Immigration Newsletter – October 2012

It will be a mess. – On September 26, 2012, the 9th Circuit of Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California in an en banc rehearing issued a 6 to 5 decision to reject Matter of Wang. The decision came in a class action lawsuit of De Osorio v. Napolitano. With this ruling, the 9th Circuit now joins the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Khalid v. Holder, to allow children to retain the parents’ priority date when the parents immigrated to the United States and to petition for them. In effect, the children’s waiting period for an immigrant visa is significant reduced. More circuits court of appeal are expected to follow the 5th and 9th Circuit Courts. The inevitable outcome will be a huge mess on the family preference immigration system.

There are currently 226,000 immigrant visa allotted to the preference category of family immigration. The allotment of the 226,000 immigrant visa is as follow:

Family-Sponsored First (F1): Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Citizens, 23,400 plus any unused numbers from F4

Family-Sponsored Second (F2): Spouses and Children, and Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Permanent Residents, 114,200, plus the number (if any) by which the worldwide family preference level exceeds 226,000, and any unused first preference numbers. F2 is further divided into two subcategories:

F2A (Spouses and Children), 77% of the overall second preference limitation, of which 75% are exempt from the per-country limit;

F2B (Unmarried Sons and Daughters): 23% of the overall second preference limitation.

Family-Sponsored Third (F3): Married Sons and Daughters of Citizens, 23,400, plus any numbers not required by F1 and F2.

Family-Sponsored Fourth (F4): Brothers and Sisters of Adult Citizens, 65,000, plus any numbers not required by F1, F2 and F3.