11 Jan Waiver Case Reopened and Granted at U.S. Consulate
Any immigrant with a deportation order from an Immigration Court could be arrested and deported even if married to a U.S. citizen. Under certain circumstances, an Immigration Court may reopen such a case, but motions to reopen are often denied. Further, certain people with deportation orders can apply directly to the Immigration Service for a green card, but their applications could be denied due to their deportation order, or due to use of a fraudulent passport, or a fraudulent asylum application. If their application is denied, they could be arrested and deported. Situations like this are very dangerous, and many immigrants get bad advice from non-attorneys and bad attorneys who promise them they can get green cards, and who often make mistakes that get their clients arrested and deported. We have seen many such cases over the last decade. Certain spouses of U.S. citizens who have been deported can return to the U.S. Unfortunately, the process is very long and complicated. If someone has been deported, they are not allowed to reenter the U.S. for ten years unless they apply for a waiver, which is basically an application for forgiveness, and if that waiver is approved by the Immigration Service. We recently had a waiver approved for a man who was deported a few years ago, and we are now waiting for his final interview in Guangzhou so that can return to the United States to take care of his wife and children who have been separated from him since his deportation. Certain people have other problems in their cases that may make it even more difficult to return to the U.S., such as fraud charges, and findings by an Immigration Judge that they lied to the Court in their asylum application. Still, the situation is not always hopeless as many people believe if you have a good attorney that knows the process, and does a good job of preparing the application for a waiver. The husband and family of a woman who was deported in 2006 came to us three weeks ago and handed us a decision denying her waiver which she needed to return to the U.S. Their previous lawyer, from a well known law firm, had not been careful in preparing the waiver. The waiver application was based on hardship to the U.S. citizen husband due to his mother having cancer. His mother had surgery for breast cancer in 2007 and the doctor had told her that the cancer was gone. By the time the waiver application was submitted, she had started to feel sick again, but had not been diagnosed by a doctor, so there was no proof that the cancer had returned. Our client’s previous lawyer should have explained to the family that they needed to get medical evidence that the cancer had returned before filing the waiver, but instead, he simply filed the case with the old medical evidence from 2007. Also, the lawyer helped our client’s husband write a statement, but the statement did not explain how our client had helped to take care his father in 2005 when he was sick and died of cancer. This was an important factor because it showed how our client would continue to help the family through difficult times and care for her husband’s mother while she was undergoing cancer treatment. After our client’s previous lawyer filed the waiver application, his mother’s illness became worse and her physical condition became much weaker. She lost weight and eventually, her doctors found cancer in her liver. When a waiver case is still pending, a lawyer should always submit new evidence if it makes the case better. Our client’s lawyer did not do anything after filing the waiver even though the case could have been much stronger if he had submitted new evidence including medical records and reports regarding medical treatment in our client’s country which is far worse than the U.S. We immediately obtained a current report from the doctor treating the cancer, and lab reports proving that the cancer had spread to the liver. We also submitted evidence from college medical journals explaining the specific type of cancer and the chances that someone with this type of cancer would survive. We prepared a lengthy statement for our client’s husband explaining how important it was for our client to be in the United States to help care for his mother and to help him through his depression as well as his financial problems. We provided evidence that he had filed for bankruptcy by getting a letter from his bankruptcy lawyer. On Thursday, we submitted this and other evidence to the U.S. consulate in Vienna, Austria, requesting that the waiver be reopened. By Monday, we received an email from the consulate informing us that the waiver had been granted. Our client was told that she would be scheduled for another interview in about two weeks and we expect her to be back to the U.S. within one month. Many people in her situation would have given up after the first denial, but with immigration, you never know what the final result will be. With some hard work and attention to detail, the odds can be in your favor.