In the 1990s, the US Congress came to
the conclusion that any foreign-born individual spending time in the US
illegally should be punished if they are not in possession of a green card, visa, or any other type of
official permission granted by immigration authorities. Therefore,
Congress imposed a penalty for preventing individuals from entering or returning
to the US for a period of 3 to 10 years, according to how long they remained
illegally in the country.
These periods are termed “time bars,” or
“three- and ten-year bars.” Immigration lawyers reiterate that although these
bars remain a major impediment for a lot of people, there are certain waivers
applicable in specific situations.
Three
and Ten-Year Time Bars
Time bars, with exceptions, are imposed
on individuals who remain overseas and attempt to go back to the US, and not
persons who are already in the US. The latter have every right to apply for a
green card and could use an immigration lawyer to make this process more seamless.
Unfortunately, a lot of individuals have
no choice other than to leave the country and apply for an immigrant visa or
green card
via a US consulate either because they are in a foreign country or are in the
US but are not eligible to take advantage of what is termed adjustment status,
which is a procedure for obtaining green cards. If you happen to be in such a
situation, the time bars can be a hindrance for your intention to immigrate to
the US. They are as follows:
Three
Years
If you have remained in the
US illegally
in excess of 180 uninterrupted days, you will be banned from returning to the
US for 3 years.
Ten
Years
If you have remained in the US illegally
for more than one year continuously, you will be banned from returning for as
much as 10 years no matter what your immigration attorney says but perhaps now,
if your reason was valid, perhaps your legal representative can offer you a
glimmer of light.
To get around this problem your sole
hope remains in applying for a waiver of inadmissibility. As luck would have
it, there is increasing public awareness on the issue, since a new law lets
some applicants apply for a waiver before they leave the US, but not after they
do.
Waivers
of the Time Bar Law
If you are affected by a time bar issue,
you have hope, particularly if you are the child of, or married to, a permanent
resident or US citizen. In such as case, you can seek forgiveness, which is
termed a waiver. However, you need an immigration legal consultant to navigate
through the process according to immigration lawyers since such waivers are
rather hard to obtain.
In order to be eligible for a waiver,
you must establish that unless you obtain the visa your spouse or parent
remaining in the US will have to suffer extreme hardship. However, “extreme”
hardship is taken literally by immigration laws. It is not enough that your
spouse or parent will feel sad if you leave the country for a waiver to be
granted.
According to the immigration authorities
extreme hardship is when one or the other suffers from a serious medical
problem that requires your undivided attention. Financial hardship can also be
a fact to consider.
If you are involved in time bar
situations, your sole recourse is to hire an immigration lawyer right away.
A
Website that is Dependable
These laws operate every day of the year
and every minute of the day. You need to be able to find legal help in the same
time frame and you can using this website:
http://immigration.usattorneys.com/. The legal help you find on this website may not be
available every minute of every week but they will call you when they have a
chance after you leave them a message if they are not in the office at that
time. You can check them out online using this site every minute of every week
and so on and have a decent idea on who they are before you speak with them.
You can even check them out on their own website as well if they have one which
most legal professionals do.
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