Misrepresentation Waivers and Immigration Lawyers

There is no requirement to work with an immigration lawyer on your misrepresentation waiver. Not everyone will need the help of a lawyer for their misrepresentation waiver application. Yes, I’m an immigration lawyer and I’m telling you that you may not need a lawyer for your misrepresentation waiver. But many people will find it to be very helpful to work with a misrepresentation waiver lawyer on your application.

Before you decide whether you should hire an immigration lawyer to help you, you should begin by taking a look at the role of an immigration lawyer in a misreprentation waiver case.

How A Misrepresentation Waiver Lawyer Can Help With Your Waiver Application

In order to win your misrepresenation waiver case, you must show that you have a “qualifying relative” who will experience extreme hardship if you are not granted a waiver. The term “extreme hardship” has a very specific meaning in immigration law. Many people will make the mistake of not focusing on hardships to their “qualifying relatives” and will talk about the hardship to other people instead.  For example, children are not qualifying relatives for a misrepresentation waiver. It doesn’t matter how much hardship your children will experience. If you focus your waiver package on the hardships to the wrong people, your I-601 waiver application will be denied. A misrepresenation waiver lawyer can help you make sure that your waiver package stays focused on your qualifying relatives.

Most people will also focus their hardship factors on the issues that they are most concerned about. But the issues that are most important to you may not be the strongest arguments in your case and you may not even recognize all of the hardship factors in your case. For example, you may be most concerned about the financial hardship of a forced family separation or may be worried about losing their home due to the financial stress of a separation. This may lead you to present the financial hardship first. But in most cases the financial hardship is not the strongest hardship factor. The person who decides whether to approve your waiver may be more willing to give you a waiver if you focused your application on other factors. Simply put, what worries you the most may not be your strongest legal argument. A lawyer can help you by providing an objective evaluation of your case and can help you identify hardship factors that you didn’t even think about.

The evidence you submit with your application is very important to winning your case. You need to prove that the hardship exists and that it is extreme enough to qualify for a waiver. An immigration lawyer will help you identify what documents you should include with your waiver package. You don’t want to include information that isn’t helpful to your case. If you make this mistake, your strong arguments will get lost in all the unhelpful information. In addition, what you include in the waiver package could also influence what happens at the visa interview. Your lawyer will be able to help minimize the risk of creating additional problems by including the wrong information in your waiver application.

If you do decide to work with a misrepresentation waiver lawyer…

Your misrepresentation waiver case is important. You already know how even small mistakes can hurt your chances of becoming a permanent resident. Make sure that you learn as much as you can about misrepresentation waivers so that you can avoid any mistakes with your application. This will make the I-601 misrepresentation waiver process much less stressful and will allow you to prepare the best waiver application possible. You can learn more by getting your free copy of the Immigration Waiver Guide from this website and checking out the USCIS information on misrepresentation waivers.