Posted on January 01, 2019 in Firm News

Under federal law, U.S. citizens are allowed to petition for green cards for certain relatives. This includes parents. Typically, U.S. citizens that are over 21 are eligible to pursue a green card for parents who are from another country.

Does this only extend to birth parents? No, it does not. Citizens generally are allowed to petition for adoptive parents and step-parents to be granted permanent resident status.

As a note, there are some added required supporting documents for petitions for non-biological parents.

For cases involving adoptive parents, this includes:

• A copy of the adoption certificate (which generally needs to show the adoption occurred prior to the citizen turning 16)
• A statement on when and where the citizen lived with the adoptive parent

For cases involving step-parents, this includes:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2019 in Firm News

The rate of rejection of almost every kind of immigration visa has jumped in the first nine months of 2018, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The denial rate for most immigration applications jumped from 8.3 percent in 2016 to 11.3 percent in 2018. The denial rate from H-2A agricultural workers and H-1B high-skilled workers went from 16.8 percent in 2016 to 22.6 percent in 2018. The denial rate for green cards went from 5.9 percent in 2016 to 7.9 percent in 2018.

Most of these categories saw either a measured increase between 2016 and 2018 or a large bump in the last year. One of the odd blips during the increase in visa denials is that the K-1 visa – the fiancé visa – jumped from 13.6 percent in 2016 to 21.8 percent in 2017, then actually dropped 0.8 percent between 2017 and 2018.

Continue Reading ››