What is Cross-Chargeability?
In certain situations, an applicant may benefit from the charging of their visa to their spouse’s or parent’s country of birth rather than their own. This is known as cross-chargeability.
In practice, cross-chargeability is used where the preference quota category is backlogged for one spouse’s country of chargeability but is current for the other spouse’s country of chargeability. The principal applicant may cross-charge to the derivative spouse’s country, and the derivative spouse may cross-charge to the principal’s country.
Derivative children may cross-charge to either parent’s country as necessary.Parents may not cross-charge to a child’s country. In other words, the principal applicant or derivative spouse may never use their child’s country of birth for cross-chargeability.
Whenever possible, cross-chargeability should be applied to preserve family unity and allow family members to immigrate together.
Eligibility
In order to benefit from cross-chargeability, both applicants must be eligible to adjust status. A derivative using the principal’s country of chargeability may adjust status with the principal or at any time thereafter. When a principal uses the derivative spouse’s country of chargeability, both applicants are considered principal applicants: one for the purpose of conferring immigrant status and the other for the purpose of conferring a more favorable chargeability.As such, the officer should approve both adjustment applications at the same time.
