Petitioning Relatives

[Abby14]

I am an US citizen (reside in TX) and would like to petition visas for my parents and sister. My questions are:

1. Can they enter the US with their tourist visas and wait here for their green cards to be processed? No matter how long it takes?
2. Can they work while they await their green card by applying for a temporary work permit?
3. Can I file the petition for all at the same time or is it better to submit one (parents) and later for my sister? Does it make any difference?

THANKS!

[evcalyptos]

Originally Posted by Abby14

I am an US citizen (reside in TX) and would like to petition visas for my parents and sister. My questions are:

1. Can they enter the US with their tourist visas and wait here for their green cards to be processed? No matter how long it takes?
2. Can they work while they await their green card by applying for a temporary work permit?
3. Can I file the petition for all at the same time or is it better to submit one (parents) and later for my sister? Does it make any difference?

THANKS!

1. No they may not. Each parent needs their own I-130 petition. You can expect their case to take 8-12 months average before they have the visa to move to the US.
2. No.
3. You can submit all 3 I-130s now. Parents are Immediate Relatives and their petitions will be approved and a visa application started for them (no quote). There is a quota for siblings, so you can put your sister's petition in now, but she will have a significant wait for a visa number. Please see the Visa Bulletin at travel.state.gov
The longer you wait to put in your sister's petition, the longer it will be before she can get a visa.

[Abby14]

Thank you for your prompt reply! When you say a significant wait, do you mean years? Any idea what the current average can be? I looked at the July Visa bulletin on the US Dept of State Web site but to be honest, I'm not quite sure how to interpret what is currently there.

[evcalyptos]

Originally Posted by Abby14

Thank you for your prompt reply! When you say a significant wait, do you mean years? Any idea what the current average can be? I looked at the July Visa bulletin on the US Dept of State Web site but to be honest, I'm not quite sure how to interpret what is currently there.

Yeah, I meant years.
When you look at the bulletin it helps you determine your sister's category.

Fourth: Brothers and Sisters of Adult Citizens: 65,000, plus any numbers not required by first three preferences.

Your sister is a Family Based Fourth Preference, aka FB4. The siblings of USCs who are currently getting their visas from their US citizen sibling's I-130 were originally petitioned in 22OCT98 (unless from China, India, Phils or Mexico).
There is no accurate way to predict the future, but that category normally stays very backlogged.. more people apply every year than there are visas available.

Now, once your parent arrive and become Permanent Residents, THEY can also petition for her (you keep yours going, she just adds two more). The timeline & category would be different for your sister then. Depending on her age, and married or unmarried (actually she must be unmarried for your parents to petition her) status.
When your parents naturalize, they can 'upgrade' their petitions for her again, changing her category. All along, she retains the priority date from when each I-130 is filed.

The short answer is that you can bring your parents virtually immediately. Your sister is on her own for the immediate future.