Source: http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2010/04/
Timestamp: 2018-07-17 23:06:25
Document Index: 673415886

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 204', '§ 212', '§ 212', '§ 105', '§ 204', '§ 204', '§ 212']

Posted by Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, PLLC at 10:35 AM 7 comments:
When Congress enacted the Child Status Protection Act, it wanted above all else to soften the harsh blows of long delays by the USCIS in the adjudication of “green card” cases. How? Congress did so by extending this generous benefit to protect vulnerable children who would otherwise be cavalierly abandoned to the tender mercies of an indifferent jurisprudence when their parents immigrated. The dread of watching their children "age out" and thereby lose their derivative status haunted the imagination of parents everywhere who felt helpless against Father Time. At last, Congress would save them, or so they thought. The Board of Immigration Appeals, in In re Avila-Perez, 24 I&N Dec. 78 at 83-84 (BIA 2007), faithfully captured this humane spirit:
The CSPA was created to remedy the problem of minor children of United States citizens losing their immediate relative status and being demoted to the family first-preference category as a result of the INS's backlog in adjudicating visa petitions and applications for adjustment of status…To prevent these individuals from “aging out” because of INS processing delays, Congress decided that a child's age should be determined by the date his visa petition was filed, not as of the date the INS reviewed his applications, as it would have been under the old law.
There was no way that Congress could have possibly anticipated the implosion of the EB-3 or EB-2 in the China and India categories. While the architects of the CSPA strove mightily to promote family unity, the restrictive formula they came up with reflects their wholly understandable failure to account for the entirely unanticipated possibility of visa retrogression greatly exceeding government processing delays. It is no exaggeration to conclude or contend that this adverse effect on “aging out” children ran directly contrary to what Congress thought it was doing. Given an EB-3 backlog of almost 7-8 years worldwide and over 30 years for India, you would have to start a labor certification now for someone who has a child turning 12 because that child's age will only be frozen when the immigrant visa is available, many years later. For India, even if the labor certification is started around the time of the child’s birth, such strategic foresight may not suffice! If you get a quick labor certification followed by prompt USCIS approval of the I-140 petition, the child you think you are helping might not be so lucky down the road. When you have visa retrogression like we have right now, the CSPA formula is useless to protect children no matter how you interpret the CSPA formula. To the EB-3 preference child, especially if the parents are born in India, the promise of the CSPA has become a cruel joke.
What to do? There is an answer. Sua sponte, the USCIS could save the children by redefining the concept of visa availability in a provisional sense to include the derivative beneficiaries of approved I-130 or I-140 petitions even without the absence of a current priority date as we have proposed in our article Tyranny of Priority Dates, http://scr.bi/i0Lqkz. This would restore the relevance of the CSPA and honor the original intent of Congress by allowing a revised formula to freeze the child's age despite visa backlogs! The child could not have his or her adjustment of status approved absent a current priority date but allowing them to remain children while waiting for this to happen also permitted them to remain in the queue. While we acknowledge that such an approach is, to say the least, openly unorthodox, we are warmed by the well-settled truth that a generous interpretation of any statute should be adopted where its “remedial purposes are most evident.” Sedima v. Imrex Co., 473 U.S. 479, 491, n. 10 (1985).
Allowing the child to provisionally file her adjustment of status with the parent(s) means that the child still remains an adjustment applicant even after “aging out.” Then, when the parent gets the “green card,” the child shifts over to the Family 2-B category which, mirable dictu, might then be current. The parents need not file a new I-130 petition. Since the child's adjustment of status was already filed under the provisional priority date, the “aged out” child will either get the “green card” simultaneously with the parent if F-2B is ready and waiting or, if not, the child can wait it out a bit longer, but still as an adjustment applicant under a provisional date under F-2B. The key is to allow the child to file their adjustment of status with the parents while minors under a provisional date so that, once they become adults, they will continue to be adjustable when they automatically convert to Family 2B after Mom and Dad are done.
Posted by Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, PLLC at 9:17 PM 1 comment:
Labels: Child Status Protection Act and Tyranny of Priority Dates
Posted by Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, PLLC at 10:24 AM No comments:
The crux of the AAO’s reasoning is that notwithstanding INA § 204(j), which was introduced by the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act of 2000 (AC 21) - legislation clearly intended by to ameliorate the hardships brought about by delays in processing and visa backlogs - the underlying labor certification must still remain valid for the foreign national beneficiary. INA § 212(a)(5)(A)(i) requires an alien who seeks to enter the US to perform skilled or unskilled labor to have a labor certification. Hence, if the labor certification has been now substituted for another beneficiary, as was permissible prior to July 16, 2007, under the AAO’s strained interpretation, there is no longer a valid labor certification and the requirements of INA § 212(a)(5)(A)(i) are no longer being fulfilled. According to the AAO, “USCIS cannot interpret sections 204(j) and 212(a)(5)(A)(iv) of the Act as allowing the adjustment of two aliens based on the same labor certification when section 212(a)(5)(A)(i) of the Act explicitly requires a labor certification as evidence of an individual alien’s admissibility.”
While the authors do not want the original beneficiary to get jeopardized when there is a substitution, it would likewise be fundamentally unfair for the legitimately substituted beneficiary to be robbed out of permanent residency and be similarly placed in jeopardy. There need not be a winner or a loser. Both can win. Thankfully, our good friend Angelo Paparelli and a colleague proposed the “cell mitosis” theory of labor certification. See Angelo A. Paparelli and Janet J. Lee, A Moveable Feast": An Analysis of New and Old Portability Under AC21 § 105, 6 Bender's Immigr. Bull. 111, 126 (Feb. 1, 2001) and available at http://www.ilw.com/articles/2001,1119-Paparelli.shtm.
In their refreshingly original article, this is how they articulate the "cell mitosis" theory of labor certification:
In fairness to all three parties, the labor certification should be treated as "divisible" under what can be called the "cell mitosis" theory.[citation omitted] Under this theory, the labor certification would remain valid with respect to the employee's new job, [citation omitted] and the sponsoring employer would also be permitted to substitute another alien worker on the labor certification. From the sponsoring employer's perspective, the conditions under which the labor certification was granted remain the same (other than the fact that the initial worker has resigned); there is still a demonstrated shortage of U.S. workers for the position. To require the employer to test the market again would be unfair and unduly burdensome. Thus, just as in the process of cell mitosis, each party (the sponsoring employer and initial beneficiary employee) should be able to retain the benefits flowing from the single approved labor certification.
Ironically, the AAO decision does precisely what the DOL did not like about the prior practice of alien substitution: "We acknowledge that after enactment of AC 21, DOL's practice of substitution effectively created a race between the employer seeking to use the labor certification to fill the proffered position on a permanent basis and the alien beneficiary named on the labor certification…" Id. at 9. That is precisely the effect of the AAO decision. Ironic. We do not see why INA § 204(j) cannot be generously interpreted consistent with the “cell mitosis” theory to allow for one labor certification to provide the basis for two beneficiaries to adjust and obtain permanent residency and still be in harmony with both § 204(j) and § 212(a)(5)(a)(ii).