How to Bring a Family Member to America the Legal Way, Step by Step

You have heard it at a hundred dinner tables: "There is no legal way to come here. The system is impossible. That is why people sneak in." It is a sentence that sounds like compassion and works like an excuse.

The legal system is slow, it is expensive in time and paperwork, and for some categories the wait is measured in years, even decades. But it is not a mystery and it is not closed. The path for a citizen or permanent resident who wants to sponsor a relative is written down, step by step, and the best answer to the claim that "there is no line" is to show people the line. So here it is.

A note before we start. This is a general map of the process, not advice about anyone's own case. Rules, forms and fees change, and individual facts matter a great deal. For your own situation, use the official government pages named below, and speak to a licensed immigration attorney or a representative accredited by the Department of Justice.

Step one: know who can sponsor whom

Everything begins with a relationship, and the law cares exactly what it is.

There are two kinds of sponsors: a U.S. citizen and a lawful permanent resident, the holder of a green card. What each can do is different.

Immediate relatives of a U.S. citizen. This is the privileged category. It includes the citizen's spouse, the citizen's unmarried children under twenty-one, and the parents of a citizen who is at least twenty-one. There is no annual numerical cap on these visas, which means there is no waiting line created by a quota. The wait is for processing, not for a number.

Family preference categories. Everyone else in the family system falls under a numerical limit, and the categories are:

• First preference (F1): unmarried sons and daughters, twenty-one or older, of U.S. citizens.
• Second preference (F2A): spouses and unmarried minor children of lawful permanent residents.
• Second preference (F2B): unmarried sons and daughters, twenty-one or older, of lawful permanent residents.
• Third preference (F3): married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens.
• Fourth preference (F4): brothers and sisters of adult U.S. citizens.

Notice who is missing. A green card holder cannot sponsor a parent or a sibling. Only a citizen can. That is a deliberate feature of the law and one reason that the path from permanent resident to citizen matters to a family. Whether the system should be this broad is a real policy argument, and I take it up in The Case for Nuclear-Family Immigration Over Extended Family Chains. For now, we are describing the law as it is.

There is also a separate route for a fiance of a U.S. citizen, using a petition for an alien fiance, which leads to a visa that must be followed by marriage within ninety days of arrival. It has its own form and its own rules, so read the official instructions if that is your situation.

Step two: file Form I-130

The sponsor starts the process by filing Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency inside the Department of Homeland Security that handles benefits.

What the petition does, and does not do, is worth being clear about. It establishes that the relationship exists. It does not by itself give the relative any right to come. It is the first gate, not the visa.

What goes in it, in general:

1. Proof of the sponsor's status. A citizen shows a birth certificate, a naturalization certificate or a passport. A permanent resident shows the green card.
2. Proof of the relationship. A marriage certificate for a spouse; a birth certificate showing the parent-child relationship; for a sibling, birth certificates showing a common parent. If a document is not in English, a certified translation is required.
3. Evidence that the relationship is genuine, in the case of a marriage. USCIS looks closely at marriages, because a sham marriage entered for immigration is a federal crime. Photographs, joint finances, a shared lease and other records help show a real marital life.
4. The filing fee, which changes from time to time. Check the current figure on the agency's website and the form's instructions, not on a blog, including this one.

The form should be filed exactly as the instructions say, at the location they name, with every required signature. Errors and missing documents cause rejections and delays, and a delay in a process this long is a costly thing.

When USCIS approves the petition, the date on which it was properly filed becomes the priority date. Hold on to that term. It is the single most important date in the family system.

Step three: understand the wait, the visa bulletin and the priority date

Here is where the numbers come in, and where a lot of confusion begins.

For immediate relatives of citizens, there is no numerical cap, and the process after approval moves straight on to the next stage. For the preference categories, Congress set annual limits on how many visas may be issued, and also limited the number that may go to nationals of any one country. When more people qualify than there are visas, a waiting line forms, and the line is ordered by priority date: the earlier your relative's date, the earlier in line.

