The Immigrant Family and Aged Parents

Guest blogger: Maria Zhurnalova-Juppunov, second-year law student, University of San Francisco:

My mother will be turning 80 this year, she is a widow, has no living siblings and I am her only child.  Since I’ve become a permanent resident in the U.S., the only way she can rejoin my family and me is by visiting on tourist visa.  She has to travel often, make sure she spends no more than 6 months with us, and spend considerable time in Bulgaria, all alone at that age. Traveling often overseas back and forth is very exhausting for her, and she needs much time to recover.  My kids miss her a lot when she is away and I worry a lot.

Similarly to minor kids, aged parents also may be dependent both in terms of financial support and care on a person who is a lawful permanent resident. Under the current legal regime, only children and spouses can be sponsored by a lawful resident. A citizen cannot sponsor an lawful permanent resident spouse’s aged dependent parent.

A better regime would be one that a legal resident is able to sponsor an immigrant visa for a parent above a certain age, and providing proof that she may support the parent in the U.S., and the parent has no other close relatives in the country of origin. Several countries have created visa regimes which try accommodate and provide for these type of family reunification.

In Australia, a resident can sponsor an aged parent, if at least half of the aged parent’s children live permanently in Australia or more live permanently in Australia than in any other country.  However, the government website warns that the waiting time for the visa can take up to 30 years. If such waiting time de facto exists, then the whole process would be of no practical use.

In the UK, permanent residents also can bring an elderly parent or grandparent to join them, provided she is mainly financially dependent on the relative UK resident, has no other relatives in the home country with the ability to provide adequate support, and the UK resident relative is able to support her without recourse to public funds.  However, post 2012, the rules implementing these conditions have created a Catch 22, whereby the application must prove both that the sponsor can provide support in the UK for five years and prove that there’s no available paid help which the sponsor can hire in the home country of the aged parent. 

Finally, a better alternative may be the “super visa: issued by Canada to parents and grandparents. Canada gives a 10 year multi-entry super visa that allows parents and grandparents of permanent residents to visit for 2 years, instead of the 6 months allowed under the ordinary visitor visa.

The model American family – the nuclear family, influenced by individualism and Protestant work ethic, is not the norm in other cultures.(Karina Martinez-Carter,  How the elderly are treated around the world.  In my culture, leaving elderly parents in a nursing home is not an acceptable option, even without taking into account the dismal living conditions in such institutions in the home country. The purpose of family based immigration is to allow for reunification of the family. Since it would be the immigrant family that is being reunited, it makes sense to take into consideration the family in the context of the other culture. Since my proposal has to do with parents, this should not offend those who fear that immigration reform will bring a flood of immigrant relatives into the country. Caring for parents is of extreme importance to everyone—including immigrants.

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