To apply for an immigrant visa for your child over 21 years old who resides outside the U.S., you must be either a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident. If you are a U.S. citizen, you can apply for your children over 21, including married and unmarried children. If you are a lawful permanent resident (green card holder), you can apply for your unmarried children over 21.
If you are outside of the United States, you may apply at a U.S. consulate abroad for an immigrant visa in order to come to the United States and be admitted as a permanent resident. This process is called consular processing. If you are already inside the United States and you entered the U.S. legally (with a visa), you might be able to apply for permanent resident status without having to return to your home country to complete processing. This process is called adjustment of status.
Whether you apply for a K1 fiancé(e) visa or a spousal visa mostly depends on the U.S. petitioner’s immigration status and whether you are married. Only a U.S. citizen’s fiancé(e) can apply for a K-1 fiancé(e) visa; a lawful permanent resident’s fiancé(e) cannot apply for a K-1 visa. If you have seen each other in person in the last two years but are not able to get married in the near future, you might want to apply for a K-1 fiancé(e) visa so your fiancé(e) can come to the U.S. sooner. If you are already married, you can apply for a spousal visa.
With the I-601A provisional waiver, you can rest assured that you will not have to depart the U.S. while your application is pending. If your I-601A is approved, you will be able to leave the U.S. and attend an immigrant visa interview abroad. At that stage, you will have peace of mind knowing that you have the approved waiver in your hands, and you will be able to return to the U.S. to be reunited with your family soon.
If you leave the U.S. while your Form I-485 application to adjust status is pending and before you received an advance parole document, you will be deemed to have abandoned your Form I-485 application. You cannot simply return to the U.S. However, USCIS can still continue to process your Form I-130. You can use the consular processing procedure to receive an immigrant visa outside the U.S. After USCIS approves your Form I-130, you must file Form I-824 to transfer your immigration application to the National Visa Center.
Becoming a U.S. citizen will not affect your application for your wife. The processing times are currently the same for the spouse of a U.S. citizen and the spouse of a green card holder. Becoming a U.S. citizen might affect your application for your wife’s children.
If you are a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident and marry someone who has a child, the child might qualify as your stepchild. If you married the child’s biological parent before the child turned 18 years of age, the child is your “stepchild” for immigration purposes. You can apply for your stepchild to immigrate to the U.S. the same way you would apply for your own biological child. You are not required to legally adopt your stepchild before you can apply for your stepchild to immigrate to the U.S.
There is a risk that the U.S. Consulate will deny your application for a visitor visa. A B2 tourist visa is a nonimmigrant visa. By submitting Form I-130, you are applying for an immigrant visa. If the U.S. consulate believes that you are applying for a B2 visitor visa for the purpose of immigrating to the U.S., the consulate will deny your application for a tourist visa. Applying for a tourist visa will not affect your application for an immigrant visa.
You can apply for VAWA while living outside of the U.S. if you are able to prove that you were subjected to battery or extreme cruelty in the U.S.
In your situation, if you file Form I-130 for your child before his 21st birthday, his age will be “frozen.” Even if he turns 21 during the application process, his case will still be categorized as a child under 21. You still have to wait for USCIS to process his application, but he will not have to endure a long visa backlog.
To apply for an immigrant visa for your unmarried child under the age of 21 who lives outside the U.S., you must be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (a green card holder). There are three steps to apply for an immigrant visa for your child.
The process to apply for an immigrant visa for your parent who is outside the U.S. is called consular processing. To apply for an immigrant visa for your parent who is outside the U.S., you must be a U.S. citizen over the age of 21. Permanent residents are not eligible to apply for an immigrant visa for a parent. The steps involved in the application process are as follows.
As a lawful permanent resident, you may submit visa applications for the following family members: (1) your spouse, (2) your unmarried children under the age of 21, and (3) your unmarried children over the age of 21. When immigrating to the U.S., the spouse of a permanent resident may bring his or her unmarried child under the age of 21 years old as a “derivative beneficiary.”
If your foreign spouse is outside the U.S. and wants to immigrate to the U.S., the first step is to file Form I-130. Together with Form I-130, you must also submit supporting documents to prove that your spouse is eligible to immigrate to the U.S. Here is a checklist of the required documents:
A child who satisfies all of the necessary requirements can enter the U.S. without a visa. When you travel to the U.S., you must bring: your passport, your green card, your child’s passport, your child’s birth certificate, and of course, your child.