Senators Menendez (D-NJ), Gillibrand (D-NY), Kennedy (D-MA), and Schumer (D-NY) introduced the Reuniting Families Act (S. 1085) recently. The bill if passed into law, would allow U.S. citizens and lawful permanent resident petitioners and their relatives abroad, to reunite in the United States in a more timely manner. The bill would reform the immigration laws concerning family based immigration to end lengthy separations due to the lack of immigrant visas and other bureaucratic delays.
The two (2) most siginifcant aspects of this bill are the following:
- The Reclassification of spouses and unmarried minor children of lawful permanent residents as immediate relatives; and
- The Recapture of unused immigrant visas from prior fiscal years and adding them to the existing number of immigrant visas for all family based categories (currently 480,000).
Reclassifying spouses and unmarried minor children of lawful permanent residents as immediate relatives would all-together eliminate those relatives having to be subject to lengthy backlogs. Currently, the backlog for this immigrant visa category ranges from six (6) to eight (8) years.
Historically, all immigrant visas for any given fiscal year were required to be issued. Otherwise, the unused immigrant visas would remain in abeyance and could not be carried over to the next fiscal year.
Recapturing unused immigrant visas would significantly reduce the backlog for all immigrant visa categories. The current number of immigrant visas available every fiscal year is 480,000. By adding the unused visas from prior years (1992-2007), the number of available immigrant visas may reach close to 1 million.
