BAGON LAW FIRM

FAMILY – SPONSORED PREFERENCES F1: Significant forward movement happened to all chargeability areas, China and India (15 OCT 04 – 22 DEC 04); A week of forward movement to Mexico (15 APR 93 – 22 APR 93) and also a forward movement to Philippines (15 APR 97 - 22 MAY 97). F2A: 2012 sure does bring us good luck because for the F2A category, all chargeability areas, China and India made  significant forward movement that jumped more than a month (22 APR 09 – 08 JUN 09) ; Mexico also made  progress positively (22 MAR 09 – 08 MAY 09); and the Philippines (22 APR 09 – 08 JUN 09). F2B: Forward movement to all chargeability areas, China and India (08 SEP 03 – 15 OCT 03); Mexico became stagnant for a while which stayed put on the same date (1 DEC 92); Philippines in this category made a big hop of a period of two months (01 SEP 01 – 01 NOV 01). F3: A month of forward movement to all chargeability areas, China and India (01 NOV 01 – 01 DEC 01); Also a slight forward movement to Mexico (22 DE

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans a rule change to help reduce the time illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from citizen relatives while they try to win legal status in the United States, a senior administration official said Thursday. Currently, illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission. The official said the new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask the government to decide on the waiver request before the illegal immigrant heads to his or her home country to apply for a visa. The illegal immigrants still must go home to finish the visa process to come back to the U.S., but getting the waiver ahead of time could reduce the time an illegal immigrant is out of the country. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposed

USCIS Announces Changes to Stand-Alone I-130 Filing Locations Published Dec. 23, 2011; revised Jan. 1, 2012 WASHINGTON – On January 1, 2012, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) changed the filing locations for Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative.  Domestic petitioners will now mail their stand-alone I-130 applications to either the Chicago Lockbox or the Phoenix Lockbox, depending on their residence in the United States.  Updated filing addresses are available at this link: Form I-130 Direct Filing Locations .  This effort will balance workloads between the two locations and provide more efficient and effective processing of Form I-130.  There will be no change in filing locations when submitting Form I-130 along with Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status. Individuals filing these forms together will continue to mail them to the Chicago Lockbox facility. Petitioners filing from overseas addresses in countries witho