News Update - September 20, 2013

I-601 Hardship Waiver Win (Unpublished) at Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) of U.S.C.I.S. as published in the Epoch Times, Interpreter Releases, Immigration Daily and Bender's Immigration Bulletin

Attached is a decision that we just received from the AAO sustaining our I-601 appeal of an INA §212(i) denial for a Chinese national entering the U. S. with a photo substituted Taiwanese passport who was placed in proceedings before the immigration court and remained in the country following an in absentia exclusion order. The waiver application was based upon the applicant showing that her removal would cause extreme hardship to the qualifying relative in the U. S. with status. Our client is applying for adjustment of status to permanent residence as the spouse of a U. S. citizen who is also the qualifying relative for establishing extreme hardship. In order to qualify for adjustment of status, she was required to show that she had been inspected and admitted or paroled, and she used  the fact that she entered with the photo substituted passport to show that she had been inspected. But having admitted that she used a fraudulent passport, she also required a waiver of the fraud to continue to show eligibility for adjustment of status to permanent residence in the States.

† The author is a 30+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City holding an AV preeminent rating in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, registered in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, and on the New York Super Lawyers list for 2011-2012 and recognized as a New York Area Top Rated Lawyer in 2012.. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for Interpreter Releases, Immigration Daily, and the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasba and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Bush Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

‡ This article © 2013 Alan Lee, Esq.

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