My Agonizing Journey Toward Immigration Part 3

There are five basis for J-1 waiver, the one that I got was the No Objection Statement. Besides the paperwork for Department of State, the No Objection Statement is provided by your home country's government. For Chinese citizens, there are five Consulate General of PRC, check the chart below to find out which is the one you need to turn in your application for the NOS. There's not much for me to explain, it's basically very straight forward, here's the webpage http://www.sino-education.org/studyabroad/J1.htm. Follow the instructions on this page, and make sure you sent it to the Consulate that's over your state.

  

中国驻美国大使馆	中国驻纽约总领馆	中国驻芝加哥总领馆
华盛顿特区 　　　　特拉华 　　　　爱达荷 　　　　肯塔基 　　　　马里兰 　　　　蒙大拿 　　　　内布拉斯加 　　　　北卡罗来纳 　　　　北达科他 　　　　南卡罗来纳 　　　　南达科他 　　　　田纳西 　　　　犹他 　　　　弗吉尼亚 　　　　西弗吉尼亚 　　　　怀俄明	康涅狄格 　　　　缅因 　　　　马萨诸塞 　　　　新罕布什尔 　　　　新泽西 　　　　纽约 　　　　俄亥俄 　　　　宾夕法尼亚 　　　　罗得岛 　　　　佛蒙特	科罗拉多 　　　　伊利诺斯 　　　　印第安纳 　　　　衣阿华 　　　　堪萨斯 　　　　密执安 　　　　明尼苏达 　　　　密苏里 　　　　威斯康星
中国驻旧金山总领馆	中国驻洛杉矶总领馆	中国驻休斯顿总领馆
阿拉斯加 　　　　北加利福尼亚 　　　　内华达 　　　　俄勒冈  　　　　华盛顿	亚里桑那 　　　　南加利福尼亚 　　　　夏威夷 　　　　新墨西哥 　　　　太平洋岛屿	阿拉巴马 　　　　阿肯色 　　　　佛罗里达 　　　　佐治亚 　　　　路易斯安那 　　　　密西西比 　　　　俄克拉何马 　　　　得克萨斯

My Agonizing Journey Toward Immigration Part 2

J-1 Waiver- J-1 签证豁免

I'm a citizen of the PRC- People's Republic of China, and entered U.S. with a J-1 visa as a student. I thought it was just one of the many kinds of student visa that gets me here to study, and never! never have I heard of a "2-year foreign residence requirement." That apparently comes with it. If I tell you all about how and where and how long it took me to figure this out, that will probably take up too much of a disk space and they'll have to shut my blog, but here is what you need to know.

• Find out if the 2-year rule really applies to you. (1) Check your visa and see if you can find: 212 (E) TWO YEAR RULE APPLIES. If you don't have it printed on your visa, even if you are a J-1, the 2-year rule has nothing to do with you. (2) If you do have it, you may still not subject to it, and there's a way to find out. It's called the advisory opinion. I will talk about it in depth in another post.

• How much time do you have to get the waiver? On your I-94, which is the little piece of paper that got attached onto your passport, or a J-1 admission stamp in your passport (no card), depending on when you travel to the U.S. and where you arrive. The admission stamp or I-94 care record the date of your entering the country, your immigration status (for example, J-1 or J-2), and authorized period of stay (indicated by "D/S", meaning duration of status). You can basically work on your waiver as long as it takes if you don't have an exact date on it. But you should always try to get it done as soon as possible. 

• This is where you start: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/info/info_5503.html 

• Depending on the basis for which you request a waiver of the two-year rule, you will need to have supporting documents sent to the Waiver Review Division by others as applicable.

• Waiver Basis	Organization (Third Party)
  No Objection Statement	Your home country's government
  Request by an Interested U.S. Federal Government Agency	Interested U.S. federal government agency
  Persecution	USCIS
  Exceptional Hardship to a U.S. Citizen (or lawful permanent resident) spouse or child	USCIS
  Request by a Designated State Public Health Department or its Equivalent (Conrad State 30 Program)	Designated State Public Health Department or its Equivalent

• Most of the people I know, including me have applied for the No Objection Statement from home country's government, so I have most of the information you need on how to obtain a No Objection Statement. For other waiver basis, I'm sure there's other resources you can find.

Step 1 - Complete the online J Visa Waiver Recommendation Application


J Visa Waiver Online is where you complete an online application for a J-1 waiver recommendation. You will need to frequently come back to this site to check your status. Once you have completed the application, you will print it out and mail it.


Step 2 - Mail your Waiver Application and Fee Payment


Make sure that you keep the last page for your record, which includes your case number.

