Question: I am married to my American husband and we filed for my immigration papers recently. We don’t have a scan machine, so we took pictures of our marriage certificate, past divorce certificates, tax returns, etc. from our cell phones, printed and sent them in to the immigration office with our application. We could clearly see all the documents, and were really surprised last week when we got a letter from immigration requesting that we send legible copies of all supporting documents. We don’t know which documents they are referring to as illegible. We did an Infopass appointment and the officer said to resend everything again. Is that true?
Answer: Easy answer, yes! Make a very clear copy on a copy machine of every single document you originally included in your application and send back to the USCIS along with a copy of the Request For Evidence on the top. Immigrants should NEVER send a copy of documents taken as an image on a cell phone, since they do not qualify under USCIS requirements. Make a copy of the entire package for yourself for your records and send to the USCIS using U.S. Priority or Express Mail as soon as possible, but no later than 10 days before the deadline, just to be safe. Good luck!
Question: I got my residency through marriage and recently got naturalized to be a U.S. citizen. My 16 year-old unmarried daughter, who lives in Jamaica had a baby last year, my first grandchild. I want to know if I can sponsor my daughter for a green card as a minor or does she not qualify because she has a child? If I can sponsor her, can my grandchild immigrate along with her at the same time?
Answer: Sorry to tell you this, but unfortunately, “no”, your grandchild will not be able to immigrate to the U.S. along with your minor daughter. This is due to a very heartless provision in immigration law which does not allow certain family members to bring their dependents (called “derivatives”) to the U.S. with them when they immigrate. Under this law which applies to “Immediate Relatives”, (spouses, minor children and parents) of U.S. Citizens, only the individual “immediate relative” can immigrate and no dependent family members can come along. However, once the “immediate relative” has immigrated to the U.S., they can then in turn sponsor their spouse and or children. Children are considered to be “minor” until they reach age 21 or get married.
In this case, your daughter remains a minor until age 21 since she is single. You can sponsor he,r and it will take about 8-12 months for her to immigrate to the U.S. under current processing times. Once she enters the U.S. and obtains her Green Card within a month or so, she can sponsor her child (your grandchild). The process for a minor child of a U.S. Resident take approximately 1 ½ to 2 years. During that time, your daughter would need to maintain residency here and can come and back and forth between the U.S. and Jamaica during that time for limited periods so as not to lose residency status.
The other option is to wait until your daughter reaches age 21, then file for her in the F1 immigration category for single adult children of U.S. Citizen and their children. This will include your grandchild. However, the waiting time in this immigration category is about 7 years. Let me know if you would like us to represent you in your daughter’s residency case.
Q&A provided by Attorney Caroly Pederson.
