V-visas were created to provide those who were petitioned by their legal resident parents and spouses and faced years of separation while waiting for their visas to become current and available the chance to normalize their status in the US or come to the US and live with their petitioning parent or spouse.   Certain restrictions in the enacting legislation limited the V visa eligibility to those who were petitioned before December 21, 2000.

Also to be eligible for a V-visa the beneficiary must have been waiting 3 years since the visa petition was filed.   Once the beneficiary obtains V visa status they can renew it indefinitely until their visa priority date becomes current. Because visa backlogs are up to 15 years long for some countries, initial V visa applications and extension requests for existing V visa holders are still being processed.