Immigration Corner | If I become a US citizen, will that affect my daughter’s filing?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

I filed for my daughter as a green card holder but I am now eligible for citizenship. How should I proceed with this? Should I contact USCIS and update my status, and will this affect anything?

Her priority date is 2022 and she is an unmarried adult.

– J.W.

Dear J.W.,

As a green card holder, you are entitled to file a petition for permanent residence in the United States for your spouse and unmarried son/daughter. That places your adult, unmarried daughter in the F2B preference category. Currently, visas are available in that category for people with a priority date earlier than September 22, 2016. That preference category has approximately 26,266 visas available each year.

Based on the 2022 priority date of your application, there are still several years remaining for your daughter’s visa to become available.

Once you become a US citizen, you have the option for your petition to remain in the F2B category or to update your information with the National Visa Center to that of a US citizen. Upgrading the application would place your unmarried, adult daughter in the F1 preference category – adult unmarried son/daughter of a US citizen. Each year there are 23,000 visas available in that category and the current priority date is June 8, 2016.

There are also quite some years of waiting for a visa to become available for anyone with a 2022 priority date – albeit a few months sooner that in the F2B category.

An advantage to becoming a US citizen and upgrading the preference category is that your daughter would be able to marry without voiding the petition since a green card holder cannot file for a married son/daughter. Marrying would move her into the F3 preference category and visas are current for those with priority date earlier than June 22, 2011.

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 mediator and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com