01 Dec Our Immigration Lawyers Received an Approval of an I-601 Extreme Hardship Waiver
Getson & Schatz, P.C. received an approval of a Form I-601, Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility, for a client in Albania based on extreme hardship to his United States Permanent Resident spouse. Our attorneys expedited the application for faster processing at USCIS due to the health and safety needs of the client’s young child who was living in the United States. Our client had attended an immigrant visa interview at the Embassy of the United States in Albania and was determined to be inadmissible under INA § 212(a)(6)(C)(I) for having failed to attend a deportation hearing and then departing the United States. Our client was eligible for a waiver of inadmissibility of this bar as he had a Permanent Resident spouse who would suffer extreme hardship if he were not immediately permitted entry to the United States.
According to Matter of Hwang, 10 I&N Dec. 448, 451 (BIA 1964) extreme hardship is not a definable term of fixed or inflexible content or meaning but necessarily depends upon the facts and circumstances peculiar to each case. The waiver application was approved on the basis of four major hardships that would have occurred if the application had been denied.
- Severe consequences on his son’s health in the United States which had a direct impact on his wife: Our client’s son suffers from numerous life threatening illnesses which require continuous medical treatment and care that his wife could not manage by herself.
- Extreme psychological hardship for his wife: Our client’s wife had been diagnosed with adjustment disorder and anxiety as a result of their Permanent Resident child’s illnesses. We showed that this anxiety would worsen should our client be forced to remain in Albania. Due to their son’s numerous life threatening illnesses, our client’s wife feared that her child’s conditions would worsen without her husband’s presence. This, combined with the fear of being separated from her husband, had caused our client’s wife to develop adjustment disorder with anxiety.
- Substantial financial losses: Our client’s wife would have suffered an extreme financial burden if our client had been forced to remain in Albania. Our client’s wife had a low paying job that did not enable her to support her family, let alone their child’s medical expenses. She also does not speak English and therefore was relying on her husband’s financial support and future job prospects in the U.S. to support their family. Our client had an advanced degree in a scientific field and had many transferable skills that gave him better job prospects in the United States.
- Inability to receive medical treatment for their son in Albania: Our client’s child could not reside in Albania as a result of the multiple illnesses. The doctors in Albania had been unable to identify the illness when the child had lived in Albania. Additionally, there is decreased access to healthcare in Albania and due to rampant corruption in the Albanian healthcare system, the cost of medical care is very expensive. Due to these factors our client’s wife would have experienced extreme emotional hardship caused by the distress of their child not being able receive the treatment he needs if she had to live in Albania to be with the her husband if the waiver application were denied.
Our immigration lawyers compiled evidence pertaining to these factors to strengthen the waiver application. Evidence included affidavits from our client, his wife, and his brother detailing the above mentioned hardships. Our immigration lawyers helped our client’s wife in the United States obtain a psychological hardship evaluation from a licensed psychologist and various medical records pertaining to their child’s many medical conditions including appointment cards and physician letters. Medical research on the child’s several illnesses and country reports and news articles on the state of the Albanian health care system were also included as additional support.
After filing Form I-601 with supporting documents, our Philadelphia immigration attorneys filed a Request to Expedite the pending Form I-601 as our client demonstrated extraordinary circumstances warranting faster processing in that his child had urgent and critical medical needs which required our client’s assistance in the United States. USCIS approved the I-601 waiver application on an expedited basis and forwarded our client’s file to Albania for the issuance of an immigrant visa so that he could join his Lawful Permanent Resident wife and child in the United States.