The State Department publishes a monthly document, the Visa Bulletin, that tells you how the line is moving. It lists, by category and country, a cutoff date. If your relative's priority date is earlier than the cutoff date for the relevant category and country, a visa number is available. If it is later, the relative waits.

The bulletin has two sets of dates, and the difference trips people up:

• Final Action Dates show when a visa can actually be issued.
• Dates for Filing show when applicants may begin submitting documents to get ready, which the government may or may not allow people to use in a given month. Which chart applies is announced each month by USCIS for those applying from inside the country.

Wait times vary enormously. For some categories and countries they are short, and for others they are long, and they can move backward as well as forward. I will not give figures, because they change every month and because a number on a blog page is stale the day it is posted. Look up the current bulletin on the State Department's website, find your relative's category and country, and compare the cutoff with your priority date. That one comparison tells you where you stand.

The length of some of these waits is, frankly, a legitimate complaint. A brother of a citizen from a country with heavy demand may wait a very long time. Conservatives who favor a more selective, merit- and family-core system have a point when they say the extended-family categories produce huge backlogs and false hopes. That argument, and the opposite one, deserve an honest hearing, and you can read both in the posts linked at the end.

Step four: the National Visa Center

Once the I-130 is approved and the priority date is current, or nearly so, the case moves to the National Visa Center, run by the State Department. This is the stage where most of the paperwork piles up, and most of the mistakes happen.

If the relative is living abroad and will apply for an immigrant visa at a U.S. consulate, the National Visa Center is the hub. It does the following:

1. It assigns a case number and gives the applicant access to an online account.
2. It collects the fees for processing the visa application and for the affidavit of support review.
3. It collects the immigrant visa application, Form DS-260, which the relative completes online.
4. It collects the civil documents: birth certificate, marriage certificate, police certificates from the places the applicant has lived, court and military records where they apply, and a passport.
5. It collects the sponsor's financial documents, which brings us to the affidavit of support.
6. When the file is complete and the priority date is current, it schedules an interview at the consulate.

Follow the instructions on every notice. A missing document does not make the case disappear, but it will stop it cold.

Step five: the affidavit of support, Form I-864

This is the part of the process that I think every sponsor should read twice, because it is not a formality. It is a contract.

In most family cases, the sponsor must file Form I-864, Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the Immigration and Nationality Act. By signing it, the sponsor promises to support the immigrant at an income of at least 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines for the sponsor's household size, with a lower threshold for sponsors on active duty in the armed forces who are sponsoring a spouse or child. The sponsor attaches proof of income, typically tax transcripts and pay records.

If the sponsor's income is not enough, the law allows a joint sponsor, another U.S. citizen or permanent resident who agrees to take on the same obligation. The joint sponsor does not have to be a relative.

Now the part that matters. The obligation is legally enforceable. It generally lasts until the immigrant becomes a citizen, or can be credited with forty quarters of work in the United States (quarters in which he or she received certain federal means-tested benefits do not count), or leaves the country permanently or dies. It is not canceled by divorce. If the immigrant receives certain means-tested public benefits, the government agency that paid them may seek reimbursement from the sponsor, and the immigrant can also sue the sponsor to enforce the promise.

Why does this exist? It is the modern form of one of the oldest ideas in American immigration law, that a newcomer should not become a public charge. I tell that history in Self-Sufficiency Was the First Immigration Rule, the Public Charge Story. The affidavit puts the responsibility where a conservative would want it: on the family that invited the newcomer, not on the taxpayer. A sponsor who understands that this is a promise, and not a signature on a form, is a sponsor who will help the new arrival succeed.

Step six: the medical exam and the interview

Before the interview, the applicant has a medical examination by a physician approved by the State Department, and any required vaccinations are completed. Follow the consulate's instructions on who may perform the exam.

Then comes the consular interview. The relative appears at the U.S. embassy or consulate in his or her country with the originals of the documents, the passport, the medical results and the appointment letter. A consular officer asks questions to confirm that the relationship is real, that the applicant is admissible, and that the information in the file is true. Honest answers and organized documents are the best preparation. Lying about anything, including a past immigration violation, can create far bigger problems than the thing lied about.

