Elderly Mother Transfers from B-2 to F-1 Visa

Under the new Trump policy, the F-1 student visa has become more and more difficult, and middle-aged “old mothers” who want to sign the F-1 to accompany their students to study in the U.S. have been rejected at the consulate. But the wisdom of old mothers is infinite, and they have learned that it is easier to transfer students in the U.S. Therefore, there are many mothers who come to the U.S. with B-2 travel and apply to transfer to F-1 students. Is it really easier? Tsang & Associates will take a look at a recent B-2 to F-1 case.

Year: 2019
Nationality: Chinese
Applicant: Ms. Jiang
Case type: B-2 to F-1 students

time frame:
07/2018: B-2 tourist visa to the United States.
11/2018: Submission of B-2 to F-1 petition.
04/2019: Notification of receipt of a replacement (RFE).
05/2019: Submission of additional information.
06/2019: Notification of approval received.

BACKGROUND
1. Ms. Jiang applied for immigrant investor status at the end of 2015 and is waiting for her turn in the queue.
2. only daughter in junior high school in the United States, currently single.
3. that Ms. Kang does not know English and can only start at the most basic language school in the United States.
4. that Ms. Kang came to the United States in a hurry, that she did not have sufficient funds in the United States, and that information was missing.
5. Ms. Jiang was new to the United States and did not know English, and she was alone with her children, which was very stressful, especially since Ms. Jiang’s application was still pending in May, and she had been in the United States for almost a year and needed to decide on her stay as soon as possible.

Brief background:
Ms. Jiang applied for investment immigration in 2015 and originally hoped to bring her daughter to study and settle in the U.S. with a green card, but with the growth of the scheduling period green card is far away, Ms. Jiang found a study abroad agency to apply for a private high school in California, U.S., and sent her daughter to study in the U.S. in July 2018. After arriving, she found that her daughter was alone here and she was very uneasy and wanted to accompany her.

In October, Ms. Kang was referred by a friend to Tsang & Associates for a sincere consultation. Tsang & Associates (formerly Immigration Express) was founded in 1984 and has helped many B1/B2 clients to successfully convert to F-1, L-1, and H-1 status in the U.S. We have a lot of experience and understand the difficulties after the implementation of Trump’s new policy. After Mr. Chen of Tsang and Associates’ team fully understood Ms. Jiang’s previous situation in China, explained the current policy, process time and possible results, and finally settled on a B-2 to F-1 student and a six-month extension of B-2.

Keys to Success
connection of time points
When should I submit my B-2 to F-1 application and how long does it take to process my F-1? Can the school’s I-20 start date dovetail with B-2 status? These are all things that must be considered.

B-2 to F-1, which requires maintaining legal status. The estimated processing time for the California Service Center is 3.5 to 5.5 months, but in reality it takes about 5 months to be processed. Due to the long processing time, the original I-20 submitted for the start of the school year will expire.

Tsang and Associates’ legal team had foreseen this problem, so they kept close contact with Ms. Jiang and the school, contacted the school immediately after receiving the replacement notice in April, estimated the time required for the replacement, and asked the school to issue an I-20 for the new school opening date; the B-2 extension was also carried out at the same time, and a new I-94 was approved for the B-2 extension at the end of May, and the F-1 approval notice was received in June, followed by the school opening in July, completing the The school then opened in July, completing a perfect articulation of non-immigrant status.

The Necessity and Legitimacy of Studying in the United States
Ms. Kang is nearly half a hundred years old and has no basic English. How can such an old student with no basic English convince the USCIS that she really wants to learn English in the United States?

Through the contact with Ms. Jiang, we learned that she is a strong and persistent person, and even though she has no English foundation, she is still working hard to learn and grow together with her daughter and set an example for her daughter. In order to help her realize her dream of studying, we then learned more about her workplace and her position, and found a connection to further study English through her work, which led to the support of her company and provided her with great assistance.

Strong enough binding force for return
Ms. Jiang had already applied for investment immigration and her only daughter was in the U.S. How could she convince USCIS that Ms. Jiang was willing to return to China after her studies were completed? Tsang and Associates’ legal team studied the EB-5 scheduling progress and the number of applicants and other data, and proposed a serious scheduling problem that could not be solved at this time; in addition, Ms. Jiang had already applied for immigration, and there was no need to stay down illegally while waiting, making her and her daughter ineligible for a green card through legal immigration.

In addition, Ms. Kang’s workplace is ideal, and even if she gets a green card and looks for a job in the U.S., she may not be able to find such a good job opportunity.

Maintenance of Legal Status in the U.S.
The USCIS requires a new I-20 (because the original I-20 start date has expired), but also a description of all the activities you have done since you arrived in the United States. What places have you visited? Provide all airline tickets, hotel receipts, tickets, bank statements, credit card records, and other data.

This is very similar to the current B-2 extension filing. Tsang and Associates’ legal team collected these data from Ms. Kang in the shortest possible time, sorted them into categories and put together a complete and detailed map of Ms. Kang’s itinerary in the U.S., thus proving that Ms. Kang has never worked illegally or done anything else illegally.

Lawyer Comments:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security regulations require that all new students be admitted to the United States only 30 days prior to the course reporting date listed on the I-20 form. Similarly, a transfer from B-2 to F-1 within the U.S. will require that the I-94 expiration date and the I-20 course start date be within 30 days of each other, or the application for change of student status can be denied. In this case, Ms. Kang’s original I-94 expired in 2018 and the new I-20 started in July 2019, which would not have been approved if not supported by the new I-94.

Tsang and Associates’ team reminds that as the policy becomes stricter and stricter, the difficulty of the seemingly simple “small” application is also increasing. It is recommended that applicants must seek the assistance of a professional and experienced attorney to avoid making one mistake and losing everything.

Related Links:
Notes on U.S. F-1 Student Visa Application in Special Period, and Case Study (above)
Notes on U.S. F-1 Student Visa Application in Special Period, and Case Study (below)

*To protect customer privacy, customer names are pseudonyms.