Many individuals cannot enter the United States or become Lawful Permanent Residents because they are deemed “inadmissible” based on certain prior conduct. However, there are waivers for certain types of conduct so that an “inadmissible person” can still be permitted to lawfully enter the U.S. Waivers of inadmissibility are complicated immigration applications. There are waivers for both non-immigrants (those seeking to enter the U.S. for a temporary period of time) as well as waivers for immigrants (those entering the U.S. to become permanent residents). If you believe you are or might be inadmissible to the U.S., it is very important to speak with an attorney to evaluate whether you might be eligible for a waiver.
New Stateside Waive Process: An exciting new process for obtaining waivers for certain individuals became law this year. The process, titled “Stateside Provisional Waivers”, is primarily aimed at reducing separation periods for immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens. Traditionally, immigrant spouses were required to remain in their home countries for periods lasting up to several years while the awaited a decision on their waiver request for previously living in the U.S. without permission for more than one year. Now, an immigrant spouse can await the decision on their waiver while remaining in the U.S. The waiver then can be provisionally approved before the immigrant must return to their home country for final adjudication and issuance of their immigrant visa in order to return to the U.S. as a Lawful Permanent Resident. With this new process, immigrant spouses will hopefully only be outside of the U.S. for a period potentially of less than one month instead of being separated from their U.S. families for possibly years.