Immigration Corner | Why is my appointment taking so long?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

I am writing concerning a matter about my visa interview date for me and my children, particularly my son who turned 21 years old in December 2023. I received a message from NVC (National Visa Center) that we are all documentarily qualified from December 2023. However, we are still awaiting an interview date; our filing was from 2017. Could you please tell why it has taken so long to get a date, and are we going to be required to take the COVID vaccination?

Looking forward to your response.

AA

Dear AA,

When a family petition is filed for an intending immigrant, that petition is placed in a category based on who filed – unless the filing is an immediate relative petition.

If the beneficiary is the adult son/daughter of a US citizen, the married son/daughter of a US citizen, the sibling of a US citizen; the spouse or minor child of a green card holder or the unmarried son/daughter of a green card holder – those petitions are categorised. Each category has a certain number of visas available per year (October-September) and depending on when you were filed for (priority date), you must wait for a visa to become available. Invariably, there are far more petitions filed than visas available.

For example, if you are unmarried and your petitioner was your US citizen mother – you would be in the F1 preference category. Each year there are 23,400 visas available in that category. In July 2024, people who were filed for prior to October 22, 2015, in the F1 category have a visa available to them and they would be scheduled for an interview.

You did not indicate who petitioned for you, so I am unable to give any indication of where you stand in the waiting process. You may go to www.travel.state.gov/visa bulletin and check each month to see where the visa availability stands for your category.

An immediate relative is the spouse of a US citizen, the parent of a US citizen or the minor child of a US citizen. Such beneficiary petitions are processed as quickly as possible and are not placed in a category to await the availability of a visa.

You do have grounds to be concerned about your 21-year-old son. Please notify the National Visa Center of his age and ask that the case be flagged. This means that once your priority date becomes current, the NVC should put your case on the top of the line for interview. This does not guarantee that he might not age out of the filing.

As of right now, intending immigrants to the United States are required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, among others. You and your family can apply to be exempted from the vaccine, but it must be clear that your request applies to all vaccines and not only to the COVID-19 vaccine. The request for such a waiver must be genuine, detailed and for genuine religious or moral reasons that must be documented.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq. is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a diversity and inclusion consultant, mediator, and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com