limegreenbowler

I think in those cases you'd either see an annulment or some other legal finding that the marriage was never valid to begin with, and I imagine that government lawyers looked at the case and said this was an exception that met the law. I think the distinction between law and regulation in this case is a little silly--the law is written in broad strokes and cannot account for every eventuality, and in our system it's up to executive branch agencies to write regulations about how to implement the law. In this particular case, given that there is no provision for married sons or daughters of LPRs to have a category of their own (whereas there are for adult children of citizens), a clear reading of the law indicates there was no intent by Congress for them to be able to immigrate, and so the petition in cancelled. Any applicant would be able to litigate this, but given that they're going against more than 50 years of the law as implemented, I don't think there's any chance of success.

And this exact scenario is outlined in the Adjudicator's Field Manual (the new Policy Manual isn't fully online yet, but this guidance still stands): https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-afm/afm21-external.pdf Review automatic revocation on p. 68: The grounds for automatic revocation are set forth in 8 CFR 205.1(a) . Officers should be familiar with each of the events spelled out in the regulation. Under each of these grounds, the revocation is automatic when the specified events occurs, regardless of whether USCIS is aware of its occurrence or not, and regardless of when (or even whether) USCIS provides notification of the revocation. For example, if an alien who is the beneficiary of an approved 2nd preference visa petition as the unmarried son or daughter of a lawful permanent resident marries before immigrating to the United States or adjusting status, the petition’s approval is revoked. It should be noted that although it is the event of the marriage which triggers the revocation, the revocation itself is as of the date of the petition’s approval (in automatic revocation proceedings, revocation upon notice is different). Furthermore, because the petition’s approval has been revoked, it does not become valid again if the marriage of the beneficiary is terminated through divorce or death of the beneficiary’s spouse. (However, if the marriage is annulled by a court of competent authority, the legal effect is that the marriage never occurred and therefore, neither did the revocation.)

The law is not silent on this issue. The law for automatic revocation is in 8 CFR 205.1(a): https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-205/section-205.1 § 205.1 Automatic revocation. (a) Reasons for automatic revocation. The approval of a petition or self-petition made under section 204 of the Act and in accordance with part 204 of this chapter is revoked as of the date of approval: (I) Upon the marriage of a person accorded status as a son or daughter of a lawful permanent resident alien under section 203(a)(2) of the Act.

This isn't true, unless the parent naturalized before the son got married, as there is no category for married children of permanent residents. Adult children of citizens can move between F1 and F3, but as some others have pointed out, the petition was voided when he got married, even if he subsequently got divorced. The parent will need to file a new petition, and the old PD cannot be maintained.

The ESTA criminal question (unlike the drug one) is unclear enough that you will probably be ok here, but it's a question you should be prepared to answer.

A UK conviction that is spent after ten years is still considered a conviction for U.S. immigration purposes. You will need to disclose this on your DS-160 and bring your ACRO police certificate to the interview. If your ACRO shows no live trace, they will ask you to bring the stepped down information. If you are ineligible, an officer may recommend a waiver for you (or they may not--it's at their discretion), but waivers do take about nine months to process. If you have been traveling on ESTA without disclosing this, you open yourself up to an additional inadmissibility for misrepresentation. You should probably talk about this with the company's (or your own) attorney.

This isn't an official reason for filing an I-130 directly at the embassy (bypassing USCIS), but some embassies do use their discretionary authority to allow this to be done in exactly this situation. I am not sure about London.

If OP is on the skills list and it was missed before (not uncommon, unfortunately), it’s better that it’s caught now. If he went to naturalize later and it was caught then and they determined his green card was issued in error, it would be a far worse situation.

But as someone else posted, this is not determinative. Are you on the EV skills list? If so, there’s a good chance someone missed it originally (especially if you’re not Irish but applied in Ireland, which has nothing on the list and so officers don’t look for it) but your current officer caught it.

Who funded your program, and is your country and skill code on the Exchange Visitor Skills List? It’s possible a mistake was made before that the current consular officer caught.

Even if her five year bar expires, working on a tourist visa will often lead to a finding of misrepresentation at the interview (it's very context dependent), which will require an I-601, but there's no way to know until the interview itself and no way to apply for an I-601 for this in advance.

This is unnecessary. A spousal I-130 where the U.S. citizen spouse dies will automatically be converted to an I-360 at the consular interview. The beneficiary is also now exempt from the I-864 requirements and should bring an I-864W to the interview. The beneficiary can email either NVC or the consulate, depending on where the petition is, to let them know, but this will be done automatically when they show up for the interview.

I believe the finding was made incorrectly, but honestly, it really doesn’t matter much. There is no appeal process for NIV rejections, though you’re welcome to contact the State Department’s LegalNet about it. You were almost certainly also refused 214(b), which is unwaivable, and even without a formal bar, you’d likely find yourself shadow banned for at least ten years for visa misuse under 214b—your ties to your home country aren’t really going to be relevant to most officers because you seriously misused a visa and your credibility about using one properly in the near future is low.

