{"id":1019,"date":"2012-01-18T13:33:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T17:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2015-08-12T16:21:56","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T20:21:56","slug":"aila-loss-of-income-will-not-qualify-as-%e2%80%98extreme-hardship%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2012\/01\/18\/aila-loss-of-income-will-not-qualify-as-%e2%80%98extreme-hardship%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"AILA: Loss of Income Will Not Qualify as \u2018Extreme Hardship\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a contribution by outside blogger Gregory Sokoloff. Opinions expressed are solely those of Mr. Sokoloff.<\/em><\/p>\n

Loss of income resulting from an illegal alien\u2019s deportation cannot be considered \u201cextreme hardship\u201d under a new Department of Homeland Security proposal introducing new procedures for inadmissibility waivers for migrants with unauthorized stays in the U.S. exceeding six months, according to a top immigration law expert.<\/p>\n

The proposal, unveiled by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Jan. 9, aims to do away with the current three-year and 10-year inadmissibility rules, if the aliens can demonstrate that their \u201cU.S. citizen spouse or parent\u201d would suffer \u201cextreme hardship\u201d if their admission to the United States were denied. Under current law, illegal aliens with \u201cimmediate relatives\u201d who are U.S. citizens must first exit the country and be barred from re-entry, respectively, for three or 10 years if their illegal stays exceeded 180 days or 365 days. <\/p>\n

The new proposal calls for pre-approving the aliens in the United States. After that, they would have to quickly return to their home countries, go to a U.S. consulate there and receive formal approval for green cards often during that same interview. <\/p>\n

The immigration agency did not elaborate what could constitute \u201cextreme hardship\u201d that must be demonstrated along this process. But Crystal L. Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) said it cannot be just loss of income. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t even rise to the level of hardship, much less extreme hardship,\u201d Ms. Williams said in an interview. \u201cUsually, there is a mental or physical disability involved on the part of a qualifying U.S. citizen of resident.\u201d <\/p>\n

She added that the only new element in the proposal consisted in processing of the waiver inside rather than outside of the United States, followed by a quick exit of the petitioner in case of pre-approval. Ms. Williams does not think the plan will facilitate legalization for parents of so-called \u201canchor babies\u201d primarily because the \u201cextreme hardship\u201d requirement will still have to be met. \u201cThe child cannot qualify the parent for the waiver, though,\u201d said the AILA executive director. \u201cThe spouse forms the basis of the hardship. The child can\u2019t form the basis of the hardship.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ms. Williams acknowledged that she had heard legal experts \u201cspeculate\u201d that the proposed changes would give a boost to fake marriages driven exclusively by the interest of legalization, but she dismissed these speculations as exaggerated. \u201cThe scrutiny level on waivers is extremely high,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of showing the \u2018extreme hardship\u2019 is to show that the relationship is longstanding and highly dependent on one another. And so, I do not see how somebody can get away with trying to get a waiver out of a fake marriage.” People married for only a few months or even a year have little chance of their waiver being approved, the AILA executive director explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a contribution by outside blogger Gregory Sokoloff. Opinions expressed are solely those of Mr. Sokoloff. Loss of income resulting from an illegal alien\u2019s deportation cannot be considered \u201cextreme hardship\u201d under a new Department of Homeland Security proposal introducing new procedures for inadmissibility waivers for migrants with unauthorized stays in the U.S. exceeding<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[21],"tags":[937],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1022,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/1022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}