Deportation Waiver Appeals Victory at AAO

Our office recently received some terrific news from USCIS’s Administrative Appeals Office. The AAO reversed the Houston USCIS’s office denial of an I-212 deportation waiver for a Mexican national married to a U.S. citizen.

Our client had overstayed her previous tourist visa for 53 days and picked up some spare change helping out a friend as a babysitter. When she returned through Houston with her U.S. citizen fiance after going home to Mexico, Customs and Border Protection immediately deported her to Mexico.

Our client and her fiance then married, and we filed her immigrant visa application and an I-212 waiver application for the five-year bar on entering the U.S.

Shockingly, Houston USCIS denied the waiver, and our clients faced five years of separation. Our clients were devasated, but they never gave up. We appealed the denial to the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office. Even though most of the factors in our clients’ favor were acquired post-deportation, our firm still managed to convince the AAO to grant the waiver.

The LexisNexis Legal newsroom has picked up this win, and made the decision publicly available. This is great news for our clients, a naturalist and successful San Francisco banker. We’re so thrilled that they can finally begin life as a family in the United States!