CASE: J-1 Waiver of Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Turkish
LOCATION: Norfolk, VA
Our client is from Turkey who came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in August 2016 as an exchange student. In October 2019, she married her U.S. citizen spouse. She wished to apply for a waiver of the two year foreign residency requirement so that she can file her adjustment of status application along with her husband’s I-130 petition.
She retained our office on January 13, 2020. Thereafter, our office promptly prepared the waiver request through a No Objection Statement (NOS) from the Turkish Embassy in the United States. Every country’s Embassy maintains different procedures and policies with regard to the J-1 No Objection Statement waiver.
On February 5, 2020, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. We also sent a request to the Turkish Embassy to issue a No Objection Statement and recommend this waiver based on the fact that our client wants to adjust her status based on her marriage to her U.S. citizen spouse.
Eventually, the Turkish Embassy issued a No Objection Statement for our client. They then 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 13, 2020, the USCIS issued an I-612 approval notice for the waiver of our client’s two-year foreign residency requirement.