New Immigration Bill Favorable to Filipinos

Filipinos will be among those who will specifically benefit from the comprehensive immigration reform bill that was introduced in the House last December 15.

The bill will reduce the existing visa backlogs in the family and employment-based visa categories and will exempt nurses and physical therapists and the sons and daughters of Filipino World War II veterans from the annual numerical limitations.

Filipinos have the longest wait time for family-based visa numbers. The January 2010 Visa Bulletin shows their waiting time as follows:

Unmarried sons and daughters of citizens “ 16 years.

Spouses and children of permanent residents “ 4 years;

unmarried sons and daughters of permanent residents “ 11 years

Married sons and daughters (21 years or over) of citizens “ 18 years

Brothers and sisters of citizens “ 22 years.

Under the bill, unused family and employment visas from 1992 to 2008 will be recaptured and all future unused visa numbers will be rolled over to the next fiscal year. These recaptured visas would add hundreds of thousands to the visa pool and as a result, some preference categories will probably become current while the others will have a considerable reduction in their visa number wait.

In addition, spouses and children of lawful permanent residents who are now classified under the second preference will be upgraded to the immediate relative classification, thus exempting them from the annual cap.

The percentage limit of visas issued for each country will be increased from the current seven (7%) percent of the worldwide total.

Other provisions favor stepchildren and children of fiancés of U.S. citizens.

The fiancé’s child will be protected from aging out of eligibility to adjust to conditional resident states as his eligibility for immigration benefits will be based on his age at the time the U.S. citizen files a petition for the fiancé or spouse.

The bill will also ensure that immediate relatives of the deceased petitioner will be allowed to pursue there immigration petition even after the petitioner’s death.

The bill also recognizes the contribution of Filipino World War II veterans by exempting their sons and daughters from the annual visa cap. This is of vital importance since these veterans are aging and time is of the essence when it comes to their dream of family reunification.

Finally, nurses and physical therapists will be able to immigrate immediately as the bill will exempt them from the numerical limitations. Most nurses and physical therapists are recruited from the Philippines to ease the shortage of health professionals. But because they are classified under the employment-based third (3rd) preference category, they have to wait for up to seven (7) years for their visa numbers.