My US Visa Application Is Denied! How to a Apply for a Waiver?
If your application is denied at the Embassy interview, the consular officer will give you a form explaining why the application was denied and whether you may be eligible to apply for a waiver of inadmissibility.
You may be denied a visa for health reasons, a criminal background, prior issues with U.S. immigration, being a member of a totalitarian party, and certain other rarer cases. In some cases your inadmissibility may only be for 3 or 10 years, and there may even be a waiver available to allow you to obtain a visa sooner. However, there are some reasons for inadmissibility that preclude you from ever getting a visa to the U.S. Waivers are available for both non-immigrant and immigrant visa applications.
Non-immigrant visa waivers are temporary and do not require a special form or additional fees. To apply you only need to ask the consular officer to request that you be granted a waiver. You will have to wait for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Admissibility Review Office to make the final decision on whether to grant you a waiver and how long the waiver will last.
Waivers that allow otherwise inadmissible foreigners to get an immigrant visa are permanent, but the application process is more complicated and costly. For purposes of waivers, K visas are treated like immigrant visas. You should hire an experienced immigration attorney to help you prepare your immigrant visa waiver request.
If you can apply for a waiver, you may file Form I-601 Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility. Even if you can apply for a waiver, your specific circumstances may not meet the requirements for granting the waiver and issuing you a visa. In some cases, you may need to wait months or even years before you become eligible for a waiver. In addition, all waivers of inadmissibility are discretionary, so the visa may still be denied even if you have good evidence that you are eligible. An attorney can help you determine whether to file an application for waiver and how to convincingly present your specific situation.
If you are applying for a visa to be with family, such as a K visa, one of the most common reasons for granting a visa is extreme hardship to your family member in the U.S. This type of waiver is only available if your inadmissibility to the U.S. would cause extreme hardship to your spouse, child, parent, or fiance who is a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident or immigrant visa holder. To be eligible for this type of waiver you must be able to prove that you are related to the U.S. citizen or lawful resident. You may need to prove that they have stronger ties to the U.S. than to any foreign country or that it would cause financial, health related, emotional, cultural, safety or other problems for the U.S. citizen or resident to leave the U.S. The extreme hardship could also be a result of the impact of separation on your family member in the U.S., but separation alone is not enough to prove extreme hardship.
Depending on the reason your visa was denied and your specific situation, you may also be eligible for a waiver of inadmissibility for other reasons.
For more information about US visa related articles, visit US Embassy Thailand.
Category: US Fiancee Visa, US Immigration, US Spouse Visa
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