Family Based

 

Family reunification is at the core of U.S. immigration law. Family based immigration enables immediate relaties of U.S. citizens (USC) and lawful permanent residents (LPR) to immigrate to the United States. Immediate relative include spouses of USCs, unmarried minor children of USCs, and parents of USCs. 

The family members immigrate to the U.S. either as immediate relatives of USCs or through the family preference system. Under the family preference system, married or unmarried adult children of USCs, brothers and sisters of USCs and spouses, minor and adult unmarried children of LPRs. As there are limited number of visas available every year under this system, backlog develops obviously because there are more applicants than the number of visas available.

Preference system:

Certain relatievs of USCs and all the relatives of LPRs are subject to numerical restriction appliacble to thier respective category. There are four family-based preference categories. The U.S department of State publishes "Visa Bulletein" which provides the list of priority dates being currently processed in a specific preference category.