You are the only person correctly noting that the 2018 attempted policy change was struck down and that the old policy, i.e. that people admitted D/S do not begin to accrue ULP until a determination of that is made by an IJ or USCIS official, is still in force. A SEVIS termination is done by the university's Responsible Officer, not a USCIS official, and so it currently doesn't count. If you ask me, this is all very ridiculous, but it's how the law currently works. It's also not very well known, and plenty of consular officers make this error all the time, but there is basically no legal recourse for an NIV denial, so no one really cares. All that said, OP was almost certainly (and deservedly) also refused 214(b), which is unwaivable, and even if he hadn't gotten the formal ten year ban, it's highly unlikely that he would have gotten another NIV for many years due to his egregious misuse. If OP does (legitimately) marry a US citizen or LPR, he can present evidence at his IV interview that the 9B2 finding was made in error. There is more time allotted for IV interviews, and the officer, if they aren't familiar with the rule, will likely request an opinion from the State Department's Legal Office, which will come back that the finding was made in error (unless the regulations are changed retroactively by then, which is unlikely). If OP's LPR parents are petitioning him, there's really no reason to argue about it as the incorrectly applied bar will have expired by then anyway--F2A hasn't moved from a PD of April 2015 in more than a year, so it's looking like at least a ten year wait for a new PD to become current.

Probably longer than 5 years, as the category is oversubscribed. You can check the Visa Bulletin each month, but between April 2022 and April 2023, F2B has not moved at all and is still at PDs of 22-SEP-15.

The second part of CSPA is the "sought to acquire within one year" part, which for DOS generally means paying the IV fee within one year of the PD becoming current. This is what kills a lot of otherwise CSPA-eligible applicants.

"Imminent need" is rather vague, and the folks at CDJ have been known to be quite generous in allowing for local filing of an I-130 if you can prove you have the required two years of legal and physical custody along with the final adoption decree. Make sure you don't file anything with USCIS before you hear back from CDJ.

Without knowing all the details of your case, it's hard to say, but it sounds like the original officer made an error (likely finding you 9A1 instead of 9A2 or 9C1 instead of 9C2, or an ineligibility was missed). If you've been out of the US for 10 years, 9A1 would have expired, unless you were removed from the border twice, in which case you'd have a 20 year bar--this could be the problem. From their communications, it sounds like they think the I-212 is sufficient and you don't have any ineligibilities that require an I-601 but that the I-212 needs to be corrected to include all the ineligibilities. It seems like they are working with USCIS to correct this since they made they error, which is standard practice, but that processes takes a couple of months. You are right to have your Congressperson lean on them. Good luck!

You have been found 1A3 by the panel physician, a medical ineligibility that means you have a physical or mental disorder that may pose a threat to oneself or others--alcohol is by far the most common reason for this. You need to follow the instructions the panel physician gave you and do another medical exam in one year. If you are found to be in remission, they will send the new medical to the consulate and your visa is issuable, assuming you haven't married (which would void your I-129F) or have other ineligibilities and assuming the consulate doesn't return your I-129F to USCIS for revocation (they probably would have told you if this were the case). It is technically possible to get an I-601 waiver for 1A3 (waivers are not possible for 1A4, problems with the use of controlled substances, including marijuana), but in practice, USCIS does not grant them--they want to see that the applicant has overcome the ineligibility. The consulate does not have authority to overturn findings of medical ineligibility--they are made by the panel physician using the CDC guidelines.

This is exactly right--there's no easy mechanism to challenge a nearly 20 year old finding by DHS. Normally, an attorney would raise these concerns during the waiver process, which USCIS would take into account and may just decide to remove the incorrect finding (without reimbursing the fee!). If there are discrepancies between what the lawyer says in the waiver application versus what USCIS can see about what actually happened, however, it increases the chances for waiver denial. For that reason, it's better just to file a straightforward waiver request--a decent attorney should have a 90% or higher approval rate for waivers where the qualifying relative is a US citizen spouse, and it just makes it easier and less complicated for everyone.

The easiest course of action is just to get an I-601 and then continue with consular processing. If you believe the finding was made in error, the consulate cannot help you because DHS made it, and the State Department cannot overturn this--they have to defer to decisions made by other agencies, even if they believe them to be incorrect. If you truly believe there isn't more to the story and 6C1 was made in error, you need to take it up with DHS to have it removed.

They can certainly try--it's not likely to hurt anything, and they should definitely have letters from the parents authorizing the trip as well as all the birth certificates that prove the relationship, but it's ultimately hard to see a consular officer approving a visa for a child's purely voluntary tourist trip without a parent or legal guardian--too much risk that anything bad that may happen will rebound back on that officer.

It's not an official rule, but most consulates will not issue a tourist visa to a minor child unless at least one of the child's parents has a visa. There are certainly exceptions if the child has a valid reason to go to the US without his or her parents, but a trip to Disney with the grandparents is unlikely to be one of them.