CASE: J-1 Waiver of the Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Thai
LOCATION: Ohio
Our Thai client came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in August 2008. She came to the U.S. for research training, and her J-1 visa made her subject to the two-year foreign resident requirement.
In February 2014, our client married his U.S. Citizen husband and she wanted to apply for permanent residency. However, due to the two-year foreign residency requirement, she had to obtain a waiver first.
After she retained our firm, we prepared and filed a waiver request through a No Objection Statement (NOS) from the Thai Embassy in the United States. On April 15, 2014 the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. We also sent a request with supporting documents to the Thai 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 marriage based adjustment of status application but for the waiver.
The Thai Embassy eventually issued a No Objection Statement for our client, and sent this letter to the State Department’s Waiver Review Division. On October 10, 2014, 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 October 27, 2014. Now that our client’s two-year foreign residency requirement is waived, she can file an adjustment of status application with her husband’s I-130 petition.