After a long fought battle with cancer, my sister-in-law passed away in November, 2020. She was survived by her husband and our niece who was then 14. They were living in UK. On May 19th, 2022 my brother-in-law passed away due to a massive heart attack leaving behind our 16 year old niece  (she turned 16 on May 1st) orphaned. My wife is named her legal guardian in the Will of both the deceased. We want to bring our niece to the US to live with us until she can be independent. We are citizens of the US and she is a British citizen. 

She will be going into Junior year of high school and we are the closest family she has. Our journey to immigrate her to the US is running into significant issues. In our attempt to bring stability to the life of our child, we met 30+ immigration lawyers over the past 3 months and since she is a few weeks over 16, the path for international adoption was ruled out as she is over 16 and does not have a sibling younger than 16 and our laws don’t have a provision for such cases for adoption. We were strongly recommended to bring her on a student VISA and offer support for these two years. We found admission for the child in one of the best and incredibly supportive schools in Charlotte, and they issued Pramiti an I-20 to get her visa. We went for the visa stamping and the immigration official in US consulate in UK denied her visa as there were no demonstrable ties back for her to move back to UK and her legal guardian is a US citizen so this child is a potential immigrant. She is a child and only 16 and all alone in UK.

To provide her safety and to continue her schooling, we are now left with no good option but disrupt our family with me having to live alone in Charlotte, my wife and niece in London (since the child is from there) and our son, a junior in college at UNC Chapel Hill, a 4.0 GPA student constantly stressed that his parents are in different cities and impacting him too. 

We have reached out to several political leaders across party lines (Thom Tilillis’ office, who have been instrumental in providing us updates) and well as our local Council woman , Dimple Ajmera! We have been advised by their office to find a good immigration lawyer, but all the 30+ lawyers that we have spoken to have only stated we have no immigration option and the only possible option to pursue was denied by an immigration official at a consulate. 

All we want is for our family together and to have our young child get physical and emotional stability and a bright future she deserves. I pay well over 30% of my income in taxes, neither are we looking for any benefits, nor are we looking for any state money. ALL WE NEED is the permission for our child to be with us until she is old enough. PLEASE HELP US!