CASE: J-1 Waiver of the Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, Exceptional Hardship
NATIONALITY: Filipina
LOCATION: Stuttgart, AR
Our client came from the Philippines on a J-1 to work as a teacher. She was subject to the two-year foreign resident requirement. Our client would like to file her adjustment of status application along with her employer’s I-140 petition; however, due to the two-year foreign residency requirement, she had to obtain a waiver first.
Unlike our other J-1 clients, our client could not pursue her waiver under the No Objection Statement or Interest Government Agency (IGA). She pursued her J-1 waiver based on exceptional hardship to her US Citizen child.
According to 8 C.F.R. Section 212.7(c)(5), “an alien who is subject to the foreign residence requirement and who believes that compliance therewith would impose exceptional hardship upon her spouse or child who is a citizen of the United States… may apply for a waiver on Form I-612.”
Some of the factors in analyzing hardship are as follows: age of the subject, family ties in the U.S. and abroad, length and residency in the U.S., health / medical conditions, conditions in the country of removal – economic and political, financial status – business and occupation, position in / ties to the community. Matter of Anderson, 16 I&N Dec. 596 (BIA 1978).
After she retained our firm, we prepared and filed a waiver request through the exceptional hardship basis. On August 6, 2021, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. Thereafter, our office prepared an affidavit for our client, an extensive brief in support of our client’s J-1 waiver application, and other supporting documents. Our client provided us with extensive medical documents and doctor’s reports for her U.S. citizen child’s medical conditions. On August 13, 2021 our office filed the I-612 application to the USCIS and asked for them to issue and recommend this waiver based on the fact that our client’s child would experience exceptional hardships if she goes back to the Philippines for two years. Eventually, the USCIS approved her I-612 waiver on November 9, 2022 without any Request for Evidence (RFE).