United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has altered the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) age calculation for some adjustment of status applications, the organization announced earlier this week.
Children who are applying for lawful permanent residency (green card) based on a parent’s approved visa “age out” of the process and become ineligible to immigrate to the United States (based off of that petition) after they turn 21. Effectively, the change by USCIS should provide “more certainty” for these children about their eligibility to adjust status before “aging out.”
The updated guidance became effective immediately on Feb. 14, 2023. It also applies to pending applications.
The DOS publishes current immigrant visa (green card) availability in a document updated monthly called the Visa Bulletin. The Visa Bulletin indicates when statutorily limited green cards are available to prospective immigrants based on factors such as their individual priority date, preference category and country of chargeability.
The new guidance reinterprets when a visa becomes available for an individual in the bulletin. Previously, a visa was considered available for “purposes of the CSPA age calculation” based on the Final Action Date chart. The update released by USCIS this week will allow the Dates for Filing chart to be used instead to calculate the CSPA.
“If these noncitizens are eligible to adjust status because of the change in policy and they have filed for adjustment of status, they will also be eligible to apply for employment and travel authorization based on their pending adjustment of status application, and they generally will not lose previously issued employment or travel authorization,” the USCIS statement read.
USCIS noted that impacted individuals could file to reopen a denied adjustment of status application via the Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion, within 30 days of receiving a decision.
“For a motion filed more than 30 days after the denial, USCIS may, in its discretion, excuse the untimely filing of the motion if the noncitizen demonstrates that the delay was reasonable and was beyond the noncitizen’s control,” the USCIS statement read.
USCIS added that the updated guidance “will not prevent all children from aging out before an immigrant visa is available to them, nor will it prevent children from losing nonimmigrant status derived from their parents upon reaching the actual age of 21.”
“USCIS continues to explore all options available under the law to aid this population,” the statement read.