CASE: Marriage-Based Adjustment of Status
CLIENT: Vietnamese
LOCATION: San Francisco, CA
Our client is a citizen of Vietnam who came to the U.S. on a J-2 Visa in August 2010. She came with her father who came on a J-1 Visa as a researcher in the U.S. Both were subject to the two-year foreign residency requirement, meaning they had to go back to their home country for two years before they could apply for permanent residency or some non-immigrant visa such as the H, L, and O visas.
She turned 21 in February 2020. By getting a waiver, she would have the ability to be petitioned for H-1B status by her prospective employer. However, because of her two-year foreign residency requirement, our client cannot change her status in the United States without fulfilling the requirement or the waiver.
Our firm was retained to do her J-2 waiver, and on March 30, 2021, the J-2 Waiver application was filed to the Department of State. We also sent a request to the DOS to be an interested government agency and recommend this waiver because our client reached the age of 21 and was not a dependent on a J-1 visa holder anymore. On August 31, 2021, the DOS recommended to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) that our client be granted a waiver. On September 2, 2021, the USCIS issued an I-612 approval notice for our client’s waiver request.
She contacted our office again in June 2023 after she married her U.S. citizen husband. She retained our office for her green card application, and our firm filed the I-130 Petition and I-485 Application on July 5, 2023. All went well and the receipt notices and fingerprint appointment came on time. On August 28, 2023, our client’s green card application was approved.