CASE: J-1 Waiver of Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, No Objection Statement
NATIONALITY: Korean
LOCATION: St. Paul, MN
Our client is from South Korea who came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa. He entered in August 2018 to work as a researcher. His J-1 program made him subject to the two-year foreign residence requirement. In September 2020, he married his LPR spouse. He retained our office to seek legal assistance for his I-130 Petition and I-485 Adjustment of Status applications. However, before we file his I-485 application, he had to get a waiver of his two-year foreign residency requirement.
Upon retention, our office prepared and filed a waiver request through the 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 Office in Chicago to pursue the waiver for our client. The Consulate 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 September 30, 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 file an adjustment of status application based on his wife’s I-130 petition.
The Korean Consulate General in Chicago 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 19, 2021, the Waiver Review Division issued a favorable recommendation based on the No Objection statement. Eventually, on July 1, 2021, the USCIS issued I-612 approval notice and waived our client’s 2 year foreign residency requirement.