The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) was intended to provide relief to prospective immigrants who “age out” of their preference category because they reach age 21 before their application can be completed. CSPA allows those hopeful beneficiaries to automatically convert to the appropriate category while retaining their original priority date (i.e. they may “keep their place in line”). However, yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court, upheld a more narrow interpretation of CSPA—which says that only those who qualified or could have qualified as principal beneficiaries of a visa petition can seek the benefits of CSPA. Thus it is now clear that derivatives who “age out” are not CSPA eligible.

To view the full decision go: here