28 Feb I-601 Extreme Hardship Waiver Granted
Brian H. Getson, Esquire, a Philadelphia Immigration Lawyer, represented a US Citizen client who lived for many years in the US with his wife, a Mexican Citizen who had entered the United States without Inspection. Prior to the new stateside waiver rules, his wife had returned to Mexico to be with her mother who was ill. Her departure from the United States resulted in her being barred for 10 years from returning to the United States because she had been unlawfully present in the United States for more than 1 year and left. We assisted our client to file an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative on behalf of his wife which was approved. We then processed the paperwork at the National Visa Center and she had an interview at the US Embassy in Ciudad Juarez at which time her immigrant visa application was denied based upon her unlawful presence bar. We thereafter prepared and filed an I-601 Waiver Application to show that if she were not allowed back into the United States sooner than the 10 year bar her husband would suffer extreme hardship. The couple had two US Citizen children born together while she was in the United States who went with her to Mexico. He also had a US Citizen son by a previous marriage. The husband could not move to Mexico because he could not leave behind the US Citizen son by the prior marriage. Additionally, the husband only had an 11th grade education and did not have any particular vocational training, so the types of jobs available in Mexico were very limited. Someone with his level of education can usually only in the construction or farming fields and he would therefore be unable to find any employment in Mexico to support his family including his son from his prior marriage. Our client being in the US while his wife and children were in Mexico caused him to fall into a deep depression which is extreme as it debilitates him from doing anything fulfilling in his life other than working. Every night when he came home from work, he was struck with loneliness and surrounded by an empty house. Our client was suffering ongoing extreme hardship being in the U.S. apart from his wife and children. Every day he was consumed with sadness at being apart from his family. His feeling was beyond mere separation as he knew he could not in Mexico with them. He was in a situation of not being able to leave behind his son in the U.S. to be reunited with his family in Mexico and living in the U.S. separated from his wife and two younger children which caused an ongoing and debilitating sadness and kept him away from my two U.S. citizen children and my wife in Mexico. The only way out of the situation was for his wife to be permitted to return to the U.S. so she could bring back his two U.S. citizen children. Since going to Mexico would have financially devastated his family and left him without his older son and would subject him to extreme hardship and remaining in the U.S. without his wife and children is itself extreme hardship, his I-601 application was granted and his wife was granted an immigrant visa to return to the US with their two US Citizen children.