CASE: J-1 Waiver of the Two-Year Foreign Residency Requirement, Extreme Hardship
NATIONALITY: Filipina
LOCATION: Gallup, NM
Our client came from the Philippines on a J-1 visa as a teacher, and as a result, she is currently subject to the mandatory two-year foreign residency requirement. She would like to file her Adjustment of Status application along with her U.S. citizen spouse’s I-130 petition; however, due to the foreign residency requirement, she first had to obtain a waiver.
Unlike many of our other J-1 clients, our client was unable to pursue her waiver through a No Objection Statement or the Interested Government Agency (IGA) route. These paths were effectively unavailable for her specific case. Therefore, our client chose to pursue the J-1 waiver based on the exceptional hardship standard. This waiver is sought because her U.S. citizen spouse is experiencing exceptional medical hardships. According to 8 C.F.R. Section 212.7(c)(5), “an alien who is subject to the foreign residence requirement and who believes that compliance therewith would impose exceptional hardship upon her spouse or child who is a citizen of the United States… may apply for a waiver on Form I-612.” Some of the factors considered when analyzing extreme hardship include the age of the subject, family ties, length of residency in the U.S., health/medical conditions, and conditions in the country of removal, as established in Matter of Anderson, 16 I&N Dec. 596 (BIA 1978).
After our firm was retained, we prepared and filed the waiver request based on the exceptional hardship standard. On March 7, 2024, the J-1 Waiver Application (Form DS-3035) was filed with the Department of State. Following that, our office prepared a comprehensive package including an affidavit from our client, an extensive legal brief supporting the waiver, and other crucial documents. Our client provided us with extensive medical documents and doctor’s reports detailing her U.S. citizen spouse’s medical conditions. On March 11, 2024, our office filed the Form I-612 application with USCIS, asking them to favorably recommend this waiver on the basis that our client’s spouse would experience exceptional hardship if our client were required to return to the Philippines for two years.
However, on June 20, 2025, USCIS issued a Request for Evidence (RFE), requesting our client to submit more hardship evidence for her husband. Our office prepared and filed a thorough Response to the RFE on August 18, 2025. We are pleased to report that USCIS eventually approved her I-612 waiver on September 25, 2025.