Call For Stories: Aged-Out Child Of a Legal Permanent Resident?
By Prerna Lai, DREAM ACTIVIST
Here’s some good news: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to re-hear the Child Status Protection Act class action litigation, Cuellar de Osorio v. Holder. If they rule in favor of the petitioners, thousands of undocumented youth, immigrant youth with legal resident parents and young adults separated from their parents will become eligible for green cards.
Our task is simple. As undocumented youth, we have a vested interest in this case. We’re undocumented youth who are only undocumented because we were aged-out of family visa, employment or asylum petitions contrary to the rule of law. As such, we’re looking for actual cases where children have aged-out of a petition filed by their grandparents (F-3) or uncles/aunts (F-4), an employer sponsor case, an asylum case, and the parents immigrated or adjusted their status to that of legal permanent residents. The adult unmarried son/daughter either got left behind in their country of origin or could not adjust status with their parents and has to wait in a long line again or was denied asylum as a result. In some cases, the adult son/daughter becomes what is popularly known as “a Dreamer.” In other cases, they have ended up in deportation proceedings or detention.
The best kind of cases are be ones where the legal immigrant parents subsequently filed a new petition on behalf of the aged-out unmarried adult son/daughter, attempting to retain the original priority date and USCIS refused, placing the adult unmarried son/daughter in deportation proceedings.
But your story doesn’t have to be limited to that fact-pattern. In short, if you have a case where the parents got their green cards but their own children got left out of the process because they were over 21, please shoot us an email at admin@dreamactivist.org.
This request is for an amicus curiae brief to be filed with the Ninth Circuit. Your name can be redacted, or an alias is acceptable. You can choose to remain confidential and still partake in this historic case.
If you need more information about the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) or need clarification of the request, feel free to shoot us an email as well so we can clarify.
Prerna Lal is a J.D. Candidate at The George Washington University Law School. She is a co-founder of DreamActivist.org and serves as a Board Director for Immigration Equality. You can find out more about her at http://prernalal.com
This article first appeared in DREAM ACTIVIST.
