United States, 11th February: US immigration reform will allow spouses and grandchildren to come to the US legally.
This will be possible under the expanded Central American Refugee Program.
USCIS to offer visas to undocumented immigrants’ family members—Undocumented immigrants’ family members including spouse and grandchildren will be offered US visas by the USCIS(US Citizenship and Immigration Services).
<blockquote> The USCIS will be providing family members of undocumented immigrants with US visas. </blockquote>
This will be under a new program for extended family members of undocumented immigrants from some nations. Expanded Central American Refugee Program is likely to enable spouses and grandchildren of undocumented immigrants to enter the US legally.
Central Americans Minors Program—The Central Americans Minors(CAM) Refugee/Parole Program targets to provide a safe and an orderly legal option to the dangerous path being undertaken by some children to the US.
It is a free program debuted by the US State Department and the DHS(Department of Homeland Security) in November to provide children with a legal and an orderly alternative. It covers some qualified minors in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Nearly 63,000 unaccompanied minor children were found between October 2013 and July 2014 at the US Mexico border. This increase could be due to rising gang violence and crimes in the home nations of the kids.
Applications acceptance from 1st December under CAM program—The CAM program had started accepting applications from 1st December, 2014. Although, the CAM’s main initiative is to help children. However, it also includes some immigrants’ grandchildren and spouses.
Criteria for a qualifying child and a qualifying parent under CAM program—Well, let us see the qualifying criteria for a child and a parent under the CAM program.
Qualifying parents include those whose deportations were deferred or who received the status of deferred action. And persons granted deferred action or parolees should have been issued deferred action or parole for not less than one year, states the USCIS.
And a parent must be older than 18 years and in the US lawfully under the US permanent resident status, parolee, temporary protected status, deferred action, withholding of removal or deferred enforced departure.
Unmarried kids of any qualifying child(grandchildren of the original qualifying parent) can also migrate. And the spouse of any qualifying parent is also eligible for the program.
Meanwhile, it is not yet clear if the CAM program will be covering around 5 million undocumented immigrants likely to benefit from Obama’s 2014 immigration reform steps.