The BIA in Legaspi drew the line for grandfathering and made it all that more confusing. Try to follow this one. In Legaspi, the immigrant’s wife was the child listed in a petition filed for her father by his father (her grandfather). The immigrant wife’s father was the main beneficiary of the petition filed by April 30, 2011. Yes, the immigrant’s wife is grandfathered under the father’s petition. But, since the immigrant’s wife did not have a petition directly filed to benefit her by that cut off date, he could not use her grandfathering status (as the child of a 245(i) beneficiary) to qualify himself as a grandfathered alien because he married her and skip consular processing, the ten year bar, and who knows what else.
As you can read, 245(i) can be very fact specific and complicated. Even 10 years later, it’s still being used to qualify family for green cards.
Attorney Heather L. Poole practices exclusively in the area of U.S. family-based immigration law and citizenship law. Heather is a nationally-published immigration author, frequent lecturer on immigration issues, and member & officer of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Southern California Chapter. For more information about Heather and the services offered, visit www.humanrightsattorney.com
