By: vadmin / December 19, 2023

The Ohio and Maryland law offices of immigration attorney Varun Luthra

This article concerns itself with the term ‘extreme hardship’ and what it is. To prove extreme hardship requires knowledge of how it can be used to unite you and your loved ones while taking into your lawful or unlawful status into account.

What is extreme hardship?

Extreme hardship is a term used to prove that your qualifying relative for immigration is suffering from an extreme situation that requires you to leave the country and tend to various factors. Granting waiver on inadmissibility requires that extreme hardship be proven to immigration judge or the USCIS adjudicator. It is entirely discretionary and requires a great amount of persuasion.

What are some ways to prove extreme hardship?

The following is not an exhaustive list but these are most common forms:

1) Health – treatment requirements for special, physical or mental, considerations. This includes the quality and availability of such treatments in the country, the situation and duration surrounding your treatment and other factors. This can include the alien, alien’s spouse, alien’s children, or parents.
2) Financial impact – employability, loss of home or business, cost of caring for family members, impact of alien’s departure etc.
3) Current political and economic situation in the country to which the alien would be returned.
4) Other factors include valid fears of persecution, physical harm or injury, cultural stigma, religious or ethnic obstacles etc.

While a single form of hardship may not be enough to show extreme hardship, multiple hardships taken together may end up enough to prove extreme hardship.3

What are the Forms involved in the waiver process?

The I-601 and I-601A waivers require you to persuasively prove through extensive documentation that your qualifying U.S. Citizen or lawful permanent resident, immediate relative would suffer if the person applying for the waiver is deported. The I-601A unlawful presence waiver needs all the following requirements to be met:

1) Be at least 17 years old
2) Be physically present in the United States
3) Be the beneficiary of a approved or pending I-130 petition
4) Have a U.S. Citizen or Spouse

5) Have no grounds of inadmissibility like fraud, criminal conviction, misrepresentations etc.
6) Not be in removal proceedings
7) Not received an order of removal
8) Not an applicant for adjustment of status (green card)

Preparing for a I-601 immigration waiver for unlawful presence requires an experienced immigration attorney. From beginning of the process to the end hire an attorney who can persuasively show that you I-601 waiver for unlawful presence deserves favorable discretion.