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What Family Members Can You Immigrate? (I-130 Visa Petition For Alien Relative) - YouTube
Channel: BataraImmigrationLaw
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Hi. In this section of Simplifying And Demystifying Immigration Law,
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I would like to discuss
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the question of how to immigrate your family members.
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The first thing you have to realize is that there is a difference
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depending on whether the person sponsoring is a US citizen
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or whether they are a lawful permanent resident.
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The difference is this: if you are a U.S. citizen,
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in some situations
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you can do everything pretty rapidly.
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In most situations, if you are a lawful permanent resident, it is going to take a longer period of time.
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By that, I mean this: there are basically two steps to immigrating a family member.
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The first is what I call a small step, but a very important step
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and a less expensive step.
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The second one is where you are going to end up going to a green card interview.
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You are going to have to share and disclose financial information
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your income taxes and a whole bunch of other information.
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You are going to take fingerprints, to take photographs.
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But it is the real deal because at the end of that process
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is when you would receive your green card.
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The immigration system here in this country
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is broken down into generally four categories.
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Are you trying to immigrate your spouse?
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Are you trying to immigrate a child?
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Are you trying to immigrate your parent?
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Or are you trying to immigrate a sister or brother?
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Those four categories then are divided on whether or not
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the sponsor is a citizen or permanent resident.
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And there's a certain logic to the system.
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If you are immigrating as a citizen
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a spouse, or a child, or a parent
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you may qualify for doing both steps at one time.
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We call that an immediate relative, an immediate relative process.
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That means you can move forward immediately to immigrate your relative.
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There are some situations though where you would not want to do that however.
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Other classifications would put you in a different category.
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There is a first preference.
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There is a second preference, 2a and 2b.
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There is a third preference and a fourth preference.
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The logic behind that means that
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the ones that are higher up
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the first rather than the fourth
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should move quicker through the immigration process.
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Let's look at some of the differences.
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If you are immigrating the spouse as a United States citizen, they are an immediate relative.
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You can move quicker.
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If you are a lawful permanent resident,
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it is going to take some time.
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You are going to have to go through the two-step process.
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If you are a citizen and you are immigrating a child,
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it depends on your child’s status.
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Are they married or not married?
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Are they over 21 or under 21?
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It makes a big difference.
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Under 21 has a little bit of preference over those who are 21
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and you can see the logic because if you are a citizen
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and you are immigrating a child under 21,
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they are an immediate relative.
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If they are over 21, they are in the first preference category.
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Now if they are married,
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they drop even further down into the third preference.
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So you see the logic behind the system.
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Under 21 has a preference over 21.
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Not married has a preference over being married.
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Now, that doesn't necessarily work out a hundred percent
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because another factor - which I am not going to discuss at this time but in a later session
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is what country you are from.
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Certain countries have so many applications coming from them
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that the process is actually slower, when technically, under the logical scheme,
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it should go faster.
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A parent
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Now, this is very interesting here too.
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a United States citizen can immigrate more family members than a lawful permanent resident.
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Preference is given to the citizen.
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For instance, a United States citizen can immigrate their parents.
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A lawful permanent resident cannot.
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A United States citizen can immigrate a child who is married,
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whether they are over 21 or under,
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whereas a lawful permanent resident cannot.
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A United States citizen brother or sister can immigrate their brother or sister.
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A lawful permanent resident cannot.
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So in those situations, do you give up hope?
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No.
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Basically, you want to encourage the lawful permanent resident
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to go through the naturalization process
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become a citizen of the United States.
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Then they can move into this category and help the other family members.
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Another factor here is you have mixed families here.
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Is it a straight marriage where husband and wife
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are married and the children are theirs,
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biologically and on the birth certificate.
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It could be a situation where they are not married
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and the father is removed from the household.
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In that case, you are going to need more evidence,
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you are going to have to prove a relationship
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between the child and the father.
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Generally speaking, people want to know
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“Can I immigrate a certain family member?”
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This chart explains the system and hopefully I have been able to break it down,
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simplify it and demystify it for you.
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Thank you very much and I will see you next week.
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