USCIS Issues Updated Guidance on ‘Sought to Acquire’ Requirement of Child Status Protection Act

On Sept. 25, 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated its Policy Manual to clarify the calculation of the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) age for noncitizens seeking CSPA protection under the “extraordinary circumstances” exception. By way of background, CSPA protects dependent children from “aging out” and becoming ineligible for permanent residence as derivative beneficiaries under certain circumstances. Please review our coverage of USCIS CSPA policy updates.

While CSPA protection is generally determined based on the date an immigrant visa becomes available, requiring dependent children to seek to acquire it within one year of that date, the “extraordinary circumstance” policy provides exceptions to that requirement under limited circumstances. Specifically, where such circumstances were not created by the applicant but directly affected their ability to seek to acquire permanent residence within one year of visa availability, and these facts are reasonable, USCIS has said it would excuse dependents from the “seek to acquire” requirement. USCIS has now provided further clarity regarding the “seeking to acquire” component of CSPA calculation under extraordinary circumstances.

Key updates:

Seeking to Acquire: For applicants excused from the “sought to acquire” requirement due to extraordinary circumstances, the CSPA age would be calculated from the date the immigrant visa first became available, provided the visa remained available for a continuous one (1) -year period without any intervening visa unavailability.
Intervening Visa Unavailability: If the immigrant visa became available and subsequently unavailable, the CSPA calculation could rely on the date an immigrant visa first became available if they can demonstrate extraordinary circumstances prevented them from seeking to acquire their immigrant visa before it became unavailable.

USCIS has issued this new guidance to ensure consistent adjudication for all Applications to Adjust Status relying on extraordinary circumstances to secure CSPA protection. This updated guidance applies to all applications pending on or after Sept. 25, 2024, and supersedes any prior related instructions.