CASE: J-1 Waiver of Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Korean
LOCATION: Wilmington, DE
Our client is from South Korea who came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in February 2015. He came to the U.S as a visiting scholar, but his J-1 program made him subject to the two-year foreign residency requirement. He retained our office to seek legal assistance for his I-140 (National Interest Waiver Classification) and I-485 Adjustment of Status. Before we can file his I-140/I-485 application simultaneously, he has to get a waiver of his two-year foreign residency requirement first.
Once retained, our office prepared and filed a waiver request through a No Objection Statement (NOS) from the Korean Embassy in the United States.
Attorney Sung Hee (Glen) Yu from our office contacted the Korean Consulate General’s Office in New York 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 the 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 July 6, 2015, 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 based on NIW.
The Korean Consulate General in Chicago 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 September 3, 2015, the Waiver Review Division issued a favorable recommendation based on the No Objection statement. Eventually, on September 16, 2015, the USCIS issued an I-612 approval notice and waived our client’s 2 year foreign residency requirement.