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How can I prove Extreme Hardship in an I-601A Provisional Waiver Application?

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Los Angeles Immigration lawyer Attorney Oscar gives great tips on how to make a showing of extreme hardship. It is important to note that in our immigration office when dealing with an I-601A provisional waiver, our immigration attorney Oscar Ischiu himself prepares the application, makes the compelling arguments of law and fact, and does not allow a paralegal to complete this highly important and complex application that will have a forever impact in the immigrant’s life.

How do we win an I-601A Provisional Waiver?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of immigrant families that believe that to attain an I-601A provisional waiver, all they need to do is to get a hardship letter, a few relevant documents such as proof of legal marriage to a United States citizen or permanent resident, and that the package should be about 25-30 or so pages. THIS IS BEYOND WRONG!!! To win an I-601A provisional waiver, there must be a showing of extreme hardship that is concluded from a hardship analysis based on the totality of the circumstances.

What is necessary to win a Hardship Analysis?

First, and foremost, Los Angeles immigration lawyer Attorney Oscar finds that to understand extreme hardship, we must focus on the story. For example, when dealing with I-601A, our immigration lawyer focuses on the immigrant’s story, the spouse’s story, and the family’s story as a whole. Attorney Oscar stresses during the consultation that hardship itself, like a showing of financial hardship, is not sufficient to meet the immigration law standard of extreme hardship. As previously captioned above, a showing of extreme hardship is required to win an I-601A provisional waiver. Thus, when dealing with an I-601A provisional waiver, it is imperative that an immigration lawyer understands the difference between hardship and extreme hardship. After all, as our immigration lawyer always tells his clients, the difference between ordinary hardship and extreme hardship is the difference between winning or losing an I-601A provisional waiver.

Attorney Oscar sits down with clients, gets to personally know their story, and from that story, we gather facts and make a compelling story that increases the chances of showing the degree of extreme hardship to justify winning an I-106A provisional waiver. Therefore, at our immigration offices, one thing is clear, all cases can be made unique!

The immigration laws recognize US Citizen/Permanent Resident Spouses, and US Citizen/Permanent Resident Parents of the immigrant as qualifying individuals to obtain an I-601A provisional waiver. Thus, the hardship analysis weighs on the direct hardship that impacts the qualifying spouse or parent.

How our Immigration Lawyer makes your story different

When dealing with an I-601 Provisional waiver, our immigration lawyer is often able to show hardship even if the direct hardship doesn’t impact the qualifying spouse or qualifying parent directly. For example, our immigration lawyer creates the nexus hardship connection to the qualifying relative for indirect hardship.

Unfortunately, we speak to clients daily who have been denied I-601A applications that come from other offices. Based on our conversations, we have concluded that the I-601 provisional waivers are denied because they follow a generic approach. Our law office focuses on the totality of the circumstances, which means that the immigration lawyer magnifies all relevant factors that make such circumstances follow a finding of extreme hardship. Thus, with such totality of the circumstances, we create a unique cumulative effect of hardship that forces the immigration officer to evaluate and consider which helps ordinary hardship cross the extreme hardship line.

For Example…

Let’s assume that an immigrant is married to a US citizen spouse and they have three children. Let’s call them Child 1, Child 2, and Child 3. A generic approach is to lay out some information about the children, some financial information, some medical information, create a hardship letter, and other relevant documents.

Our immigration lawyer does the following: Attorney Oscar first finds out the story of Child 1 by getting to know the story of Child 1. One of these questions, among many, is whether the child plays sports. If so, does the immigrant spouse take Child 1 to practice? Does the qualifying spouse take Child 1 to practice/games? Does either spouse train Child 1 in the sport for further training? Does either spouse attend sporting events regularly relevant to the sport played with Child 1? Immigration Attorney Oscar Ischiu finds out about the cost it takes the spouses for Child 1 to keep on participating in the sport, such as sporting equipment, club fees, travel fees, etc. From that, our immigration attorney obtains letters from coaches, other parents that witness games/practices, rival coaches, presidents of the club where Child 1 practices, presidents of the league, etc. All these efforts are made by our immigration lawyer in order to show that if the immigrant spouse is to leave the United States, Child 1 will suffer loss by not being able to attend games and/or practices, the level of competition will drop, or Child 1 may even flatly quit out of depression that his immigrant parent is gone. Further, Child 1 may be forced to quit the sport because the qualifying spouse can no longer afford to keep the cost of having Child 1 attend the sport, due to now working extra hours, etc. Immigration Attorney Oscar Ischiu can write and explain for days on this scenario, as it is truly endless.

Next, our immigration attorney finds out whether Child 2 plays an instrument. If so, our immigration lawyer attains letters from the band teachers and the principal of the school, learns the cost of the instrument, finds out who takes child 2 to performances and practices, who buys the instrument for the child, etc. In addition, our immigration lawyer finds out whether Child 3 is a good student. Attorney Oscar gets letters from the school principal, letters from teachers, aides, and peers, and gathers evidence of the student making honor roll or relevant evidence of the student getting academic awards. Our immigration lawyer finds out whether the student is enrolled in AP/honors classes, etc., and whether either spouse tutors the child. In other words, we do not lump all hardships into one; we individualize each hardship for each child and how it affects that specific child, and ONLY THEN can we make a nexus connection between the hardship of each child to the qualifying spouse.

This is because the hardship of child 1 is not the same as the hardship suffered by child 2 or the hardship suffered by child 3. Attorney Oscar explains to the immigration officer that each child has a different subjective relationship with the immigrant spouse and qualifying spouse. Now, with this simple scenario, our immigration lawyer creates a cumulative effect by using the totality of the circumstances which now by implication shows a greater impact on the qualifying spouse by individualizing hardship from each child.

Storytelling is key!

Storytelling is the key to winning the I-601A provisional waiver. Thus, the officer will read the detailed story in an entirely different light, the immigration officer will see how closely knit the family is as a unit, and the immigration officer will realize how codependent the spouses are in raising their family, which ultimately will show how the entire family will suffer, which will affect the qualifying spouse directly. Thus, even though their evaluation is supposed to focus on the direct hardship to the qualifying parent, with our immigration lawyer, Attorney Oscar’s approach, we make a cumulative effect on more factors, and more reason, to approve extreme hardship. Our goal is to make our client’s family story different than the rest. Thus, creating ordinary hardship into extreme hardship.

If you are dealing with an I-601A provisional waiver, in our opinion, you must hire an immigration lawyer. Our Los Angeles immigration lawyer thrives on storytelling, and being a great storyteller himself, he will take your story and make it different and special in the hopes of making the hardship story jump off the page to the immigration officer.

Our Immigration attorney is very passionate about helping immigrant families gain legal status in the United States. Attorney Oscar, from an immigrant family himself, not only cares about immigrant families, but he has had a connection with immigrant families his whole life.
Call our immigration lawyer today at 626-514-1000 for a consultation and see for yourself how we are different. For your convenience, we offer immigration consultations at our immigration law offices in West Covina, Ontario, and Monrovia. Y claro que si, Hablamos Español al 100%.

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