USCIS Announces Fiscal Year 2016 Grant Recipients
Nearly $10 Million in Funding to Support Citizenship Preparation Programs in 21 States
Search
Can parents of U.S. citizens travel to the U.S. on an existing B-2 visa while their GC is pending?
Question details
I got my USA citizenship this Jan, and I want to start the green card process for my parents. They are currently with me in the USA on a visitor visa, however, they would like to go back to India in March after the 6 months of allowed stay in the USA.
So I want to know when I start the green card process for my parents when they are in India, can they still travel to the USA on their existing B-2 visitor visa (valid till 2026), or should they be in India until the consular processing for their green card is complete?
FAQ Transcript
The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) people do not hassle the parents or spouses of the U.S citizens too much as long as they are not entering to adjust to green card status within the United States. But if a CBP officer is either ill-informed or particularly unnecessarily harsh they could stop you and ask you to go back (which is unlikely).
A practical solution I would recommend to people is to do an immigration pre-clearance in Abu Dhabi (if you are traveling from India) that way if they are denied entry they just return from Abu Dhabi they don't have to come all the way to the United States.
Note: Where transcribed from audio/video, this is a verbatim transcript of the referenced audio/video media delivered as oral communication, and, therefore, may not conform to written grammatical or syntactical form.