Fate of Green Card Holders in USA

Court orders the Immigration Officials to consider the old date of applications made by Green Card Holders

In USA, the synonym for Permanent Resident Card is “Green Card Holder”. A Green Card holder in USA allows a lot many benefits to the holder like, one can enter and leave USA at his will without any restrictions on the same, one can apply for financial aid to earn education. They can even work at any institution and can make applications at their will.

In a recent development, a federal appeals court has suggested that immigration officials should give priority to thousands of green card applications who have lost their residency status in USA after turning 21.

The court has informed that US Citizen and Immigration Services had taken wrong decisions on the issue of eligibility criteria for the children of green card holders.

The immigration officials are abiding by the logic of American law that children who are 21 and above can’t immigrate under their parents applications for green cards.

The court believes that the processing time took longer than expected and hence these children crossed the age limit.

The court has emphasized on the fact that the original date of application should be preserved and taken into consideration rather than looking into the present date. Children can’t be punished or victimized if the processing took so long.

The court stands strongly against the action of immigration officials, because they opine that the applicants under no circumstances should file new applications if the dates have failed due to prolonged period of processing.

The opposition says that there are thousands of green card holder children who would start claiming their citizenship if old application dates are considered. They fear that people will take undue advantage of the same.

However, the court has given the decision that “processing of files” is a complete responsibly of the officials and not the card holders, provided the applications are complete in all respects. Hence the penalty should never be borne by the children of these applicants if they have turned 21 before the final step could be taken in the direction of them getting a “Green Card”.

The Judges have considered the laws to be ambiguous and hence steps should be taken to reserve the rights of the children of Green Card Holders.