Negaunee, MI Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

The difficulty in your situation is that your wife's second trip and the contemplated third trip being so close to the second one may raise questions as to whether your wife is meeting the requirement of continuous presence in the US, but the other major concern if you are thinking of leaving her behind when you take another trip of some duration is that she is also required to be in constant residence with you under the three-year rule. Given your situation, your wife should go with you if you have to leave, but try to amass as much evidence as she can of US ties such as US property – real and personal, tax returns, US bank accounts, state license or identity card, utility bills, insurance, membership in associations or societies, etc. Due to the limitations of the Lawyers.com Forums, Alan Lee, Esq.'s (the "Firm") participation in responding to questions posted herein does not constitute legal advice, nor legal representation of the person or entity posting a question. No Attorney/Client relationship is or shall be construed to be created hereby. The information provided herein by the Firm is general, and requires that the poster obtain specific legal advice from an attorney. The poster shall not rely upon the information provided herein as legal advice nor as the basis for making any decisions of legal consequence.      

Yes, it is possible to change status from B-2 visitor to L-1 intracompany transferee employee, provided you meet the eligibility requirements for L-1 visa. Your dependents may also follow you to the U.S. as your L-2 dependents. The adjudication of an application to change status from B-2 to L-1 may take 2-4 months. If a request for evidence is issued, it may take longer.

Generally, a U.S. citizen son or daughter (who is 21 years or more of age) can petition for his/her parents. So in your case, you will be able to file the petition for your mother. You can also file a petition for your step father, if your step father and your mother were married before you turned 18 year old. However, because your parents entered the U.S. illegally, they would not be eligible to file adjustment of status applications (Greencard applications), in the U.S. (unless there was another petition filed for them prior to April 30, 2001, by a relative or an employer). If they don't have a prior petition (prior to April 30, 2001), they would have to do consular processing for immigrant visa, which means that they would have to leave the U.S. to process their immigrant visa in their home country. This however, would cause serious problems, because when they leave the U.S. (even for a day) for the immigrant visa interview, they would trigger the 10-year bar to reentry into the U.S. That is, the consulate would tell them that because their illegal presence in the U.S. of more than one year, they cannot return to the U.S. for 10 years (even if they have a approved relative petition filed by their son). Usually, a person can apply for a waiver of this 10-year illegal presence bar to reentry into the U.S. However, to file the waiver the person must show that if the waiver is not granted, it would cause "extreme and unusual" hardship to their qualifying U.S. citizen relative. The qualifying U.S. citizens for the purpose of the waiver are Spouses and Parents of the applicant, but NOT the children. That is, in the case of your parents, they would not be able to file a waiver application because you their child is not a qualifying relative for the waiver. So unless they have their parents (your grandparents) here in the U.S. as U.S. citizens or Permanent Residents, your parents would not be eligible to file the waiver application. Which would mean they wouldn't be able to return to the U.S. for 10 years. Unfortunately, even though you would be a U.S. citizen, at this point they won't be able to adjust status or do consular processing of immigrant visa (because of their ineligibility to even apply for a waiver). So in my view the best thing for you to do at this point is to wait for the immigration reform and see if something comes out of that.