green card holder has a custody over newphew

[Mark88 184]

That's why my suggestion with a student visa. If it's financially doable, compared with getting a green card, a student visa is fairly easy. The child can easily live with you for years in legal status.

[Boiler 46,141]

F1 all the way

[aaron2020 11,651]

Hi,

I have been reading a few topics on this forum but did not find it directly related to my situation. I am getting a green card through my employer in 2014/2015. We started the process a few months back but I am getting ready for the next step of adding a family. I am unmarried and have no biological children.

I have a newphew in Russia of 14 years old at the moment. My brother is his biological father and is the only parent at the moment. The mother of the child has been deprived of any rights in 2013. She lives in another part of the world and forgot about the child. This year I will be getting a custody of the child along with my bother. So, my brother is still in charge as a biological father and I will be having a custody. Since it takes a number of years to get him a green card by the time of senior year of high school and college.

I have read the rules on USCIS and it says that I can still petition for the child I have adopted if I satisfy several requirements, thus the following questions:

1. It doesn't say if I have to be the only parent for the child I am petitioning for. Say, does it matter if my brother still has rights and doesn't plan to come to US? Can I still petition for the child if he still lives with his father or the only way to even start petiotioning I have to be the only parent and my brother should lose all his rights?

2. I need to show 2 years of physical custody: the mother has left a child like 10 years ago and did not live with him, but she has been deprived of rights only in 2013. I did acted as a parent along with my brother within the last 10 years though. But the mother had all the rights at that time and I was just an aunt. Does it still count?

Would appriciate any suggestions to the above topic. Thanks!

Your plan will not work for many reasons.

The primary reason will be that the child does not fit the "orphan" definition as required for an immigration visa through adoption.

The other problems are 1) the existing biological parents' rights have not been terminated - they are still the legal parents, 2) no physical custody of the child for 2 years after the adoption, and 3) the primary reason for the adoption is so the US sibling can bring a nephew over as an adopted child.

Even when the biological parents give up full rights, the child still has two parents and cannot be labeled an orphan for immigration purposes. Look through this forum of the numerous cases of people giving up all rights to let a child be adopted by a relative and still no immigration visa.

The US specifically do not allow cases like this to result in a visa.