CASE: I-130/I-485
NATIONALITY: Filipina
LOCATION: Aberdeen, SD
Our client, from the Philippines, came to the U.S. as a J-1 teacher. Her J-1 status subjects her to the two-year foreign residence requirement. She wanted to file her adjustment of status application concurrently with her U.S. citizen spouse’s I-130 petition; however, due to the two-year requirement, she first needed a waiver.
Unlike our other J-1 clients, she could not pursue a waiver through the No Objection Statement or Interested Government Agency (IGA) route. Her case was essentially impossible for those waiver options. She chose to pursue her J-1 waiver based on the exceptional hardship standard, as her U.S. citizen spouse experiences exceptional medical hardships.
According to 8 C.F.R. Section 212.7(c)(5), “an alien who is subject to the foreign residence requirement and who believes that compliance therewith would impose exceptional hardship upon her spouse or child who is a citizen of the United States… may apply for a waiver on Form I-612.”
Some factors considered in analyzing extreme hardship include the subject’s age; family ties in the U.S. and abroad; length of residence in the U.S.; health/medical conditions; conditions in the country of removal (economic and political); financial status (business and occupation); and position/ties to the community. Matter of Anderson, 16 I&N Dec. 596 (BIA 1978).
After retaining our firm, we prepared and filed a waiver request based on exceptional hardship. On August 16, 2022, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) application was filed with the Department of State. We then prepared our client’s affidavit, an extensive brief supporting her J-1 waiver application, and other supporting documents. She provided extensive medical documents and doctor’s reports detailing her U.S. citizen spouse’s medical conditions. On August 19, 2022, we filed the I-612 application with USCIS, requesting a favorable recommendation based on the exceptional hardship her spouse would experience if she had to return to the Philippines for two years.
On September 27, 2023, USCIS issued a Request for Evidence (RFE), requesting additional hardship evidence for her husband. We prepared and filed the Response to the RFE on November 30, 2023. USCIS approved her I-612 waiver on June 3, 2024.
Her U.S. citizen husband filed the I-130 petition in September 2018, and it was approved in August 2019. However, she could not file her adjustment of status due to the two-year foreign residence requirement. After her I-612 waiver was approved, she again retained our firm for her I-485 adjustment of status application. We prepared and filed the I-485 application on August 26, 2024. Everything proceeded smoothly; receipt notices and the fingerprint appointment arrived on time. Her green card application was approved without an interview on February 10, 2025.