CASE: J-1 Waiver of the Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, Persecution
NATIONALITY: Filipino
LOCATION: Dulce, NM
Our client came to the U.S. on a J-1 Visa in October 2019 to work as a teacher. His J-1 visa made him subject to the two-year foreign resident requirement. Our client would like to file an adjustment of status application based on his employer’s I-140 petition. However, due to the two-year foreign residency requirement, he had to obtain a waiver first.
Unlike our other J-1 clients, he could not pursue his waiver under the No Objection Statement or Interest Government Agency (IGA). Moreover, our client could not pursue his J-1 waiver based on exceptional hardship. Nonetheless, our client could pursue J-1 waiver under persecution category since he believes that he will be persecuted based on his same sex marital relationship with his current spouse.
A person can file a J-1 waiver under the persecution basis if the person believes that he will be persecuted based on his race, religion, or political opinion if he returns to his home country. The Waiver Review Division will proceed with the waiver recommendation under this basis only if USCIS makes a finding of persecution.
Our client believed that he would be persecuted if he goes back to the Philippines based on his marriage in the U.S. His marriage is culturally and religiously forbidden in the Philippines. After he retained our firm, we prepared and filed a waiver request through the persecution basis. On October 1, 2021, the J-1 Waiver (Form DS-3035) Application was filed to the Department of State. Thereafter, our office prepared an affidavit of our client, extensive brief in support for our client’s J-1 waiver application, and other supporting documents to show that he will be persecuted in the Philippines if he goes back. On October 5, 2021, our office filed the I-612 application to the USCIS and asked for them to issue and recommend this waiver based on the fact that our client will be persecuted if our client needs to go back to the Philippines for two years.
On February 10, 2022, the USCIS issued Request for Evidence (RFE) . We filed the response on April 7, 2022. Eventually, the Department of State recommended a waiver for our client on April 28, 2022. Subsequently, the USCIS approved his I-612 waiver on June 2, 2022.