Legal Question in Immigration Law in Virginia

Re: Children

Sure. There are several possibilities. As a permanent resident, you can simply petition for visas for them. Your 11-year-old will be in what's called Family Preference 2A. The visa backlog for 2A is about 5 years. Whether there is a category for your 24-year-old turns on whether they're married. If they are unmarried, they would be in preference 2B, where the backlog about 9 years. If they are married, there is no preference category for them, meaning you would not be able to petition for them as a permanent resident.

Since you've been a permanent resident for 6 years, assuming you haven't committed certain crimes or anything, you should be eligible to naturalize and become a US citizen. This would at least allow you to petition for your 24-year-old if they're married. They would be 3rd preference with a backlog of about 8 years. If they are unmarried, they would be moved up to 1st preference with a backlog of 6 years. The 11-year-old would be moved up to the immediate relative category, meaning they would immediately be able to get a visa -- no backlog.

Under certain circumstances, priority dates -- the dates the backlog is determined by -- automatically change when you naturalize. It may be possible to file petitions for both children now, and also file for naturalization. When naturalization is approved, you may be able to have the priority categories automatically switched.

Please contact my office if your interested in a more detailed explanation of how this works.

Re: Children

Your husband who's an American citizen

may be able to sponsor the application for lawful permanent residency(green card) for the 11 year old boy as his stepson, and, if not as his stepson, he could then adopt the child and sponsor him as his own child for the so-called "green card".

You also could sponsor your daughter for lawful permanent residency (LPR, but the expedited prodecures for family reunification that are available to U.S. citizens would not be applicableto you as a non-citizen, and your daughter would have to get in line with the many other Peruvians who are legally seeking to enter the United States.

However, probably the most expeditious way for you to achieve your goal would be for you yourself to become a U.S. citzen and then you could sponsor both of your children(assuming your daughter remains unmarried)for lawful permanent residency en Los Estados Unidos.