Who You Can Petition to the US — and Who You Can't

The list is shorter than most families assume, and the disappointment usually lands on the same people: the lola who raised you, the cousin who’s like a brother, the sister-in-law who’s the only one left at home. US family immigration doesn’t see any of them. Here is exactly who it does see, what each line costs in years, and the few moves that change the answer.

The complete list

If you are a US citizen, you can petition:

Relative	Category	Queue?
Spouse	Immediate relative	No — processing time only
Unmarried child under 21	Immediate relative	No
Parent (you must be 21+)	Immediate relative	No
Unmarried son/daughter 21+	F1	Yes — ~11 years for the Philippines
Married son/daughter	F3	Yes — ~20 years
Brother or sister (you must be 21+)	F4	Yes — ~18 years

If you are a green-card holder, the list is two lines long:

Relative	Category	Queue?
Spouse, unmarried child under 21	F2A	Currently none (August 2026)
Unmarried son/daughter 21+	F2B	Yes — ~13 years

That’s it. A green-card holder cannot petition parents, married children, or siblings.

(Waits are today’s date minus the August 2026 Philippine cut-off; they are floors, and the visa bulletin explainer covers why.)

Who is not on the list — ever

• Grandparents and grandchildren
• Aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins
• In-laws — your spouse’s parents or siblings are their relatives to petition, not yours
• Fiancé(e)s — not through I-130; a citizen uses the K-1 visa instead, then marries within 90 days of arrival
• Godchildren, the helper who raised you, anyone “like family” — however true

The only route is a chain: your mother (a citizen) petitions her sister (F4, ~18 years); once the sister has a green card, she petitions her own unmarried children (F2B) or, once a citizen, her married ones (F3). Chains work. They are measured in decades, and they require each link to still be alive and still unmarried at the right moment.

The details that decide individual cases

“Child” has a legal definition. It includes a stepchild if the marriage happened before the child turned 18, and an adopted child if the adoption was finalised before 16 (with two years of custody and residence). A child born out of wedlock to a father needs proof of a genuine parent-child relationship before 21. These aren’t technicalities — they’re the difference between a petition that’s approved and one that’s denied after a ten-year wait.

Marriage changes categories, sometimes fatally. If your unmarried adult child marries while an F1 petition is pending, it becomes F3 — roughly nine more years. If they marry while a green-card holder’s F2B petition is pending, the petition dies; there is no category for a green-card holder’s married child. Families planning weddings should know this.

Turning 21 can bump a child out of “child.” The Child Status Protection Act freezes age in some cases by subtracting petition processing time, but the arithmetic is genuinely technical and timing-sensitive. If a petitioned child is anywhere near 21, that’s a lawyer conversation, not a forum one.

The petitioner must outlive the line. If the petitioner dies, the petition generally dies with them — narrow humanitarian reinstatement exists, but don’t count on it. Eighteen-year sibling petitions are filed by people in their 50s for a reason.

You must be able to support them. Every family petition ends in an Affidavit of Support (the income calculator shows whether you clear it) — a legally enforceable contract. Income below 125% of the poverty line for your household size means finding a joint sponsor before the case can finish.

The moves that actually help

1. Naturalise. It converts F2A to immediate relative (no queue), F2B to F1, and makes parents and siblings petitionable at all. It is almost always the highest-leverage step a petitioner can take — and it takes about a year, against lines measured in decades.
2. File early, even if the wait is long. The priority date is the asset. An F4 filed at 30 is current at 48; the same petition filed at 45 is current at 63. Nothing is lost by filing, and everything is lost by waiting to file.
3. File for each person separately, as early as they qualify. Don’t wait for a younger sibling to “catch up” — each gets their own priority date.
4. Keep the petition alive. Update your address with USCIS (Form AR-11) and with the NVC. A missed notice can close a case that waited fifteen years.
5. Avoid the category killers. Know what a marriage or a 21st birthday does before it happens, not after.

When the answer is no

For the relatives who simply can’t be petitioned, the honest alternatives are a visitor visa for time together, the employment pathways if they have the profession for it, or — for those who’d rather work abroad than immigrate — the legal routes out of the Philippines. None of them is a green card. All of them are real, which is more than a petition that can’t be filed.

Official resources

• USCIS — Family of US citizens
• USCIS — Family of green card holders
• USCIS — Form I-130 · Form AR-11 (change of address)
• USCIS — Child Status Protection Act
• State Department — K-1 fiancé(e) visa

Categories and rules as of August 2026 under current law; waits from the August 2026 visa bulletin. General information, not legal advice — CSPA, stepchild and adoption questions, and deceased petitioners all deserve an attorney’s hour.