Discussion about this post

User's avatar
feral lunch lady's avatar

I feel like a busybody, but it occurred to me, restaurant work is so awful anyway, would he consider studying to be a nursing or dental assistant? Those are good jobs and don't require perfect English. Maybe get a student visa? There are plenty of shady American schools that accept foreign students, a lot of those students disappear. So he could legit study for a better job or just go to a diploma mill to get into the country.

Expand full comment
Milimelo's avatar

A lot in there to unpack. Immediate family members of USC (parent, child under 21, spouse) have visa number available immediately and the only wait is the USCIS processing time (currently around a year) plus NVC and wait for visa interview (NVC could take a long time if not everything is done right from start and if they send it back for something missing that’s another 3 months), interview wait times are the leftover cases from 2020 and 2021 plus anyone else scheduled before you - covid shutdowns only caused pile up of cases.

Family preference category (F2A- spouse of LPR or child under 21; F2B - unmarried child of LPR over 21; F3 - unmarried child of USC over 21; F4 - sibling of USC) are visa number restricted and only certain number of immigrant visas can be issued yearly. Mexico, Philippines take the longest in F4 category - above 20 years until visa in hand. Most other countries are currently at about 15 years. There’s no skipping the line or expediting the process. All monthly upcoming visa processing can be seen on State Department’s visa bulletin - gives you action dates.

For H1B there is a lottery every year and if the person is selected they have to wait until October 1 to get to the US.

J1 visa can be for students, researchers, medical. Some come with 2-yr home residence requirement.

For covid shots - CDC specifically lists the requirements not applying to immigrants so I’m puzzled why there would be covid shot requirement for visa.

Expand full comment
5 more comments...

No posts