April 3, 2001
Washington: The US government has announced that its overseas consular posts started issuing new "V" category visas from April 1 to "certain spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents (LPRs or green card holders) in the United States."
"To be eligible to apply for the new V visa, an overseas applicant must have had an immigration petition filed on his/her behalf by the legal permanent resident family member with INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) on or before December 21, 2000, the date of enactment of the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act (LIFE Act)," State department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
In addition, the applicant must have been waiting for an available visa number for at least three years since the petition (Form I-130) was filed.
In March 2001, the State department sent informational letters to those applicants who might be eligible to apply for the new V visa. The letters asked interested applicants to contact the US Embassy or Consulate in their country of residence to inquire about local application procedures.
The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act (LIFE), signed into law on December 21, 2000, created a number of immigration benefits, including a new V visa and status.
The immigrant visas category for spouses and minor children of LPRs (F2A) is numerically limited by statute each year. As a result, these immediate family members of LPRs previously had to wait many years for availability of an immigrant visa number before they could join their families in the United States. The LIFE Act effectively limits that period of family separation to no more than three years.
Those issued V visas will be allowed to enter the US as non-immigrants, reunite with family members in the US and wait in the US for the process of legal immigration to be completed.
Persons eligible for V status already living in the United States must wait until the US INS publishes V regulations in the Federal Register before applying for V non- immigrant status and work authorization.
Those persons should contact INS for processing information. The LIFE Act also created a second new non-immigrant visa for spouses of US citizens and minor children of those spouses, the K3 and K4 visas. At this time, overseas consular posts will not be able to issue these visas because the means of meeting all of the statutory requirements involving additional petitions by those seeking to qualify have not been fully worked out with INS.
