CASE: J-1 Waiver of the Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Indonesian
LOCATION: Washington DC
Our Indonesian client came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in September 2016. He came to the U.S. for his research program, and his J-1 visa made him subject to the two-year foreign resident requirement. His research and higher education enhanced his interest in the field, and he would like to further his future research and development projects. However, since most of these will take a longer time, he anticipated that most employers will eventually wish to petition him for an alternate form of visa such as an H-1B. But due to the two-year foreign residency requirement, he had to obtain a waiver first before he could change his current status in the United States.
After he retained our firm, we prepared and filed a waiver request through the No Objection Statement (NOS) from the Indonesian Embassy in the United States. Our office contacted the Indonesian Embassy in Washington D.C. to make sure we knew all the updated requirements needed for their office to issue a no objection statement. The Embassy requested nine different documents including a statement of reason for the waiver, the applicant’s resume, a copy of his valid Indonesian passport, and a copy of Form DS-3035.
On June 5, 2020, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. We also sent a request to the Indonesian Embassy to issue a No Objection Statement and recommend this waiver based on the fact that our client would have been eligible to file a change of status application but for the waiver.
The Indonesian Embassy eventually issued a No Objection Statement for our client, and sent this letter to the State Department’s Waiver Review Division. On October 28, 2020, the Waiver Review Division issued a favorable recommendation based on the No Objection statement. The CIS then issued a receipt and an I-612 approval notice on November 2, 2020. Now that our client’s two-year foreign residency requirement is waived, he can be a beneficiary of other non-immigrant visas in the United States without having to going back to Indonesia for 2 years.