Sunday, September 13, 2009

Petitioning Your Relatives

Australia immigration would want to get his family into their new country of residence. What they need to file in order to get their relatives is a petition. However, filing a petition is not that easy and may take several years before it can be granted.

Knowing more about the petition process will greatly help the immigrant in understanding it. This will in turn, help greatly in the actual process of filing the petition.

The first thing that you need to know is that you need to be a citizen of the country you are residing in to avail of a petition. In order to be naturalized, you need to live in the country for several years first. Usually the time you need to stay is from five to ten years, though in some special cases, such as a good service or an exemplary achievement, the time it takes can be reduced to only around one or two years.

Once you have achieved the minimum required years of residence, then you can file for citizenship. There are actually two routes that you can take in most countries. You can either opt to be a full fledged naturalized citizen, or you can opt to retain your original citizenship by filing a request for dual citizenship. The latter is good if you wish to easily travel back and forth to your country of origin. However, your privileges to petition is more limited on this one.

Upon getting your naturalization completed, then you can immediately file for a petition for your relatives. However, note that not all of your families can be petitioned. One factor that limits your ability to petition is the number of family members to get. Most countries limit the amount to around five relatives per immigrant. Refer to the exact details from the country's immigration n office to find out.

Another thing to consider is the relationship of the petitioner to the one being petitioned. The easiest to petitioned are your parents, spouse and children not of legal age. Those planning to petition relatives outside your nuclear family, such as aunts, nephews or cousins, will find it a little bit harder, though it would still eventually granted.

Also note that, in petitioning your children it is important to take note of their dependency to you. As a rule, all children that are still below the legal age (18 in most countries) and/or not yet married are still eligible for petition. Married children may seek entry to the country in a separate immigration application. Also note that in cases that a child reaches legal age before a petition is approved, then it will be automatically dropped. On the other hand, if a child reaches legal after it has been approved, then he or she still has around two years to avail of it before it becomes invalid.

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