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Immigrant Visa for Parents

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Mom or dad here as a green card holder.

Hi, I'm Jim Hacking immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States out of our office here in St. Louis, Missouri, and in San Diego, California. In today's video, we're talking about getting an immigrant visa for mom or dad. In yesterday's video, we talked about getting mom or dad a green card because they are in the United States and we're wanting to adjust status to that of lawful permanent resident. Here we're talking about mom or dad are overseas, and I want to sponsor them for lawful permanent resident status. Now, the first thing you need to know is that you have to be a US citizen. Only a US citizen can sponsor mom or dad for an immigrant visa.

So let's talk about Francis. Francis is from France and Francis, her mom lives in Paris and Francis wants to sponsor her mom to the United States to get an immigrant visa and to get a green card. So Francis's mother in France is working over there and Francis's father has passed away. Francis is ready to bring mom to the United States. So what does Francis do? Well, Francis is going to file an I130 petition for an alien relative. And she's going to file that with USCIS and she's going to have to submit evidence that her mother is in fact, her mother. obviously the best piece of evidence for that would be her birth certificate and the best birth certificate would be a birth certificate that was generated at around the time that Francis was born.

Francis is going to fill out that I130 petition. She's going to send it off to USCIS. Francis is going to get a receipt notice back, and Francis is then going to wait. And the case is going to pend at USCIS for seven, eight months, nine months. And once it's approved by USCIS, Francis will be notified that it has been approved and that her case has been forwarded to the National Visa Center. The National Visa Center is the first stage of the State Department. And Francis is going to have to file an online form called a DS260. And Francis is going to feel like she's giving them all the information that she already gave them before. Now, the I130 petition, as things stand now is done on paper, the DS260, the State Department is a little bit more advanced technologically than the immigration service. When I first started practicing immigration law, you feel about a DS260 on paper, now it's all done electronically.

So you're going to give a lot more information and a lot of the same information to the State Department at the National Visa Center, which is located in New Hampshire. And you're going to pay an immigrant visa fee, and you're going to pay an affidavit support fee. So the immigrant visa fee is $325 currently, and it's $120 for the affidavit support fee. This is the time where Frances is going to have to establish that she makes enough money to support her mother. They want to make sure that her mother's not to get government benefits and the way that she does that is by filing an affidavit of support with the National Visa Center. Once they're satisfied that Francis makes enough money to satisfy her obligations as a sponsor and to financially support her mother, then the National Visa Center will send the case on to Paris, to the US embassy in Paris for an interview.

So her case will go into a queue and once an immigrant visa interview slot is available, then the embassy will schedule Francis's mother for an interview. Francis's mother will then go to the embassy on the day in question, she'll bring all of her identity documents, she will bring a copy of everything that's been filed, and she'll be ready to go for an interview. The interview should be relatively quickly. Are you Francis's mother? Yeah. Do you still want to come to the United States? Yes. Are you going to do anything bad when you get to the United States? No. And then they'll give her the visa and then depending on how recently her medical exam was in Paris, then she'll get a visa that sort of goes out from there. So she'll get a visa that's good for probably two or three months to come to the United States.

And once she gets that visa, and I should have mentioned that mom will have to have a medical exam at the assigned physician in Paris before she comes. She's also going to have to get a police certificate for anywhere she's lived for more than six months since she turned 16. She's going to bring all that stuff to the embassy interview. And then hopefully the visa gets issued. And then Francis is going to go online to USCIS and pay the Ellis fee. The Ellis fee will be the fee that mom has for her green card. And then mom will come to the United States.

She will be given a packet to bring through customs. She will give that to them at customs, she'll get stamped in her passport. And then if Francis and her mother have paid the Ellis fee correctly and given the right address, then hopefully the green card will come to Francis his mom in a month or two after she arrives and then mom will be a lawful permanent resident. And then five years later, she could apply for citizenship if she wanted to. So that's how that work works in getting a green card through the immigrant visa process for your mom or your dad. Obviously your name might not be Francis. Your mom or dad might not be in Paris, but the same principles apply and the same approach applies. Right now, you're looking at about 16, 17, 18 months start to finish between when you file the I130 petition and when mom is arriving in the United States. So hopefully this is helpful. If not, or if you have questions, give us a call 314-961-8200.

You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. If you like this video, we ask that you please share it out on social and that you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you get updates whenever I make videos, just like this one. And speaking of our YouTube channel, every Tuesday and Thursday in Immigrant Home and on our YouTube channel around noon central noon to one, we go live in both of those places and you can ask us whatever questions that you want to ask. We'd love to have you there. Finally, be sure to find us on Instagram at Hacking Immigration Law, LLC. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.

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