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Archive for category: I 601 Waivers

Top Strategies to get I-601A Waiver Approval Now!

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In this video Kaushik Ranchod provides insights and recent experience about I-601A Waivers during the Administration of President Trump. Kaushik is an Immigration Attorney and CEO at the Ranchod Law Group, in Sacramento California.

As we all know these are challenging times for immigration and immigration cases. Under President Trump, the whole immigration system has come under continuous attack. That is why it is crucial for you to know your options and how to move in the right direction towards reaching legal status and live in the US. Today to help you better understand we’ll address what is going on now in 2020 with immigration legislation and I-601A waiver cases and I-601A waivers in particular. Immigration Attorney Kaushik Ranchod from The Ranchod Law Group will be talking about what is working now to get I-601A Extreme Hardship Waivers approved. Which are the Top 3 strategies that are working right now to help you move your first steps towards a successful application? Getting I-601A Extreme Hardship Waivers approved is often very complicated, and takes a lot of work to reach approval. The reason behind this is that, for the USCIS mere separation does not qualify as a reason for exceptional Hardship. There have to be many more factors that need to come into play for the government to consider your situation one of Extreme Hardship. Such factors, for an I-601A extreme hardship waiver are, for example, financial hardship, health issues, and many other situations. In this video, Kaushik describes precisely how all these factors must fall into place for you to file your application correctly.









Hi everyone this is Kaushik Ranchod, and welcome to our immigration show.

Today what we are going to talk about are I-601A waivers; what’s working now under the Trump administration?

We’re going to talk about three things, three strategies which have worked. I’ll explain the arguments that have worked, so you’ll want to stay tuned to make sure that you can see what’s working now.

Let’s dive into it!

As you know, immigration has been under attack. Under the Trump Administration, denials have been skyrocketing. Now, what can you do?

Well, we’re very grateful here at The Ranchod Law Group that we’re continuing to have a very high success rate – even during this difficult time.

So I want to share with you what’s working in our cases, and of course every case is different. Because every case is so different, you need to have it evaluated with an attorney. You can always give us a call if you have questions. Right now, I want to share important information about these cases. In particular, I’ll describe things that are working for us and how we are winning these cases.

Extreme hardship due to psychological trauma

Let’s talk about the first case which presents extreme hardship due to psychological trauma. We have the applicant married to a United States citizen. This couple has a history of psychological trauma. In particular, I am referring to psychological trauma to the U.S. citizen. In evaluating these I-601A hardship waivers, you need to prove that the hardship is on the U.S. citizen. Therefore I need to explain this in detail, because I get a lot of questions related to this aspect.

In evaluating cases of exceptional hardship, they’re looking for a hardship to the U.S. citizen.

In this situation, the U.S. citizen had a history of psychological trauma. If the U.S. citizen were to be separated from their spouse, then that psychological trauma could be exacerbated because of their history of psychological trauma. So we explained that as one of the factors.

So here’s strategy number one: look at your medical records to see whether or not you have, as a U.S. citizen, any psychological trauma in the past that could be exacerbated by the separation.

Now it’s vital to note what I’m about to say – it is crucial, so you want to write this down: mere separation and anxiety is not enough!

Unfortunately, this is what I see when I see denials that are brought in to us to help cure, the government says, well, mere separation and anxiety. Well you know to me and you that seems like extreme hardship to the government under the legal standards it’s not considered extreme hardship.

We need to explain how and why they cause hardship. Proving extreme hardship requires we examine, in great detail, these factors. In summary, that was strategy number one: psychological trauma.

Extreme hardship due to Financial Hardship

Second – in this situation, the couple would also suffer from a form of financial hardship.
What was the financial hardship?
What does that mean?

In this specific situation, we described two factors – the first one was the child care.

Child care would be the cause of hardship, because if the spouse had to go back to their country, this would cause a problem. In particular, the U.S. citizen would not be able to afford child care while working. Therefore, they were dependent upon their spouse to care for their child. The second issue that would cause extreme hardship was the fact that the couple of this case owned a home.

If the couple were to leave the United States and relocate to their home country, that would be an issue, because they would lose their home.

The loss of their home derived from the fact that they wouldn’t be able to continue to make payments from abroad because they would be making much less money than they were in the United States.

So strategy number two look to see if there is financial hardship.

Extreme hardship due to Health Care issues

All right let’s keep going here guys this is great!
Factor number three health and health care systems abroad. In this case, they had some severe health issues. Health care issues offered the opportunity to talk about their health issues and how the U.S. citizen would not have the same standard of care, as well as the same standard of treatment if they had to go to the applicant’s country of origin.

So this is how we got the case approved.

A Second I-601A Extreme Hardship Waiver Case

Now I want to move onto the second case. This other case offers more ideas with more examples.

Hopefully this is getting “your juices flowing”, and you can think about how all this may apply to you.

Extreme hardship due to a history of alcoholism

So, in the second case, the applicant was from Mexico, and their spouse was a U.S. citizen. In this case, we faced a situation where the U.S. citizen had a history of alcoholism, but they were currently sober. You must know how this situation was critical for us to distinguish how alcoholism is a disease and not characterize it as a negative trait because it is truly a disease.

