CASE: J-1 Waiver of Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Kenyan
LOCATION: Greensboro, GA
Our client is from Kenya who came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in November 2021. In July 2022, our client married his U.S. citizen wife. He would not be able to adjust his status unless he gets a waiver for the 2-year foreign residency program. When he came to the United States in 2021, his program made him subject to the 2-year foreign residency requirement.
We filed the waiver request through a No Objection Statement (NOS) from the Kenyan Embassy in the United States. Every country’s embassy maintains different procedures with regards to the J-1 No Objection Statement waiver. Our office contacted the Kenyan Embassy in D.C. to pursue the waiver for our client. The Embassy requested several documents including a statement of reason for the waiver, the clearance letter from the J-1 program sponsor, Clearance certificate from HELB and KSCE in Kenya, and a letter of reason for obtaining the J-1 waiver.
On August 19, 2022, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. We also sent a request to the Kenyan Embassy to issue a No Objection Statement and recommend this waiver based on the fact that our client is eligible to adjust based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen spouse.
Eventually, the Kenyan Embassy issued a No Objection Statement for our client, and sent this letter to the State Department’s Waiver Review Division. On February 1, 2023, the Waiver Review Division issued a favorable recommendation based on the No Objection statement. On February 10, 2023, the USCIS issued an I-612 approval notice. Now, our client can file the I-485 adjustment of status application along with his wife’s I-130 petition.