We obtained approval of the I-601 Application of Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility for the Filipino husband of a U.S. citizen who was subject to a life-time bar for fraud/misrepresentation under INA Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i).
INA Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i) states:
Any alien who, by fraud or willfully misrepresenting a material fact, seeks to procure (or has sought to procure or has procured) a visa, other documentation, or admission into the United States or other benefit provided under this Act is inadmissible.
Our client entered the U.S. lawfully on a valid non-immigrant visa, met his U.S. citizen spouse, and fell in love. They have been married for 14 years. He returned to the Philippines to pursue his studies, planning to return to the U.S. after graduation. He failed to disclose a prior marriage on his original visa application and was consequently charged with fraud / willful misrepresentation pursuant to INA Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i) and deemed inadmissible at his immigrant visa interview.
I was contacted by the clients to assist them in preparing and obtaining approval of the I-601 waiver after the finding of inadmissibility by the U.S. embassy in Manila, Philippines.
An I-601 Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility requires a showing that the applicant’s U.S. citizen spouse or parent would suffer “extreme hardship” if the applicant is refused admission into the United States.
”Extreme hardship” has a special meaning under U.S. immigration law. The factors considered relevant in determining extreme hardship include:
- Health of the qualifying relative: ongoing or specialized treatment requirements for a physical or mental condition; availability and quality of such treatment in the foreign national’s country, anticipated duration of the treatment; whether a condition is chronic or acute, or long or short-term.
- Financial considerations: future employability; loss due to sale of home or business or termination of a professional practice; decline in standard of living; ability to recoup short-term losses; cost of extraordinary needs, such as special education or training for children; cost of caring for family members (i.e., elderly and infirm parents).
- Education: loss of opportunity for higher education; lower quality or limited scope of education options; disruption of current program; requirement to be educated in a foreign language or culture with ensuing loss of time in grade; availability of special requirements, such as training programs or internships in specific fields.
- Personal considerations: close relatives in the United States and/or the foreign national’s country; separation from spouse/children; ages of involved parties; length of residence and community ties in the United States.
- Special considerations: cultural, language, religious, and ethnic obstacles; valid fears of persecution, physical harm, or injury; social ostracism or stigma; access to social institutions or structures.
- Any other information that explains how your personal circumstances may qualify as imposing extreme hardship on a qualifying U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident relative.
Spouses must demonstrate that their relationship will suffer more than the normal hardship or financial inconvenience caused by family separation.
Extreme hardship is “not a definable term of fixed and inflexible content or meaning,” but “necessarily depends upon the facts and circumstances peculiar to each case.” Matter of Hwang, 10 I&N Dec. 448, 451 (BIA 1964). In Matter of Cervantes-Gonzalez, the Board provided a list of factors it deemed relevant in determining whether an alien has established extreme hardship to a qualifying relative. 22 I&N Dec. 560, 565 (BIA 1999). The factors include the presence of a lawful permanent resident or United States citizen spouse or parent in this country; the qualifying relative’s family ties outside the United States; the conditions in the country or countries to which the qualifying relative would relocate and the extent of the qualifying relative’s ties in such countries; the financial impact of departure from this country; and significant conditions of health, particularly when tied to an unavailability of suitable medical care in the country to which the qualifying relative would relocate. Id. The Board added that not all of the foregoing factors need be analyzed in any given case and emphasized that the list of factors was not exclusive. Id . at 566.
The Board has also held that the common or typical results of removal and inadmissibility do not constitute extreme hardship, and has listed certain individual hardship factors considered common rather than extreme. These factors include: economic disadvantage, loss of current employment, inability to maintain one’s present standard of living, inability to pursue a chosen profession, separation from family members, severing community ties, cultural readjustment after living in the United States for many years, cultural adjustment of qualifying relatives who have never lived outside the United States, inferior economic and educational opportunities in the foreign country, or inferior medical facilities in the foreign country. See generally Matter of Cervantes-Gonzalez, 22 I&N Dec. at 568; Matter of Pilch, 21 I&N Dec. 627, 632-33 (BIA 1996); Matter of Ige, 20 I&N Dec. 880, 883 (BIA 1994); Matter of Ngai, 19 I&N Dec. 245, 246-47 (Comm’r 1984); Matter of Kim, 15 I&N Dec. 88, 89-90 (BIA 1974); Matter of Shaughnessy, 12 I&N Dec. 810, 813 (BIA 1968).
However, though hardships may not be extreme when considered abstractly or individually, the Board has made it clear that “[r]elevant factors, though not extreme in themselves, must be considered in the aggregate in determining whether extreme hardship exists.” Matter of O-J-O-, 21 I&N Dec. 381, 383 (BIA 1996) (quoting Matter of Ige, 20 I&N Dec. at 882). The adjudicator “must consider the entire range of factors concerning hardship in their totality and determine whether the combination of hardships takes the case beyond those hardships ordinarily associated with deportation.” Id.
The actual hardship associated with an abstract hardship factor such as family separation, economic disadvantage, cultural readjustment, et cetera, differs in nature and severity depending on the unique circumstances of each case, as does the cumulative hardship a qualifying relative experiences as a result of aggregated individual hardships. See, e.g., Matter of Bing Chih Kao and Mei Tsui Lin, 23 I&N Dec. 45, 51 (BIA 2001) (distinguishing Matter of Pilch regarding hardship faced by qualifying relatives on the basis of variations in the length of residence in the United States and the ability to speak the language of the country to which they would relocate).
For example, though family separation has been found to be a common result of inadmissibility or removal, separation from family living in the United States can also be the most important single hardship factor in considering hardship in the aggregate. Salcido-Salcido v. INS, 138 F.3d 1292, 1293 (9th Cir. 1998) (quoting Contreras-Buenfil v. INS, 712 F.2d 401, 403 (9th Cir. 1983)); but see Matter of Ngai, 19 I&N Dec. at 24 7 (separation of spouse and children from applicant not extreme hardship due to conflicting evidence in the record and because applicant and spouse had been voluntarily separated from one another for 28 years).
Therefore, the AAO considers the totality of the circumstances in determining whether denial of admission would result in extreme hardship to a qualifying relative.
We prepared a comprehensive I-601 waiver application including a 29 page legal brief going over how the facts and circumstances of our clients’ lives met the legal standards used to define “extreme hardship.”
In particular, this includes the day-to-day care that the U.S. citizen spouse provides to her elderly mother, who suffers from diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis. The U.S. citizen spouse lives with her elderly mother and they are each dependent on one another to oversee and manage the medical care they both vitally need. Although the elderly mother of the U.S. citizen is not a qualifying relative per se under the INA Section 212(i), her well-being is intimately tied to that of the U.S. citizen spouse (who is the qualifying relative) and was thoroughly presented in our brief.
To provide more detail – should the U.S. citizen spouse be forced to re-locate to the Philippines to be with her husband, her elderly mother would lose her primary support giver. This could be potentially life-threatening to her elderly mother given her fragile state; and such an event would traumatically affect the psychological and physical health of the U.S. citizen spouse which is already compromised. Alternatively, should the U.S. citizen spouse have to remain in the U.S. without the support of her husband, her personal condition would likewise continue to deteriorate, affecting the welfare of two U.S. citizens who desperately need the presence and support of the waiver applicant in their lives. In these types of scenarios, it is always important to present and prove the hardships of close relatives whose well-being are intimately tied to that of the qualifying relative; and demonstrate how both parties would be impacted by the immigration consequences of their situations.
As a result of our efforts, our client was approved for the I-601 Waiver and consequently, this couple now reside lawfully in the U.S. together once again after a separation of more than 9 years apart.
