Immigration Corner | What does the priority date mean?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington

Please clarify which date is regarded as the priority date regarding a visa petition?

My wife’s mother filed for her in November 2010. However, she got a letter approving the petition in October 2015. As such, please could you clarify which date is the priority date?

CW

Dear CW,

The priority date is important in US immigrant visa petitions because it cements a beneficiary’s place in line for a visa, and when that date is current, a visa is available for the beneficiary. Only beneficiaries who are immediate relatives of US citizens do not have to concern themselves with priority dates because their visas are immediately available. Immediate relatives are spouses of US citizens, under 21-year-old children of American citizens, and parents of over 21 year old American citizens.

The priority date is the date when the visa petition is received by US Citizenship & Immigration Services. In this case it is November 2010. If you examine the approval notice carefully, you should see a box that is labelled ‘Priority Date’, as well as a couple other dates. The approval notice should also indicate the preference category that your wife’s petition is classified under, and that should be the F3 preference category – the married daughter of an American citizen.

When an immigrant visa petition is approved and the priority date is assigned, you should concern yourselves with the processing of the visa application by the National Visa Center. You may visit the Department of State’s website at www.travel.stage.gov to check the monthly Visa Bulletin. There you will see two charts that pertain to your wife’s filing – one when the applications are being processed and the other when the visa is available. Both charts use the priority date and the preference category to determine when files are being processed. In the month of October, visas are available in the F3 preference category for those persons with a priority date earlier than January 8, 2009. Priority dates earlier than March 8, 2010, are being processed.

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