Child Status Protection Act
If you were on your parent’s sponsorship when you were a minor, and you’ve now passed the age of being a minor, you may be wondering if you can still be included on their petition. To ease your worry, here is some information about the Child Status Protection Act or CSPA and how it can help you.
Child Status Protection Act | How it Works
There is a program and a law called CSPA that was passed by Congress in 2002. CSPA stands for Child Status Protection Act. Essentially, that act was created to alleviate this exact problem. Because there are such long delays in the processing times for many of the immigration petitions, especially the brother/sister category, the F4 category in the family petitions, many people felt it was unfair that if a mom or a dad had kids that were teenagers or younger when the papers were filed and they would have been included in the ultimate green card appointment interview that because of the immigration delays, and the visa bulletin, and the priority dates, etcetera, etcetera that they would be kicked out of the case because they turned 21, and they aged out, which is the term for becoming 21 and being pushed off of a case.
Child Status Protection Act | New Definition of Child
Congress created this program called Child Status Protection Act. They created a new definition of child for immigration purposes. For example, in this case, where we’re talking about a family, we use a formula in order to determine the immigration age of this individual. If a case was filed at a certain date – that’s called the filing date or the priority date – and then it was approved six years later, eight years later – believe it or not, sometimes it does take that long, especially in the F4 brother/sister category.
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You’ve got these two dates, and if you subtract the amount of time that it took between filing and approval – in this case, let’s say five years – that amount of time can be subtracted from the individual, the beneficiary’s biological age. This woman who’s 23 now, if it took six years for their case to be approved, we’re able to subtract six years from 23, and that makes her 17 for immigration purposes. I know it sounds really crazy, but believe it or not, that’s what a good lawyer does. They find this – I wouldn’t even call it a loophole – this legality in the law, which applies to certain situations and helps people like this woman be eligible for a benefit, a major benefit, being included in a green card case with her mother when the time comes for the interview.
If you are a parent in a situation like this and you have children that were under 21 when you filed and are over 21 now, or if you are the derivative beneficiary, the person who was a youngster or a teenager when the papers were filed and now you find yourself in your mid- or late twenties, definitely talk to a good immigration lawyer who has experience with the CSPA program. We have helped many, many clients with this program and brought smiles to many people who thought that it was all over in terms of family unity and families getting the green card together.
Contact our Morristown office today to speak with an experienced and reliable Immigration Lawyer.