Section 245(i) Grandfathering: Who Can Still Adjust Status Inside the Country

Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act lets a narrow group of people apply for a green card inside the United States even though they entered without inspection, worked without permission, or let their status lapse. Those facts normally force an applicant to leave and apply at a consulate abroad. Eligibility does not depend on who the applicant is today. It depends on whether a qualifying immigrant petition or labor certification application was filed for that person by a cut-off date Congress has never moved, and — for the later filings — on where the person physically stood on one specific day in December 2000.

As of mid-2026 the class is closed. Nothing filed after April 30, 2001 creates grandfathering, and the provision has not been extended. What remains is a shrinking population of people who were named on paperwork a quarter of a century ago, many of whom do not know it.

1.What the provision actually changes

Ordinary adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. 1255 requires that the applicant was inspected and admitted or paroled into the country. A separate list of bars in the same section disqualifies most people who worked without authorization or who failed to maintain a lawful status. Section 245(i) sets both problems aside for grandfathered applicants. They file Form I-485 with the supplemental form the statute requires and pay an additional sum collected with it; the USCIS page for Form I-485 carries the current filing package and amounts.

The practical value is that the applicant never leaves. A person who has accrued more than a year of unlawful presence and departs triggers a ten-year bar on returning. Staying put avoids the departure that sets that clock running, which is why grandfathering is often the difference between a case that can be finished and one that cannot be started.

2.The two filing windows

Congress wrote the cut-off twice. The original provision covered filings through January 14, 1998. The LIFE Act Amendments reopened it for filings through April 30, 2001, but added a presence requirement aimed at people who were already in the country when the extension was debated.

A qualifying filing is an immigrant visa petition — most often a family petition on the form described at the USCIS Form I-130 page — or an application for labor certification. It must have been properly filed and, in the agency's language, approvable when filed: meritorious in fact and not frivolous, judged on the law and the facts as they stood on the filing date.

3.Who else the grandfathering reaches

Grandfathering attaches to the beneficiary, not to the petition, and it does not expire. If the petitioning relative died, withdrew the petition, or simply gave up, the beneficiary generally remains grandfathered so long as the filing was approvable when made. The person can later adjust through an entirely different route — a new employer, a new spouse, an adult child who has since naturalized — and still use Section 245(i) to cure the entry and status problems.

Spouses and children can be grandfathered in their own right. A person who was the spouse or child of the principal beneficiary at the time of the qualifying filing is generally treated as independently grandfathered and may use that status years later, even after the marriage ends or the child turns twenty-one. A spouse acquired after the qualifying filing usually is not independently grandfathered, though that person may still be able to accompany or follow to join on a current petition. Employment cases raise a related question about whose petition survives a corporate change, which is treated in successor-in-interest labor certifications and petitions after a merger.

4.What Section 245(i) does not fix

The provision is narrow. It removes particular obstacles to adjusting inside the country and nothing else. All of the following still apply in full:

• Every ground of inadmissibility. Criminal grounds, fraud, and health grounds each need their own waiver if one exists at all.
• The permanent bar. Someone who accrued more than a year of unlawful presence or was removed, then reentered or tried to reenter without admission, is inadmissible under a ground the Board of Immigration Appeals held in Matter of Briones (2007) that Section 245(i) does not overcome.
• Visa availability. A number must be immediately available in the applicant's category on the day of filing and the day of decision.
• The support obligation. Family cases still require an enforceable affidavit of support, an undertaking discussed in enforcing an affidavit of support.

Caution: A history of misrepresentation can end an otherwise strong case. The bar described in the false claim to citizenship bar and the narrow exceptions has no general waiver, and grandfathering does not touch it.

5.Proving a filing nobody kept

The evidentiary problem is the real one. A labor certification filed in 1999 by an employer that no longer exists leaves a thin trail: a receipt notice, a copy of the form, a lawyer's file, a state workforce agency stamp. Applicants frequently learn of the filing from a relative rather than from a document. Because the stakes are high and the record is thin, people in this position often ask a green card attorney to reconstruct what was filed and by whom before anything new is submitted, since a weak filing invites scrutiny of the underlying history.

Requests for the government's own copy of an old filing are the usual starting point, followed by the petitioner's records and the professional file of whoever prepared the paperwork. Where private records are involved, the retention rules explained in electronic signatures and record retention under ESIGN and UETA often decide whether a business still holds anything useful. Proof of presence on December 21, 2000 is usually built from ordinary life: pay records, school enrollment, medical files, remittance receipts, leases.

6.Questions this raises

Does a petition that was later denied still count?

It can. The test is whether the filing was approvable when it was made — supported by a real relationship or a real job offer and not frivolous under the law as it then stood. A petition denied because the petitioner died, abandoned it, or missed a deadline may still grandfather the beneficiary. A petition denied because the underlying relationship never existed will not.

Can someone who left the country and returned illegally still use it?

Usually not. A departure after long unlawful presence, followed by an entry or attempted entry without admission, triggers a separate permanent bar. Administrative decisions have held that Section 245(i) does not cure that ground. The person may have to wait outside the United States for a fixed period before consent to reapply can even be requested, which defeats the point of adjusting inside the country.

Is the child of a grandfathered person automatically covered?

Only if the parent-child relationship existed when the qualifying petition or labor certification was filed. A child born afterward is not independently grandfathered, although that child may still qualify as a derivative on whatever petition is current. Because the two ideas are easy to confuse, the filing date of the old paperwork should be compared against the child's date of birth before any assumption is made.

Could Congress reopen the window?

Bills to restore or extend the provision have been introduced repeatedly and none has passed. As of mid-2026 the April 30, 2001 cut-off stands. Nothing prevents a future Congress from acting, but planning around a hoped-for extension is not planning. Anyone who is already grandfathered should treat the existing eligibility as the asset it is rather than wait for a broader one.

7.If you think an old filing covers you

1. Fix the date first. Establish exactly when the old petition or labor certification was filed. Everything else turns on that date.
2. Identify the beneficiary. Confirm whose name was on the filing and what family relationships existed on that day.
3. Test the merits as of then. Ask whether the filing was supportable when made, not whether it would succeed now.
4. Check presence if needed. For filings after January 14, 1998, gather documents placing the beneficiary in the country on December 21, 2000.
5. Screen for inadmissibility. Review the entry history, any departures, and any criminal or misrepresentation issues before filing anything.
6. Assemble the current route. Pair the grandfathering with a live petition and the correct supplemental form, using the USCIS forms index and the USCIS Policy Manual for current instructions.

Grandfathering is durable but not self-executing. It sits dormant until someone files, and it is lost only by facts the applicant creates afterward — a departure, a misrepresentation, a conviction. The safest posture for a person who suspects they are covered is to document the old filing now, while the people who remember it can still be found.