FULL TRANSCRIPT
[The following is the full transcript of the blog video: What is the Visa Bulletin and What is the I-130 Petition?]
Hi there, I’m Erick Widman, I’m an Immigration Lawyer. And in this video, I’m going to break down for you an overview of how the immigration petition system works. What are the nuts and bolts of bringing over a family member to the US. So the first key concept to understand is there something called the visa bulletin, which applies to family members in certain categories. If you are an immediate relative of the petitioner, if you are a parent, a spouse, or a child of the petitioner, you don’t have to wait in line, the quota system effectively doesn’t apply to you, there’s a visa number immediately available for you. But if you are a sibling, brother or sister of a US citizen, or if you are the married child of our center, or daughter of a US citizen, you’re in a different preference category. And there’s a chart that comes out monthly from the US State Department that lays out what the wait period is an approximation in many cases, and which categories are current, which petitions can take, you can take action upon immediately. That is the visa bulletin. So we’re going to jump into next when the petitioner should file the key petition to bring the family member over. That is an i 130. petition, you’ll get very familiar with this through the whole process. I 130 petition petition for an alien relative, you file that if you’re the US citizen or green card holder. And you take on the moniker of petitioner, the recipient, the beneficiary of that petition, that one who’s going to apply for a visa is the beneficiary. So maybe a shortlist of who you cannot file for. Sadly, you cannot petition for a grandparent, a grandchild, and nephew, nice uncle, aunt cousin, apparent in law, and any other extended relative. So sadly, the individuals who are immediate relatives, and in the preference category, family members, those are the only ones you can petition for how much does it cost to file and I 130 petition they keep raising the price. But currently, it’s $535. You better check the filing fees online at USC is website because they raise those every so often. And USC is is actually almost bankrupt. So you better Well, you can bet they’re gonna be raising their fees soon, which they’ve announced to us. Where do you send the i 130? Again, look very carefully at the instructions and the online directions for where to send the I 130 petition based upon where you live. How long does it take to process an i 130 petition? You’re sending it to us cis and for a long time, we could count on it being adjudicated within six months with COVID. We’re seeing a likely increase of a couple months. But the first half of the process is that I want 30 getting filed us cis approves it. After that the US State Department takes over with the National Visa Center to make sure you have all the required documents before the beneficiary applies for a visa.
