While K nonimmigrants are not covered under CSPA, K-2 and K-4 nonimmigrants may benefit from CSPA under certain limited circumstances. Step 2: Creating A User Account and Scheduling Your Visa Appointment Go to www.ustraveldocs.com/pk/ and create a user account. The applicant must have had a qualifying Registration for Classification as a Refugee (Form I-590) or Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition (. [12] The widow(er)s child(ren), if any, must be under the age of 21 and unmarried at the time of the petitioners death to be classified as derivatives on the automatically converted Form I-360, regardless of whether the child(ren) had a separate pending or approved Form I-130 at the time of the petitioners death. However, the derivative asylee may overcome this by providing evidence establishing the parent-child relationship, including evidence of the childs age, and a reasonable explanation as to why the derivative was not included on the principals Form I-589. The applicants CSPA age is calculated using the approved petition that forms the new basis of the adjustment of status application.[29]. CSPA age is frozen on the date the Form I-360 is filed or the date the Form I-130 is automatically converted to a widow(er)s Form I-360. INA 201(f) - Rules for determining whether certain aliens are immediate relatives, INA 203(h) - Rules for determining whether certain aliens are children, INA 207(c)(2)(B) - Admission by Attorney General of refugees; criteria; admission status of spouse or child; applicability of other statutory requirements; termination of refugee status of alien, spouse, or child, INA 208(b)(3)(B) - Continued classification of certain aliens as children, INA 209(a)(1) - Inspection and examination by Department of Homeland Security, INA 209, 8 CFR 209 - Adjustment of status of refugees and asylees, Pub. So long as the child was under 21 on the date of the interview, he or she will not age out of eligibility for derivative refugee status or adjustment of status. The applicants age is frozen on the date of the refugee parents interview. The prospective applicant decides not to file for adjustment of status between March 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021. You will receive instructions concerning interview preparation in the appointment letter that you will receive from the NVC. From the date of visa availability, and provided that the visa remains available for a continuous 1-year period, the applicant has 1 year to fulfill the sought to acquire requirement. [35] Applicants must check the USCIS Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin webpage to see which chart to use in determining when they may file adjustment of status applications. [^ 31] For DVs, the qualifying petition is the DV Program electronic entry form. USCIS approved the petition on August 1, 2016. [39] This requirement does not apply to refugee derivatives, asylee derivatives, and IRs.[40]. [^ 27] For CSPA purposes, the age at time of visa availability is the applicants age when USCIS considers the applicants visa available. Adjustment applicants who fail to fulfill the sought to acquire requirement within 1 year of visa availability may still be able to benefit from CSPA if they can establish that their failure to meet the requirement was the result of extraordinary circumstances.[50]. The applicant must have been under the age of 21 and unmarried at the time the qualifying Form I-590 was filed. In these circumstances, you are not eligible for and do not need CSPA in order to get a Green Card. See INA 204(a)(1)(D)(i)(I) and INA 204(a)(1)(D)(i)(III). Limited CSPA Coverage for K-2 Nonimmigrants. The applicant would have been considered under the age of 21 under applicable CSPA rules; The applicant applied for adjustment of status within 1 year of visa availability; and. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. For derivative refugees, an adjustment applicants CSPA age is his or her age on the date the principal applicants Form I-590 is filed. Child of LPR (F2A) Becomes Child of a U.S. Citizen (Immediate Relative). [45], USCIS also considers a written request to transfer the underlying basis of the adjustment of status application to satisfy the sought to acquire requirement if the request is received within 1 year of an immigrant visa becoming available in the new preference category. [^ 49] Though the CSPA technically requires DV derivatives to seek to acquire within 1 year, this requirement does not generally affect DV derivatives, as they are only eligible to receive a visa through the end of the specific fiscal year in which the principal applicant was selected under INA 203(c). Alert: On Feb. 14, 2023, USCIS issued policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to update when an immigrant visa becomes available for the purpose of calculating Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) age for noncitizens seeking lawful permanent resident status in a preference category. The applicant must be unmarried at the time he or she seeks adjustment of status. The DV Program registration period began on October 1, 2012, and the DV Selection Letter is dated May 1, 2013. If you have a pending adjustment application as a derivative child, and we grant the principal applicants request to transfer the underlying basis of their adjustment application to a different immigrant category based on another approvedpetition, then the date we receive the transfer request is the date we use to determine whether you meet the sought to acquire requirement. The CSPA age is calculated based on the new visa availability date of October 1, 2021 (not October 1, 2020), and locked in as of that date provided that the visa remains available and the applicant seeks to acquire during that 1-year period. See Matter of O. Vazquez (PDF), 25 I&N Dec. 817 (BIA 2012). The petition had