CASE: J-1 Waiver of Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, IGA
NATIONALITY: Ukrainian
LOCATION: Indiana
Our client is from Ukraine who came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in June 2003 to pursue his research program. He has been extending his J-1 status since then. In 2014, our client departed to Ukraine and his prospective-employer (university) contacted him to work as a Consultant. His prospective employer plans to file an H-1B petition for our client as his research project was of interest to a federal governmental agency (Department of Defense). However, he cannot get his H-1B visa unless he gets a waiver of the 2-year foreign residency requirement. Moreover, the Ukrainian Embassy does not intend to issue a No Objection statement for our client’s possible J-1 visa waiver.
The Department of State rules have stated that the J-1 visa holder (who is subject to a 2 year foreign residency require) need not work directly for the requested interested government agency, but if the exchange visitor is working on a project that is of interest to a government agency and that agency has determined that the visitor’s departure for two years to fulfill the foreign residence requirement will be detrimental to the agency’s interest, that agency may request an interested government agency waiver.
Once retained, our office prepared a waiver request through the IGA route. On November 19, 2014, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. We also included letters from his prospective employer to the federal governmental agency and asked them to be an interested government agency based on the research project that our client was involved in.
Eventually, on May 8, 2015, the Waiver Review Division issued a favorable recommendation based on the IGA letter. On June 5, 2015, the USCIS issued an I-612 approval notice for the waiver of our client’s two-year foreign residency requirement. Now, our client can get an H-1B visa to work on his research in the United States.