Accompanying or Following-To-Join Derivative Children Beneficiary of Preference Family Categories or Employment-Based Categories or Immigration Lottery Category:
Currently, if a unmarried child of 20 years or younger applies a green card as a dependant child of a parent who applies for green card through preference family petition or employment-based petition or immigration lottery registration, the child should complete the green card before he/she reaches 21 years of age. Otherwise, the child is unable to apply for the green card as a dependant.
Under the new law, the cutoff date is determined by the date when the parent's priority date becomes available in the Visa Bulletin. Accordingly, such child will be able to obtain a green card as an accompanying beneficiary or a following-to-join beneficiary even after he/she reaches 21 years of age inasmuch as he/she applies for a green card within 1 year from the date when the priority date becomes available in the Visa Bulltin. In counting the child's age, the number of days spent for the parent's petition approval is taken out.
For instance, if the I-130 petition for the parent (in family-based immigrant petition) or the I-140 petition for the parent (in family-based immigrant petiton) took one year and at the time the visa number(priority date) becomes available for the parent, the child has already reached 21 years of age, the child is still considered "child" for the purpose of eligibility for immigration benefit as a derivative dependent child beneficiary and such child can apply for either I-485 adjustment of status or immigrant vis even if the child is older than 21 years of age.