been pending for three months before it was approved, so that period of time can be subtracted from the child's age. Applicants cannot rely on the DOS Visa Bulletin alone because the Visa Bulletin merely publishes both charts; it does not state which chart can be used to determine when to file an adjustment of status application. The CSPA went into effect on August 6, 2002. L. 106-386 (October 28, 2000). The calculated age is the childs CSPA age. This allows some people to remain classified as children beyond their 21st birthday. If you think, you are eligible under CSPA then you must write letters to NVC, Consulate and INS claiming your eligibility to speed up processing on your file. [^ 37] In order to qualify under CSPA, the applicant must also remain unmarried through final adjudication and must have sought to acquire lawful permanent residence within 1 year of visa availability. USCIS employees should not rely on the historical versions for current laws, precedent decisions, policies, directives, guidance, and procedures. 3) Paid the fees and submitted all the forms. If the adjustment applicant was under the age of 21 at the time the petition was filed or automatically converted, the applicant is eligible for CSPA and will not age out. Furthermore, the fact of being or having been a child is common to all applicants seeking protection under the CSPA and does not constitute extraordinary circumstances. You must check the. NVC is asking us to pay IV Application Processing Fees on ceac.state.gov but it only displays names of my husband and I on ceac.state.gov. HOW TO RECAPTURE/RETAIN AND UTILIZE PRIORITY DATES 4 HOW TO RECAPTURE/RETAIN AND UTILIZE PRIORITY DATES | FEBRUARY 2022 [^ 2] The situation in which noncitizens can no longer be classified as children for immigrant visa purposes due to turning 21 is commonly referred to as aging out.. If you were under the age of 21 at the time the petition was filed, you are eligible for CSPA and will not age out. In order for family-sponsored and employment-based preference and DV adjustment applicants to benefit from the CSPA age calculation, they must seek to acquire lawful permanent residence within 1 year of when a visa becomes available for accepting and processing a potential adjustment of status application. In order to protect children from aging out of their cases at age 21, CSPA may extend the eligibility of the applicant, should the applicant meet the CSPA requirements. [^ 5] Eligible derivatives of special immigrants are covered by CSPA as their immigrant visas fall under the employment-based fourth preference visa category. [^ 32] The rank number is the number following the two-letter region code and should correspond with cut-off numbers available in the DOS Visa Bulletin. The length of time a petition was pending (pending time) is the number of days between the date that it is properly filed (filing date) and the approval date. If you do not know which USCIS office approved your Form I-130, you may call our USCIS Contact Center. When considering a claim of extraordinary circumstances, the officer should weigh the totality of the circumstances and the connection between the circumstances presented and the failure to meet the sought to acquire requirement within the 1-year period, as well as the reasonableness of the delay. However, USCIS considers untimely motions to reopen for denials issued after the Matter of O. Vazquez precedent (June 8, 2012), but only if the denial was based solely on the adjustment applicants failure to seek to acquire within 1 year. Examples of extraordinary circumstances that may warrant a favorable exercise of discretion include, but are not limited to: Serious illness or mental or physical disability of the applicant during the 1-year period; Legal disability, such as instances where the adjustment applicant suffered from a mental impairment, during the 1-year period; Instances where a timely adjustment application was rejected by USCIS as improperly filed and was returned to the applicant for corrections where the deficiency was corrected and the application re-filed within a reasonable period thereafter; Death or serious illness or incapacity of the applicants attorney or legal representative or a member of the applicants immediate family; and. (CSPA), visa applicants can "opt out" of conversion to the F1 visa category and remain an F2B visa applicant. Second, while the dates in the Visa Bulletin for the prospective applicants country of chargeability and preference category may not retrogress, USCIS may designate the Final Action Dates chart for use during a given month after having designated the Dates for Filing chart for use during the preceding month. For IRs and IR self-petitioners or derivatives under VAWA, a childs age is frozen on the date the Form I-130 or Form I-360 is filed, respectively. Applicants can determine when to file for adjustment of status by referring first to the USCIS Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin webpage and then to the DOS Visa Bulletin. Generally, in order to establish eligibility, a derivative asylee must have been listed on the principal applicants Form I-589 prior to a final decision on the principals asylum application. [^ 41] See Chapter 3, Filing Instructions, Section B, Definition of Properly Filed [7 USCIS-PM A.3(B)]. Hi, Our case was approved 2 days after the childs 21 birthday. You may check the Visa Bulletinto see if opting out of automatic conversion may result in a shorter waiting time for you. You are 21 years and 4 months old when USCIS considers an immigrant visa available to you. In order to include his or her child(ren) on the self-petition as derivatives, the child(ren) must be under the age of 21 and unmarried when the Form I-360 is filed, regardless of whether the child(ren) had a separate or approved Form I-130 when the Form I-360 was filed.[14].