 Here's a copy of my packet assembly checklist for the waiver, if you are also applying for the no objection waiver, you should get the same kind of document at the end of your online application. As you mail out your application, make sure you have all the required document for packet 1 which is to be sent to the Department of State.You'll also need to send a packet to your Embassy, with the Third Party Barcode Page, which also comes with the online application, make sure you follow the detailed instructions on that page.


Step 3 - Submit supporting Documents

No Objection StatementYour home country’s government must issue a No Objection Statement through its Embassy in Washington, DC that it has no objection to you not returning to your home country to satisfy the two-year home-country physical presence requirement and no objection to the possibility of you becoming a U.S. lawful permanent resident. The No Objection Statement must be sent directly to the Waiver Review Division. (Note: The No Objection Statement cannot be provided to you, the waiver applicant, to submit to the Waiver Review Division.) You must contact the consular section of your home country’s embassy in Washington, DC to make this request. The No Objection Statement may alternatively be issued by a designated ministry in your home government and sent to the U.S. Chief of Mission, Consular Section at the U.S. Embassy within that country. The U.S. Embassy would then forward it directly to the Waiver Review Division.Note:  U.S. law does not permit foreign medical physicians who acquired J-1 status on or after January 10, 1977, for the purpose of receiving graduate medical education or training to request waivers under this basis.

I will have another post for Chinese students with the details of receiving the No Objection Statement. 


Step 4 - Check your Waiver Request Status and Update your Contact Information.


Go to the J Visa Waiver Online webpage and selecting "Check the status." After you have entered your case number, the system will indicate if your application, fee payment, and No objection Statement have been received.

Step 5 - If the Waiver Review Division Needs More Information from You

They will contact you using the contact information you provided on your online DS-3035.

Step 6 - Wait, and wait some more...

The processing time does NOT begin till the Department of State get your No Objection Statement from your Embassy. Once it's received, Department of State send a recommendation to the USCIS, and you will receive a copy of that recommendation. USCIS is the final waiver authority, and most likely will issue you your waiver once you have a favorable waiver recommendation from the Department of State. The usual processing time for No Objection Statement is 6 to 8 weeks. If you are lucky, you may get it sooner.

Good luck! 

My Agonizing Journey Toward Immigration Part 1

 I know that there is a great amount of us trying to immigrate to the U.S. We all have different reasons and why we want or need to move to "the land of the free and the home of the brave." For me? I fell in love with the most amazing person I've met and married him. And of course, he's an American. And so, I need to immigrate. It hasn't been easy for me, I'm still in the process of getting a green card after trying for over 2 years. I know that nobody thinks that there's an easy way, that's definitely true. But there's a few things that I wish I had known, and knowing these things would have made my process easier, and I want to share what I have learned with whoever that's out there trying to figure out the system. Hopefully, by sharing my experience I could save you some headaches.

Step 1.   Understand your situation

By that I mean, know your visa type, the regulations associated with it and how are they related to your native country. For me, I married a U.S. citizen and went to the International Students Office of my university for information,  and went home with a piece of paper with a long list of forms and fees, and thought "Alright! I can do this!" Even though we really don't have the kind of money they're asking, but if we eat nothing but roman noodles and cabbages for a few months, we could make it.
Until half way through the I-485, they ask me this question:

Have you EVER been a J nonimmigrant exchange visitor who was subject to the 2-year foreign residence requirement and have not yet complied with that requirement or obtained a waiver?

The first thing that came to my mind was - "Crap! What does that mean?"
So make sure that you know exactly what is needed for you to complete your immigration paper work.

Step 2.   Go see an Immigration Officer - This is probably not helpful if you are outside of U.S.

It's free, and it will save you so much trouble. If you go to the USCIS home page, you'll see a side bar on the left, just under Case Status is InfoPass - Schedule a free appointment. Click on it, you will be taken to this page. After choosing the language you need, you will want to click the "make an appointment" button, put in your zip code, they ask you why you need an appointment. I think what I did was selecting the one that says I need more information. After selecting a time for your appointment, you will want to print out the last page with your appointment address and time, with your pin number also. You need to show that piece of paper when you have your appointment. The people who work there are very helpful and friendly, they will tell you what to do and give you all the forms you need. Ask any questions you may have, and you'd want to write them down, cause there's just so much information to remember.

Step 3. Read all instructions for all the forms you fill out

 This is such a obvious thing, but since there's so many pages of instructions, I personally am very tempted at times to just skip them and go straight to the forms. Reading all the instructions will help you to give the correct information, which will save you time in the end.



It's pretty straight forward once you get the information from reliable sources, but my biggest problem was the waiver for J-1 visa, which took me a year half to get. Good luck to us all~~