To help immigrants who are illegal and who are married to U.S. citizens we can file a waiver with Immigration. These illegals face at least 3 years and up to 10 years of exclusion. There was a legitimate fear that a Consul would be arbitrary and deny a visa waiver or alternatively keep the immigrant waiting for a decisions for a year or more. The bleak prospect was so dire that often American spouses rather than lose their loved ones to an indeterminate fate abroad, decided it was safer for the immigrants to remain in the U.S. and take their chances later. This added to the greater number of illegal aliens in the U.S. who were also in fear of being arrested by the police or an immigration round-up or for being arrested for driving unlicensed or for a minor offense such as walking in the street with an open bottle of beer.
Beginning on March 4, 2013 the new executive order of the President will take effect to allow U.S. citizens to apply for their immigrant spouses in the U.S. Immigrants abroad were often stranded, cruelly separated from their families in the US for months and even for years while they waited for an approval from a U.S. Consul.
Under the new regulations immigrant spouses may wait in the U.S. until the wavier is granted. Then the immigrants must return to his/her country but only for weeks, not months or years. At the Consular interview, Consuls will still take the immigrant’s fingerprints to assure that the applicant does not have a criminal record in his/her country. Since the immigrant will have the wavier by the time of the Consular interview the immigrant may now safely be assure of promptly returning to their families in the U.S.
While waiting for the grant of the Wavier, the new law would allow eligible immediate relatives who are present in the U.S. to obtain provisional unlawful presence waivers while they await the pardon. This provisional waiver would also expedite the State Department process to issue the immigrant visa abroad without delay.
These new regulations would allow immigrants in removal proceedings to have these proceedings terminated. Immigrants who are already abroad may take advantage of this new law as the granting of waivers by the Department of Homeland Security is equally available to immediate family members abroad. The long wait formerly required for immigrants may now be relieved by filing for the waiver in the U.S.
