Immigration Benefits of Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) of U.S.

The immigration benefits of USC and LPR are different. For the USC, they can file petition for spouse, children, parents, sons and daughters (over 21 years old unmarried), sons and daughters (married), and brothers and sisters. For the LPR, they have some limitations, and they can file for spouse, children and unmarried sons and daughters. Then, the visa slots are limited per fiscal year. Per State Department announcement, the fiscal year 2025 limit for family-sponsored preference immigrants are 226,000 (per INA section 201).

Generally, when the person becomes an LPR, they have certain immigration benefits for their immediate relatives who reside abroad. Immediate relatives include spouse, children, and unmarried sons and daughters of LPR. For the immigration purpose, the children must be under 21 years of age. The visa category (second preference) for the spouse and children is known as F2A, and F2B is for the unmarried sons and daughters of LPR. According to State Department visa bulletin for April 2025, the visa slots of 114,200 are available for these categories. Mathematically, the F2A (spouses and children of LPR) has 77% of the overall second preference limitation, and 23% are for the F2B category. The visa slots availability could change if any unused first preference numbers (F1 category, unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. Citizens) is still available.

Per visa bulletin, even though the F2A numbers are subjected to per-country limit and are authorized for issuance to applicant (beneficiary and home country) to all countries except Mexico. In other words, specifically, all F2A numbers provided for Mexico are exempt from the per-country limit and they are lucky.