Our concern, and what we wanted to explain was that there could be a trigger of a relapse. We did explain how, in this case, a relapse was a concrete possibility due to separation. We explained the problem and how it would create exceptional hardship.

We proved extreme hardship for a history of alcoholism

So, in this case, that’s how we proved exceptional hardship for a history of alcoholism which was the main factor. We successfully used this problem to prove extreme hardship to get the case approved.

You want to include as many hardships as possible if you don’t do that and rely on one factor—a single in all of these situations, may not be enough. We need to investigate every situation. If we identify situations of hardship, we then evaluate their potential for extreme hardship to include in the case.

The value of hiring an immigration attorney is that an attorney can look through all of your hardships and explain them all in a way that a USCIS officer can quickly understand. USCIS Officers do not have much time to evaluate every case – time is a critical factor. A USCIS officer will decide whether or not this is going to be a hardship.

We like to present a legal brief to outline and explain all those different factors with all of the supporting documentation. Because supporting documentation is extremely important you can’t just make up things of course. You have to back up what you’re saying with the supporting documentation.

So, I hope you like this video. If you have questions, give us a call (916)-613-3553. You can also email us and please subscribe to this video.

Give us a like. Smash that like button and continue to get notifications so we can keep you informed.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this video, and I look forward to talking to you next time. Thanks have a fantastic day – bye for now.

I-601A 2020 : How To Prove Financial Hardship To a U.S. Citizen Spouse or Permanent Resident

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Hi this is Kaushik Ranchod here and today what we’re going to talk about I-601A 2020: when you apply for your an I-601 or I-601A hardship waiver, how do you prove financial hardship?

I invite you to subscribe to continue to get these updates on I-601and I-601A waivers. You can reach us at (916)-613-3553.

Financial hardship is one of the key ways to demonstrate hardship to your U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or parent. What you need to understand is that it is really important to note that in and of itself financial hardship generally is not going to be enough, so let’s look at how would you do that.

First of all, if you are essential to providing income to your household that would be considered as an important factor. A common myth is that you have to be the breadwinner: you do not need to be the actual breadwinner, you just have to demonstrate that you are essential to the household income.

Evidence for you need to produce to prove you are financially essential

What kind of evidence do you need to produce to prove your importance to the household income? In order to do that your immigration attorney will need bank statements. One way of proving your contribution to sustaining the household economy is the with the existence of bills such as:

  • car payments;
  • a mortgage;
  • health records and bills.

For an I-601 or I-601A in 2020, these expenses help demonstrate how important your financial contribution is to the entire family.

Another way to verify your condition – whether or not you’d be affected. Try answering these questions:

  • What would happen if you had to go back to your home country and your household was without you?
  • Would you be able to support your household if you were in another country?

In most cases probably not. You know. So we pull the poverty levels of that country. Our immigration attorneys examine comparable jobs and look at whether or not you’d be able to get that job.

If your family went with you to your home country, would you be able to support your family?

That’s another question that should be answered as well. So these are some ways to demonstrate financial hardship for I-601 and I-601A 2020 Waivers.

I invite you to contact us at 916-613-3553 if you have questions. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTUbe Channel. We’ll continue to keep you updated. Post your questions below so we can continue to help serve. Thank you have an amazing day – stay amazing!

The i601A Waiver Application Mistake You Must Avoid

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Welcome to your weekly immigration show, this is Kaushik Ranchod from The Ranchod Law Group in Sacramento and today I want to talk to you about a serious mistake that I saw today.

It was an individual who trusted this attorney who made a grave mistake – they filed the case without an underlying Green Card application. Well what kind of case? An i 601 Waiver case. So any I-601 Waiver [as in this case – it was for an I-212 case], needs to have an underlying application that is either based off of a form I-485 or an immigrant visa.

Now that applies as well to an I-601A case as well you must have an immigrant visa pending for an I-601A. This is basic and this attorney missed it and it was just so sad to see how this person wasted so much time in their life, so much money, only to, at the end of the day, find out that this Green Card application should have been plowed.

So i want to make sure that you stay informed, you know it’s going on watch my other videos. This is how on this individual newsom that something was a miss that the attorney would only submitted very minimal supporting documentation, four to six sentences supporting the whole application, where in our situation when we represent clients we prepared a legal brief supporting all of the arguments and extensive documentation demonstrating the Hardship.

So you want to make sure that when you submit your application, especially in thePresident Trumpera, that one you have a Green Card application that’s supporting the whole I-601 or I-601A.

Oh and also that you are putting your best foot forward because I don’t want you to waste years of your life and then many times, in many situations, thousands of dollars when you can get a break the first time.

So I invite you to contact our office at (916) 613-3553 or email us at info@ranchodlaw.com to make sure that you are informed. Thank you have an awesome day.

