Bush rule on V-2 visas tossed out

SFGate ^

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A federal appeals court, in a ruling that could affect thousands of immigrant families, overturned a Bush administration regulation Tuesday and said children who were allowed to join their families in the United States while they sought visas could remain past age 21.

The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affects families in which one or both parents had become legal U.S. residents and applied for the same status for their children living abroad.

Congress passed a law in 2000 saying children who had been waiting outside the United States at least three years for their permanent visas to be approved -- half the average waiting period -- were eligible for a temporary visa called a V-2 that would let them enter the country, hold a job and await the outcome of their applications. The law applied only to children whose parents had already applied for visas for them by December 2000.

The law said children under 21 were eligible for V-2 visas but was silent about whether they could keep the visas once they turned 21. A federal regulation, issued in April 2001 by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, revoked V-2 visas at 21 and required their holders to move outside the United States to resume their wait for permanent status.