Sometimes even the best of intentions aren’t enough when it comes to immigration cases. Imagine falling in love with someone who had overstayed his visa. When he proposes, you decide that you want to start your marriage without any immigration issues. In order to do what you think will be the best thing to solve the visa overstay issue, you decide to get married in your fiance’s home country and then apply for an immigrant visa so that he can fix the overstay and correct his immigration status. You go to his home country in eastern Europe to meet his family and to get married. You then have the European honeymoon of your dreams. But, when you start the immigrant visa process after your wedding, you learn that because your husband departed the United States after having overstayed his visa by more than one year, he won’t be allowed to return to the United States for 10 years unless you are able to get an unlawful presence waiver approved.

This is exactly what happened to a couple that came to me for assistance with obtaining an unlawful presence waiver. We began the process by discussing their backgrounds and relationship so that we could identify the hardship factors that were unique to them that would help them demonstrate that she would experience extreme hardship if her husband was not allowed to return to the United States or if she had to relocate to his home country. After identifying their unique hardship factors, I then worked with them to prepare personal statements and a legal memo that explained their situation and the hardship that they were facing. Once the supporting evidence was collected, we submitted the waiver package.

The waiver was approved in less than two months…just in time for the holidays. This quick response was a very happy surprise for my clients who did not expect to spend the holidays together based on the listed average unlawful presence waiver processing times of four months. My clients will now get to celebrate the holiday season together in their home in the United States.

If you are facing a similar situation, please keep in mind that preparing a waiver package takes a considerable amount of time and is something that can’t be rushed. It takes time to identify the unique hardship factors in your case, collect the supporting evidence to prove the hardship factors and then present your case in a way that will make it easy for the immigration officer who reviews your case to understand your situation. Many immigration waiver applications are either denied or face additional delays due to receiving requests for additional evidence from the government. The time you spend presenting your case correctly will help you minimize the risk that your application is denied or is delayed.