Hi everyone,

my family finds itself in a weird predicament and having exhausted the patience of our current immigration attorney, I am reaching out to the experienced folks of this forum for some advice. my mother was sponsored by her employer back in 2006 and my dad, siblings and I were her beneficiaries. all of her children were under 21 at that time. her I-485 was denied and subsequently the I-140 was revoked. we spent years fighting appeals and we recently had her individual hearing with an immigration judge after receiving a NTA. I would also like to mention that prior to the master calendar hearing, i had prepared an filed an I-485 with the immigration court, based on the original I-485 application, in order for my mother to get a work permit. our immigration attorney just didnt want to work with us at that time and kept ignoring our calls/emails, so i did it myself.

I didn't understand the nitty gritty of the process but at the hearing, the judge asked the USCIS attorney to counsel with our attorney and discuss if USCIS needed anything. after some basic docs were provided, the service's attorney pointed out that my mother has a spouse and children, aka my dad and siblings and I. my attorney just said the spouse is not in removal proceedings (which is true) and the kids are over 21 right now (also true). the Service attorney just moved on. the judge was not present in the room at that time. once the judge was back she asked the service's attorney if a visa # was available yet which the service attorney said it was not and scheduled for us to come back again monday when she anticipates the visa to be available, just for my mom.

1) after the hearing, our attorney said that getting the visa is a mechanical process and no further review of my mother's case will be done by monday. she should be able to get her GC after. Is that accurate? how does getting an actual, physical visa, lead to a GC?

2) Our attorney then said he will look into it later on how to get greencard for the rest of us. at one time he had mentioned that he needs to figure out if we will file an MTR or reapply and argue the children were under 21 at the time of the original petition. My mother is worried that we are losing an opportunity to ask the judge for relief for her spouse and kids. our attorney doesn't plan to be at the hearing on monday but will send another counsel from his office and my mother plans to ask the judge if relief can be provided for her kids and husband. my question is, can the judge provide relief/gc for the rest of us, since none of us were put into removal proceedings? what would be the best way to get gc for my silbings and I, if my mother gets her gc approved. we are mainly worried that it will take 6-7 years if we refile a new applications now that we are over 21. our main concern is our eldest sibling who is over 30 and has had to give up on medicine and so many things in life because of our immigration situation and has dedicated the past few years to taking care of our mother. we dont want her to lose out on more.

sorry this was a lot of rambling but I hope some of you are able to share your experience and provide honest advice.