CASE: Immigrant Visa / I-601A Hardship Waiver of Inadmissibility
APPLICANT / BENEFICIARY: Chinese
LOCATION: Guangzhou, China (Visa Interview)
Our client came to the United States from China without inspection and admission. Removal proceedings were initiated against him as an alien present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. He was deported back to China in 2001. He has a naturalized citizen son and LPR wife.
Our client’s U.S. Citizen son filed an I-130 petition for him and this I-130 petition was approved on March 24, 2014. However, our client cannot file for an immigrant visa without a waiver of inadmissibility to become a green card holder.
INA § 212(i) provides for a discretionary waiver of the entry without inspection inadmissibility ground. To qualify for the waiver, the alien must establish that his or her US Citizen spouse would suffer extreme hardship if the alien were denied admission. INA § 212(i)(1). In addition to the equities presented, the USCIS may consider the nature of the inadmissibility ground.
There is a seminal BIA case that deals with this waiver. In Matter of Cervantes, 22 I & N Dec. 560 (BIA 1999), the BIA identified the factors to be considered in determining whether a qualifying relative would suffer extreme hardship if the alien were denied admission. Those factors include: the presence of LPR or USC family ties both within and outside the United States; the conditions in the country to which the qualifying relative would relocate and the extent of the qualifying relative’s ties to that country; the financial impact of departure from the United States; and significant conditions of health, particularly when tied to the unavailability of suitable medical care in the country to which the qualifying relative would relocate.
Our client’s I-601 application had a good chance since our client’s LPR wife suffers from a great degree of medical and psychological hardship. In the I-601 brief and supporting documents, our office included extensive medical reports of his wife. We argued that it would be extremely difficult for our client’s wife to get the same level of therapy and satisfactory access to medical services in China in case she joins our client there.
In our brief, we also argued that his wife will have difficulty in finding the same level of employment in China, and that his wife will face extreme financial and emotional difficulties if she joins him in China.
On February 1, 2016, we file the I-601 waiver application which included the brief in support, his wife’s extensive medical and psychological examination records, and other documents that demonstrated hardship to his wife if she joins our client in China. Eventually, his I-601 waiver was approved on October 18, 2016. Then, we filed our client’s immigrant visa package to National Visa Center on October 25, 2016 with an approved I-601 waiver. The U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China informed our office that they scheduled an immigrant visa interview for our client. On February 8, 2017, our client appeared at his immigrant visa interview at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, and the Consulate officer approved his immigrant visa on the same day.
Now, our client can come back to the United States with an approved immigrant visa and he will get his green card in a mail within two months of his entry to the United States.