Can Adjustment of Status is possible if applicant is Permanent Resident?

[Keyur Patel]

Hello everyone,

Please help me to understand - who can apply for Adjustment of Status?

Family petition I-130 is approved by USCIS. My lawyer says we cannot file Adjustment of status because the applicant is Permanent Resident and not US Citizen.
For US Citizens, they can file the Adjustment of status based on visa bulletin - Dates for Filing Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications whenever Priority date falls under the date.
But US Residents, they can only file the Adjustment of status based on visa bulletin - Final Action dates for Family-sponsored preference cases whenever Priority date is current.

Please help me with the question. Appreciate your answers.

Thanks!

[boogiewoogie]

if married to US citizen you can file for AOS right away. There's no cap on this.
if married to LPR there's a quota and the visa bulletin will let you know when a free spot opens up.
this usually is around 2 years from filing 130 but I dont have person experience with this.

[newacct]

Hello everyone,

Please help me to understand - who can apply for Adjustment of Status?

Family petition I-130 is approved by USCIS. My lawyer says we cannot file Adjustment of status because the applicant is Permanent Resident and not US Citizen.
For US Citizens, they can file the Adjustment of status based on visa bulletin - Dates for Filing Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications whenever Priority date falls under the date.
But US Residents, they can only file the Adjustment of status based on visa bulletin - Final Action dates for Family-sponsored preference cases whenever Priority date is current.

Please help me with the question. Appreciate your answers.

Thanks!

The spouse of a citizen is in the Immediate Relative category, which never has any wait for visa numbers. The Immediate Relative category does not appear on the visa bulletin.

The spouse of a permanent resident is in the F2A category, which has a wait for visa numbers, and does appear on the visa bulletin. For deciding whether Adjustment of Status can be filed in a given month, you must look at USCIS's chart, which only has one chart every month. Each month, USCIS takes one of the two Department of State charts and chooses one of them; and this is not under your control. Usually for family-based categories, they choose Date for Filing for the first few months of the fiscal year (fiscal years start in October), and Final Action Date for the last few months of the fiscal year. Last fiscal year, for family-based categories they did Date for Filing from Oct 2016 to Mar 2017, and Final Action Date from Apr 2017 to Sep 2017. This fiscal year, for family-based categories they have done Date for Filing from Oct 2017 up to now (June 2018) so far; who knows when they will switch over. Obviously, since Final Action Date chart dates are a lot behind the Date for Filing chart dates, little or no people will be able to file during the months that they do Final Action Date, and then a lot of people will be able to file in October when they switch back to Date for Filing. So the wait time before I-485 can be filed in the F2A categories varies a lot depending on the luck of how your priority date fits into when they switch charts and stuff; it could be as short as 9 months or as long as 23 months.

Note that the person cannot do AOS in a non-Immediate Relative family-based category (like F2A) if they are out of status, so they must maintain status all the way until a month when I-485 can be filed.

[lotx1]

Hi everyone,

i am getting married to a permanent resident, and i am working in the US under a visa E2 (linked to my company). Would i be able to apply for an adjustment of status that will allow me to work in the USA for any company?

Thanks for your help!

[newacct]

Hi everyone,

i am getting married to a permanent resident, and i am working in the US under a visa E2 (linked to my company). Would i be able to apply for an adjustment of status that will allow me to work in the USA for any company?

Thanks for your help!

Your spouse can file the I-130 petition after you get married. After 1-2 years when a visa number becomes available, you can file I-485 for Adjustment of Status if you are still in the US and in status at that time.