Greencards

Your child can file the petition, but entering without inspection generally prevents adjusting status inside the United States. The petition is rarely the obstacle. The entry is, and fixing it is a separate question with only a few available answers.

The unlawful presence waiver requires extreme hardship to a US citizen or permanent resident spouse or parent. Children are not qualifying relatives, regardless of age or how much they depend on you. If the only citizens in your family are your children, there is no waiver.

Leaving activates the unlawful presence bar that was dormant while you stayed. More than a year of unlawful presence generally means ten years outside, and without a qualifying relative there is no waiver to shorten it. People leave for a routine interview and cannot return.

No. It resolves one ground of inadmissibility and nothing else. A prior misrepresentation finding, a criminal ground, or an old removal order can still cause a refusal abroad. An approved provisional waiver is not a clearance certificate.

If a visa petition or labor certification was filed for you on or before that date, INA § 245(i) may let you adjust status inside the country despite an unlawful entry, on payment of a $1,000 penalty fee. Filings after January 14, 1998 also require physical presence on December 21, 2000.

No. The qualifying filing had to exist on or before April 30, 2001. What matters is whether one already exists, which is why it is worth asking parents, former employers, and relatives about paperwork from the nineties.

Possibly. The test is whether it was approvable when filed, not whether it was approved. A labor certification submitted in 2000 by an employer that closed 20 years ago can still qualify.