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August 9, 2002
Child Status Protection Act
On August 6, 2002 President Bush signed the Child Status Protection Act
which offers age-out protection to foreign-born children of American citizen
or U.S. permanent resident parents. Before this legislation, in order to
qualify as an immediate relative child or be in included as part of their
parent’s immigrant petition for the purposes of Alien Relative Petition,
the child who was being sponsored had to be under the age of 21 and unmarried
at the time the petition was adjudicated. Due to large processing delays
at INS, in a large number of cases by the time the INS got around to adjudicating
the case, the sponsored "child" would be over the age of 21 and therefore
no longer qualify as a child, i.e. they would "age-out" for purposes of
the Alien Relative Petition. Under the old immigration laws, in this case
the petition then would be shifted to another lower preference category
or the age-out child would have to file their own petition would could cause
even longer delays or possible ineligibility for an immigrant visa.
Under the Child Status Protection Act several protections were put into
place to help avoid the aging out problem depending on the different types
of cases. The basic provisions are outlined below:
- For the unmarried children of U.S. citizens who have had a Alien Relative
Petition filed for them, the age of the sponsored child for the purposes
of adjudicating the petition is basically fixed by the date of filing.
- For children of U.S. Permanent Residents parents, who while the Immigrant
petition is pending for the child become U.S. citizens, the age of the
child is fixed as to the date the parent naturalizes. In these cases,
the petition will also switch categories from to Alien Relative Petition
for an unmarried son or daughter of a U.S. citizen unless the child does
not want the categories switched.
- In the case of married children of U.S. Citizens residents who later
divorce and for whom their parents have filed Alien Relative Petitions,
the sponsored child’s age will be fixed as of the date of his or her divorce.
- For U.S. Permanent Residents whose children who are accompanying or
following to join on a petition for an immigrant visa, their children’s
eligibility will be fixed based on the date that a visa became available
to them. However, the children must be apply for permanent resident status
within one year of a visa becoming available to them.
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