimmigrant status for illegal immigrants and their immediate families. This pertains to illegal immigrants who were in the U.S. before Dec. 15, 2009.

Border Security: Provide Customs and Border Protection with sufficient resources (helicopters and aerial surveillances) to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

Enforcement: Address immigrant harassment by restricting federal immigration enforcement solely to the federal government and not the states and local agencies.