Immigration Corner | How will this pregnancy affect my filing?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

My husband is a United States citizen and he is filing for me and our child. I am currently waiting for a date to go the US Embassy in Jamaica.

I recently found out that I’m pregnant, would that affect my filing?

Concerned

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Dear Concerned,

Your unborn baby has some options with his/her father being a US citizen. The child of a citizen of the United States born outside of the United States is entitled to acquire US citizenship from their parent. However, there are stringent requirements that is governed by the year of birth of the US citizen parent and how much time the US citizen parent has spent in the United States. The bestowal of US citizenship is a privilege and is thoroughly investigated, and the application would be made to the US Department of State via the US Embassy in Kingston.

If your unborn child is unable to acquire US citizenship through his/her father, then your husband will have to file a petition for that baby to migrate to America. Once the baby is in America and living with his/her US citizen father, the child can acquire citizenship through a different process, via US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and apply for a US passport. This may delay you leaving Jamaica permanently if your husband has to file for the child after he/she is born.

If you are still pregnant at the time of the immigrant visa interview, depending on whether the US immigration-certified doctor in Jamaica will allow you to do an X-ray as part of your medical examination, your visa may be delayed until after you give birth and can be subject to the required X-rays and full medical examination.

I am a little concerned that in your email, you said you already have one child, but that “you” are waiting on your visa appointment. I do hope that as an American citizen your husband filed a separate petition for your current child. Listing the child on your application does not equal filing for that child, and your husband needs to have a separate petition pending for that child. Unless, of course, your current child already acquired US citizenship from his/her father – if the child was born after your husband became a US citizen and all the requirements were met.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq, is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a diversity and inclusion consultant, mediator, and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com