The law lists grounds on which a person may be found inadmissible, including certain health conditions, criminal history, security concerns, prior immigration violations and the likelihood of becoming a public charge. In some cases a waiver is available. The interview is where the officer determines whether any ground applies.

If the officer approves the case, the applicant receives an immigrant visa in the passport. The applicant pays the USCIS immigrant fee, travels to the United States, is inspected at the port of entry and is admitted as a lawful permanent resident. The green card follows by mail.

The alternative: adjustment of status from inside the country

Not every relative is abroad. Some are already in the United States, lawfully, and the process then runs through adjustment of status using Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, filed with USCIS instead of going through a consulate.

Eligibility for adjustment is narrower than most people assume. In general, immediate relatives of citizens who were inspected and admitted or paroled, and who are not barred for other reasons, may adjust. Many people who entered without inspection, or who violated the terms of their stay, are not eligible to adjust and must follow a different route, and some face long bars on returning if they leave the country. Because the consequences of a wrong choice here can be severe, this is the point at which I would urge anyone with a complicated history to see a qualified attorney before filing anything.

Where to check: official sources only

Here is the practical bottom line, and it is the main reason a guide like this exists. The process runs on forms and fees that change. The way to protect yourself is to use only the official sources.

• The USCIS website for the current edition of every form, the instructions, the filing fees and the case-status tool.
• The State Department's Visa Bulletin page and the National Visa Center pages for cutoff dates and for what the center requires.
• The Department of Justice's list of accredited representatives and recognized organizations, and your state bar's list of attorneys, if you want help.

Be careful about "notarios" and consultants who promise results. In many Spanish-speaking communities a notario is a lawyer; in the United States a notary public is not, and fraudulent preparers have defrauded many families by taking money and filing nothing. Government forms are free to download. Never pay anyone who promises a guaranteed visa or a shortcut, and never sign a blank form.

Why this matters for the argument

The reason I wrote this as a how-to is that it answers a claim people make constantly, and the answer is easiest to give with the facts in hand.

The claim is that there is no legal way. The truth is that there is a legal way, it is long and sometimes very long, and the length is itself a policy choice made by Congress. The system sets numerical limits and per-country caps, and it ties the family categories to a priority date. Every year more people qualify than there are visas, and the backlog is the result. A fair-minded person can say two things at once: the legal path exists and is used by a large number of people every year, and a serious country could make it faster, clearer and more selective.

Conservatives have offered several ways to do that. Some would limit family categories to the nuclear family and use the freed-up numbers for skills. Some would adopt a points system. Others would keep the family system but fix the backlog with better administration. You can read about the first in The Case for Nuclear-Family Immigration Over Extended Family Chains, the second in What an American Points System Would Look Like Written Into Law, and a critique of one program that cuts against merit in Why a Green Card Lottery Makes No Sense for a Serious Country. A reasonable person may favor any of them. What none of them requires is pretending that the existing path does not exist.

There is a moral point here, too. The people who file the forms, pay the fees, wait the years and sit for the interview have made a promise to follow the rules. A country that honors that promise, and that enforces its rules against those who do not follow them, is a country that takes legal immigration seriously. I would rather our law be demanding and fair than permissive and arbitrary.

The case in brief

1. A U.S. citizen may sponsor a spouse, an unmarried child under twenty-one and a parent without a numerical cap, and a citizen or permanent resident may sponsor relatives in the capped preference categories.
2. The process begins with Form I-130 filed with USCIS, and the filing date becomes the priority date that fixes the relative's place in line.
3. The State Department's monthly Visa Bulletin shows which priority dates are current, and the National Visa Center collects fees, Form DS-260 and the civil documents.
4. The sponsor signs the enforceable Form I-864 affidavit of support, promising to keep the relative from becoming a public charge, and the relative completes a medical exam and a consular interview, or adjusts status from inside the country if eligible.
5. The path is slow by design of Congress, and it exists, so the honest debate is about how to make it faster and more selective, not whether it is there.

What you can do: if you know a family working through this process, point them to the official USCIS and State Department pages and to a licensed attorney or accredited representative, and warn them never to pay anyone who promises a guaranteed visa.