Ok I have lived in the US since I was 8month old. My stepfather petitioned for me to become a Resident 6 years ago. Due to the backup and the war and all my process and appointment to receive my Visa has been long and expensive.
I do have a lawyer but they failed in many ways to tell me that it would be best for me to leave the country before I turned 18 so a law called ';10 year bar'; would not apply to me.
This law means that i must begin serving my penalty for staying in the country after i turned 18 and after 10 years i would be granted Residency.
I did not know this law ever existed. I was very young and figured that I would become a Resident/ Citizen and that it would all be taken care of. Now that I am older I took an interest because this has been taken so long. And I came to find this out....
Because I did not leave the country at 18 and also that I ';entered'; (actually i was brought to the US) illegally i must leave to Juarez Mexico to the National Visa Center there and begin to serve my penalty and apply for re-enterence into the US. To enter I have to prove that my stepfather will suffer extreme hardship if I am not let back in. He will suffer but i mean he can survive you know. He wants the best for me.
I dont know what to do. My lawyers suck and they dont take any blame for not informing us better. They really dont care. This is my home I have never been in any type of crime i finished school and i want to go to college to finish my degree.
Any advice would help.
I dont know anyone in mexico i do speak the language but not well.
Need Professional Immigration Legal Advice Please?
Greetings, Juicy!
Hello Yak Rider.
I don't want to interrupt your lawyer bashing party here, but...
Based on the limited information that you provided (we don't even know your age -- except that you are over 18 years old), we don't know the citizenship status of your stepdad. Apparently you have been unlawfully present for more than one year.
The I-601 waiver for the 10 year unlawful presence bar filed at the consular level applies ONLY to applicants who have U.S. citizen spouses, parents and/or U.S. citizen children. Technically speaking, the consular officers don't have authority to consider hardship to US Citizen children under 212A9bv, but practically, they do consider their hardship also.
You didn't give enough information to say that this is your situation. Yak Rider's willingness to help provide information is commendable. However I respectfully disagree with his/her conclusion that this particular 601 has any reasonable chance of success, or that Juicy should even leave the country.
The I-601 is one of the most misunderstood forms. For example, the I-601 doesn't work at all to forgive your parents who have been unlawfully present in the US for more than 6 months. Neither does the I-601 forgive anyone who has been unlawfully present in the US for more than 6 months who THEN crossed illegally again after April 1, 1997. Don't even think about lying to an immigration officer if you were previously caught trying to cross illegally after this date. They know... Plus, lying to an immigration official is a lifetime bar to ever coming to the US for any reason.
So, I'm still not convinced that the lawyer gave you bad advice. It seems more accurate that he gave you no advice at all. I'm guessing that both you and your step parent saw a lawyer together in 2002 when he filed an I-130 (relative petition) for you. You would not have been the client. Your step-father would have been the client since he was the one paying and signing all the documents. Also you were a minor at that time.
It seems to me that at the time your stepdad's I-130 was filed that you were probably in category F2A, the unmarried child under 21 years old of an LPR (your step parent).
You probably don't realize this, but if you had actually married for purposes of leaving the country before 18 years and 6 months old, you would have placed yourself in (what I like to call it) Category F-2-U. That is, it would have immediately cancelled your stepdad's immigration petition for you.
Your claim of receiving bad or insufficient advice just doesn't make sense to me. You couldn't have left the country anyway, because you didn't have any reasonable chance of succeeding at a 601 waiver (you weren't married to a US citizen, didn't have any US citizen children, and finally, you didn't describe any extreme or exceptional hardship to your stepdad). If you had been qualified at that time for a 601 waiver, it would have meant that your stepdad probably could not have petitioned for you in the first place.
While it is great fun analyzing different possibilities under our arcane immigration laws, we should probably look at other possibilties that may apply in this situation.
First, ';step parent';. Hmmmm....
Is anyone else here thinking ';Child Status Protection Act';???
I provided a link below to the Act. The CSPA has become much more liberally interpreted during the past year as a result of federal court litigation that the department of homeland security chose not to further appeal. The Manila consulate did a very fine job of making the CSPA almost understandable to a person without a legal and/or mathematics background. It's very good reading.
So...Juicy. Are you still There?
1. Don't go anywhere outside of the USA, marry/divorce, or file anything without first getting your own immigration lawyer and making sure with him/her that it's the correct thing to do.
2. Look into whether you may qualify for an automatic LPR card on the basis of the Child Status Protection Act.
3. Do not speak with or hire any ';notarios'; or non-lawyers and do not take advice from online sources, no matter how well-intentioned or complete the sources seem to be. We don't know your full situation and have not reviewed your papers. Enough said.
4. You may reconsider your remarks about your step parent's lawyer. I just can't see that there was any legal malpractice from what you described. I do know that in one immigration lawyer's office, such a comment would earn you one red 'x' on your intake form. For that particular lawyer, 2 red 'x's and you would have been politely informed that the lawyer is simply too busy to take your matter. Even for a million dollars, it's too risky and time consuming to take a client who will complain even when she hasn't been legally wronged.
My apologies if I have incorrectly assumed any facts in your situation. Immigration law is definitely full of desperation, fakers and phoneys
Good Luck.
-SchmegickyNeed Professional Immigration Legal Advice Please?
You are eligible to apply for a waiver of the 10 year ban once you report to the US Consulate in Juarez. Your request will be based on hardship.
If you have no legal problems in the United States (arrests, convictions, identity theft, etc...) you stand an excellent chance of getting the waiver based on the circumstances of what your parents did to you.
I suggest you get an attorney who actually specializes in immigration law and is totally competent.
Here's the I-601 (Waiver Request)
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/m鈥?/a>
Here's the American Immigration Lawyers Association's web site where you can find a better lawyer.
http://www.aila.org/
You WILL need a lawyer to assist you with the waiver request.
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