Last week, we had another I-601A provisional waiver approved. This makes us 6 for 6, so far, with a few more pending. We have learned quite a bit in the past 18 months or so that we have done provisional waivers.
Don’t underestimate your own hardship. We think that people endure a lot of hardship and have grown accustomed to it and accepted it as the normal state of affairs rather than recognizing that things could be better.
The President’s executive reforms to the U.S. immigration system make a number of very positive changes that have the potential to help millions of people. Although we have written about various components of the reforms individually, we have summarized six major portions here in one place.
Benach Collopy will be offering several free community meetings throughout December and will be offering reduced fee consultations for people who may benefit from these reforms.
Another positive development included in the President’s administrative reforms to U.S. immigration laws is the proposed expansion of the provisional waiver program, which the President initiated in 2013. The provisional waiver, as initially introduced allowed the spouses and children of U.S. citizens to seek a waiver of inadmissibility for the three and ten year bars due to unlawful presence to seek a waiver in the U.S.
The President spoke to the nation tonight to reveal his long-awaited plan to reform immigration laws to the extent that his authority allows him. Those who have watched and waited had a number of questions answered even before the President took the lectern. The biggest announcement is that the President will extend deferred action eligibility to the parents of United States citizens or permanent residents who have been in the US.
Nearly two years since the announcement of the provisional waiver of inadmissibility, known as the I-601A extreme hardship waiver, we have learned quite a bit about the people that need this waiver and the way the government is processing them. Here are the top five things we have learned:
The process has transformed lives. We have witnessed families emerge from desperation and hopelessness to seize the opportunity to take charge of their lives.
Sometimes we really struggle on picking a single client of the month, but this was an easy one. Our clients of the month for June 2014 are Antonio and Alexis Pereira, who just returned from Brazil where Antonio received his immigrant visa, after over a decade of living without status in the U.S. Antonio was the first BR client to receive an immigrant visa under the I-601A provisional waiver program, which allowed people to seek waivers of inadmissibility due to unlawful presence prior to departing for their home country.
Today, the US Citizenship & Immigration Service announced a fix to one of the more serious problems with the provisional waiver process for unlawful presence. As you may know, the CIS instituted the I-601A provisional waiver process last year to allow immigrants who are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens but are also ineligible to seek residence in the U.S. due to unlawful entry to seek a provisional waiver of inadmissibility in anticipation of seeking a visa at the U.S.
