West Hempstead, NY Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

There are 3 conditions: 1. You need to be a U.S. citizen 2. You need to be 21 or older 3. Your mother needs to have come into the U.S. legally, with a visa or a border crossing card, after being inspected and admitted at the border. For most people who post this question on LawQ&A, the first two conditions are not a problem - but the last one often is. Some people who live in the U.S. without a legal status have once come here on a visa and did not leave when their permission to be here ended; if one of such people gets married to an American or becomes a parent of a child who was born in the U.S. or naturalized as a U.S. citizen, that person's legal status can be "fixed" But majority of the so-called "illegal immigrants" were never legal in the U.S. They came across the border without a visa or a border crossing card, never asked for a permission to enter, never received an admission stamp into passport. If your mother is one of such people, you cannot help her become legal now. Under the present law, she is "inadmissible", which means that she cannot get a green card until she goes to her country of citizenship for 10 years. There are exceptions from this rule, but they are very difficult to obtain and do not include parents of U.S. citizens, only children and spouses. President Obama attempted to give this category of people permission to work and some measure of protection from deportation but his program was challenged in the courts and might be blocked through the remainder of his presidency. So, if you an adult U.S. citizen, and your mother came to the U.S. with a visa, go to USCIS.gov and start downloading forms and instructions posted there. You need forms I-130, G-325 (one for yourself + one for your mother), I-485, I-864, I-765, and I-131. Follow the instructions very carefully, and you should do fine. But if your mom is one of the people who entered the U.S. without inspection, the solution can be found only through a democratic process: the immigration law has to be changed; so we have to get enough votes in the Congress to make a reform happen.

You don't! You instead need to determine if you are eligible to change status to a different category, which would allow you to obtain work permission.