President Obama has passed a law which would end the revocation of a visa when the petitioner expires.  This is no doubt a godsend to immigrants and a joy to all surviving immigrants when the priority member passes away.

Immigrants require visas for their family in excess of the allotted numbers for a year. This results in years of backlog, and many applications outlive the lives of the applicants. In such a scenario, the death of a petitioner resulted in no more than an immigrant status to the remaining members of family.

Under the new law, six groups of members of the family are allowed to reside in the United States until a time when their priority dates have come. The first group speaks of a spouse or an unmarried offspring up to the age of 21 years to continue with the processing of the when the citizen petitioner expires. Until the passing of the current law, a spouse or child were not allowed to continue the pursuit of an existing permanent status application once the primary applicant died.

The next group eligible is the family holding approved and pending petitions.  These include the children and spouses of the permanent resident, single children over 21 (unmarried), the children of US citizens who are married, and siblings of US citizens.

 The 3^rd group includes beneficiaries of approved and pending work-based visa applications, including those that are not yet approved.  The 4^th and the 5^th groups include the spouses and offspring of asylum seekers and their beneficiaries. These relatives are now able to continue with their visa application process even when the relative who had been petitioned has expired, as long as their applications were filed while he or she was still alive. The 6^th and final group consists of the spouses and offspring of the T and U visa holders, and these too may continue with the process of application after the primary beneficiary passes away.

While this new law passed by president Obama is beneficiary to many, there are still those who may not have been satisfied. For instance, the law does not include the remnant family members of a principle applicant who reside outside of the United States. However it definitely is worth appreciating that the United States’ government has realized that the existing laws have had an ill effect on family members of applicants that have died before their families’ visa applications were seen through. We believe that while there may be yet some ground to cover, the current law passed by the president will go a long way ensuring relief to many immigrant families.