CASE: J-1 Waiver of Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Korean
LOCATION: Columbia, MD
Our client is from South Korea who came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in August 2009. Later, she changed her status from J-1 to J-2 after she got married. Thereafter, she changed her status from J-2 to H-4 as her husband got his H-1B status. Prior to his H-1B filing, her husband got a J-1 visa waiver; thus, she thought she does not need her J-1 waiver to change her status. Her husband has an approved EB-1 I-140 petition. Our client and her husband would like to file their adjustment of status application; however, in order to file her adjustment of status, she needs a waiver.
Our client contacted our office and retained our office on December 11, 2019 for her J-1 waiver case. Once retained, Attorney Sung Hee (Glen) Yu from our office promptly contacted the Korean Consulate General Office in Atlanta to pursue the waiver for our client. The Consulate office requested six different documents including a statement of reason for the waiver, the applicant’s resume, a J-1 visa waiver confirmation application, and a letter of reason for obtaining J-1 waiver. Most of those documents needed to be written in Korean, so Attorney Yu, a Korean himself, assisted our client in completing those documents.
On January 2, 2020, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. We also sent a request to the Korean Embassy to issue a No Objection Statement and recommend this waiver based on the fact that our client is eligible to adjust in the United States if he obtains the waiver.
The Korean Consulate General in Atlanta promptly forwarded our client’s documents to the Korean Embassy in DC. After that, the Korean Embassy issued a No Objection Statement for our client, and sent this letter to the State Department’s Waiver Review Division. On March 11, 2020, the Waiver Review Division issued a favorable recommendation based on the No Objection statement. Eventually, the USCIS has issued an I-612 approval notice on March 23, 2020.