CASE: J-1 Waiver of Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Nigerian
LOCATION: Houston, TX
Our client is from Nigeria who came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in June 2018 to pursue his graduate studies. After he finished his J-1 program, he changed his status from J-1 to F-1 and he has remained in the United States. Our client plans to file an I-140 NIW petition and I-485 adjustment of status application. However, he will not be able to adjust his status unless he gets a waiver of the 2-year foreign residency requirement. When he came to the United States in 2018, his J-1 program made him subject to the 2-year foreign residency program.
He retained our office on January 31, 2020. Thereafter, our office prepared the waiver request through a No Objection Statement (NOS) from the Nigerian Embassy in the United States. Every country’s Embassy maintains different procedures with the J-1 No Objection Statement waiver.
On February 4, 2020, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. We also sent a request to the Nigerian Embassy to issue a No Objection Statement and recommend this waiver based on the fact that our client is eligible to adjust based on his I-140 NIW petition.
Eventually, the Nigerian Embassy issued a No Objection Statement for our client, and sent this letter to the State Department’s Waiver Review Division. On June 15, 2020, the Waiver Review Division issued a favorable recommendation based on the No Objection statement. On July 16, 2020, the USCIS issued an I-612 approval notice for the waiver of our client’s two-year foreign residency requirement.