CASE: Immigrant Visa / I-601A Hardship Waiver of Inadmissibility / I-212 Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission Into the United States After Deportation or Removal
APPLICANT / BENEFICIARY: Ecuadorian
LOCATION: Quito, Ecuador (Visa Interview)
Our client came to the United States from Ecuador in March 1999 without inspection and admission. Later, he married his U.S. citizen wife in 2006. However, removal proceedings were initiated against him in March 2009 as an alien present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. With our assistance and representation, our client went to all of his court hearings and applied for Cancellation of Removal for Non-LPR. However, the Immigration Judge in the Cleveland Immigration Court denied our client’s application for relief.
After his case was denied, our client’s U.S. Citizen Wife filed an I-130 petition for him and this I-130 petition was approved on January 27, 2014. However, needed a waiver of inadmissibility to become a green card holder.
INA § 212(i) provides for a discretionary waiver of the entry without inspection inadmissibility ground. To qualify for the waiver, the alien must establish that his or her US Citizen spouse would suffer extreme hardship if the alien were denied admission. INA § 212(i)(1). In addition to the equities presented, the USCIS may consider the nature of the inadmissibility ground.
There is a seminal BIA case that deals with this waiver. In Matter of Cervantes, 22 I & N Dec. 560 (BIA 1999), the BIA identified the factors to be considered in determining whether a qualifying relative would suffer extreme hardship if the alien were denied admission. Those factors include: the presence of LPR or USC family ties both within and outside the United States; the conditions in the country to which the qualifying relative would relocate and the extent of the qualifying relative’s ties to that country; the financial impact of departure from the United States; and significant conditions of health, particularly when tied to the unavailability of suitable medical care in the country to which the qualifying relative would relocate.
Before the I-130 was approved, our client took voluntary departure from the United States in November 2013 as he tried to get an immigrant visa through consular processing with an I-601 waiver. He went back to Ecuador. Once he returned there, with our legal assistance, we filed his immigrant visa package to the National Visa Center on June 27, 2014.
Our client’s I-601 application had a good chance since our client’s U.S. Citizen wife suffers from a great degree of medical and psychological hardship. In the I-601 brief and supporting documents, our office included extensive medical reports of his wife. We argued that it would be extremely difficult for our client’s wife to get the same level of therapy and satisfactory access to medical services in Ecuador in case she joins our client there.
In our brief, we also argued that his wife will have difficulty in finding the same level of employment in Ecuador, and that his wife will face extreme financial and emotional difficulties if she joins him in Ecuador.
On February 12, 2015, we filed the I-601 waiver application which included the brief in support, his wife’s extensive medical and psychological examination records, and other documents that demonstrated hardship to his wife if she joins our client in Ecuador. Later, on November 25, 2015, our office also filed the I-212 Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission into the United States after Deportation or Removal.
Eventually, his I-601 waiver and I-212 were approved on January 4, 2016. The U.S. Embassy in Quito, Ecuador informed our office that they scheduled an immigrant visa interview for our client. On January 26, 2016, our client appeared at his immigrant visa interview at the U.S. Embassy in Quito, and the Consulate officer approved his immigrant visa on the same day.
Now, our client can come back to the United States with an approved immigrant visa and he will get his green card in the mail within two months of his entry to the United States.