Brownstown Township, MI Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

If your F-1 visa status was never formally terminated by U.S.C.I.S. in a written decision or if you did not have the F-1 status terminated in the immigration court, you could possibly interview at the American consulate or embassy in your home country for an immigrant visa. You would not be barred from coming back unless either of the circumstances as described above occurred since the status of an F-1 student is duration of status without a fixed time limit. 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.    

I have some bad news for you: you cannot help your parents. Under the immigration law as it exists today, they cannot get green cards because they did not enter the U.S. legally. There might be an "immigration consultant" or even an attorney who will tell them to go back to their country so they could get green cards through the U.S. consul. Such an adviser is either ignorant of the law - or simply does not care about anything except getting paid for "handling" your case. The law is clear: if your parents leave the U.S., they will not come back for, at least, 10 years. The existing waivers of this 10-year bar do not apply to parents of U.S. citizens. So, don't get conned. As you likely heard, the President and the Congress are working on an immigration law reform. The new law might give people like your parents a way to become legal residents of this country. But the reform is no closer to be enacted today than it was a year ago. So you can wait for our elected representatives to complete their negotiations over the pork barrels that must be conceded in exchange for recognition of your parents' basic rights. Or you can try letting your congressman or senator know how you feel about this issue. Or, better yet, you might look around for a community group or organization that advocates for the immigration reform and join it. After all, this is the idea of citizenship - that changes to the better happen when we make them happen.