Mr. Lee's Victory on I-601 Fraud Waiver Application Reported in World Journal On March 21, 2009

World Journal Saturday March 21, 2009 Local News

New Case Law Change Status of Aliens who Entered U.S. Illegally

Mr. Zheng Arrested While Entering U.S. Using a Fake Passport
U.S. Citizen Elderly Father Appealed
Despite Criminal Records His “Waiver” Granted

<Reporter Yu Ting Zhou>
<Reporting from New York>

In 2001, Fujianese immigrant Mr. Zheng used a fake Singapore passport to gain entry at Hawaii’s airport and was arrested by USCIS. Mr. Zheng’s father is a U.S. citizen. He helped his son to seek a waiver of inadmissibility of I-601; however, it was denied by USCIS. His attorney filed an appeal to the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) based on their close immediate relationship and Mr. Zheng could not return to live in China, and it was approved.

His attorney indicated that although Mr. Zheng had criminal records and father and son did not live together, when the bona fide immediate family relationship with the U.S. citizen was established, there was still a chance to gain approval during appeal.

Mr. Zheng’s attorney, Alan Lee, said that this type of case had happened before, but recently there was no definitive case law. This decision by AAO is good news for illegal aliens who file for adjustment of status based on family.

The attorney stated that Mr. Zheng had criminal records, currently lived with his wife and worked in Atlanta. However, his father lives at 8th Ave., Brooklyn. The decision concluded that although the relatives did not live together, a waiver application could be successful as long as the strong ties between the parties were established.

The court records indicated that Mr. Zheng was found to be inadmissible to the United States for having attempted to gain entry by a fraudulent passport and was arrested. The law also provided that if U.S. citizen children, and/or spouse were forced to leave the United States and this caused them to suffer extreme hardship, the applicant could be approved with a waiver.

Among the documents submitted to AAO, Alan Lee argued that Mr. Zheng’s father came to the U.S. in 1988, both of his parents are deceased and he basically had no relatives there. He is now 57 years old and could not find a job in China. He also suffered from chronic disease such as high blood pressure, diabetic, etc., in addition to his depressive symptoms. If he would have to go back to China, he would have no income, could not go to hospital for treatment, he would suffer extreme hardship and could not live on.

Although Mr. Zheng lives in Atlanta and his father lives in a Chinese community in New York and works in the Chinese restaurant where the father can rely upon himself, he would come back immediately from Atlanta to New York whenever his father was ill to take care of him, accompany him to see the doctor, and comfort him. Mr. Zheng is his father’s only relative that he could rely on.

In addition, Mr. Zheng and his wife have four children in the U.S.. If the whole family returns back to China they would face punishment due to the one-child policy.

The AAO sustained the appeal last Friday and this case is being returned to the local Immigration Office for further adjudication.

[ Note: Although not noted in this article, the case is not designated as a precedent case by the AAO.]

 


The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. 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 the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha 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 Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

This article © 2009 Alan Lee, Esq.

 

Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee, Esq.
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