Related Information on I-601A hardship Waivers

I-601 Waiver Success Story for a Pakistani National

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Lea este artículo en español

I-601 Fraud and Misrepresentation (perhaps because of nerves)

We at The Ranchod Law Group pride ourselves on our success as it means we have had the opportunity to positively impact the lives of our clients. One such client is currently in Pakistan while his ailing mother lives in the United States as a Legal Permanent Resident. His mother depends on him for many things, including financial and physical support as she is wheelchair bound. He was required to remain in Pakistan due to a misrepresented fact that came about perhaps because of nerves. Our office argued that the bar should be waived due to the exceptional hardships his mom would endure without him being here. We were able to demonstrate that because of her chronic medical conditions, including depression and anxiety, that it was in her best interest to have her son here in the United States with her. She also does not have any income and very little financial support here in the United States, therefore having her son who would be able to work here is critical. We also demonstrated why his mother would not fare well in Pakistan, given the poor state of healthcare, lack of mobility for those in wheelchairs, and social stigma around mental health in the country. Additionally, we demonstrated how her son would be unable to adequately provide for her due to the economic conditions on Pakistan. Soon, our client will be able to join his mother here in the United States and provide her with the care and support that she needs and deserves.

Related Information on I-601 Waivers:

I-601 Waiver Approval – Client from Southeast Asia

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I-601 Hardship Waiver Approval - Exceptional Hardship Letter of Notice Feb. 2019

I-601 Waiver Approved: approval notice for Client from Southeast Asia




Case Filed: 03/13/2018
I-601 Waiver Approved: 02/22/2019


Welcome to the Ranchod Law Group weekly immigration update to get your questions answered. The following video addresses the I-601 Waiver for those with criminal convictions. Call us at 916-613-3553

So a question that we get in a case that we often do is I 601 a waiver and i-601 waiver but specifically what do you do if you have a crime.

In this video, Immigration Attorney Kaushik Ranchod of The Ranchod Law Group shares a recent success story with his audience and followers interested in knowing more about the I-601 Waiver. Kaushik illustrates a recent case his team of immigration attorneys got approved.

In this specific situation described by Kaushik in the video, he describes the scenario in which a client from Southeast Asia and in her situation she had a crime of moral turpitude. in addition, client had two other previous criminal convictions.

From a legal standpoint Moral turpitude is a concept that refers to an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community. A conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) causes a person to be inadmissible to the United States under section 212(a)(2)(a)(i) of the INA (Immigration and Nationality Act).

Kaushik, expert Immigration Attorney, explains how The Ranchod Law Group successful in getting this I-601 Waiver approved. Before providing the details of this specific case, it is important to underline how each case is unique: in fact, The Ranchod Law Group got the case approved however, even though it was approved, there is no guarantee that other future cases involving I-601 Waivers, including yours, would be approved. It is important to keep in mind that every case is different.

I-601 Waivers and Extreme Hardship

So specifically in the situation in which this client from Southeast Asia with criminal convictions, the way that we were successful and got the approval was by demonstrating extreme hardship to the U.S. citizen fiancee.

The approval was achieved, thanks to the hard and meticulous work of this team of immigration attorneys in Sacramento California. The facts were presented in a detailed legal brief, our Hardship Waiver Matrix, that demonstrated the extreme hardship to the U.S. citizen and illustrated all the extreme hardships that the U.S. citizen would face.

Therefore, if you have a criminal conviction, depending upon what the criminal conviction is, Kaushik and his team may be able to get an an I-601 waiver approval in your specific case.

Typically, this may occur when your spouse or fiancée is residing abroad and you as a US citizen are filing for an I-601 waiver on their behalf.

If you have a similar situation or other questions related to I-601 Waivers, give us a call on (916) 613-3553. You can call or post your question below.

The details of this Case

In order to win the case we had to prove client’s U.S. citizen fiancé would suffer exceptional hardship if her Waiver were denied.

In order to prove the hardship The Ranchod Law Group argued that due to his ties to the U.S., his career, his medical needs, and the country conditions abroad, relocation would result in exceptional hardship.

Our Client had two prior criminal convictions.

We are so happy and honored to have been able to help this couple begin this new stage of their life together in the U.S.

Related Information on Other information on I601 Waiver

A review of I-601 Waivers with Very High Approval Rates

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Video Transcript

Hi it’s Kaushik Ranchod here with Brian. So today we’re going to talk about the I-601 Waiver approval by our Immigration Law Firm. On I-601 Waivers with the
President Trump administration because as you know with the President Trump administration it is getting much more difficult for cases to get approved.

Overall there is a 40% denial rate increase.Our firm is still above 90% of overall approvals

But what is being approved now (and of course I have to say that even if these cases are getting approved) doesn’t mean that all of our court cases will be approved in the future: it’s on a case by case basis, and that’s why it’s essential to evaluate each specific unique factor, and you can call us at (916) 613-3553 if you have questions.

So in the I-601A Waiver that we just got approved, what we talked about for this situation is you have to show, for an extreme hardship I-601A Waiver, exceptional hardship to the U.S. citizen if they were separated or if the United States citizen were to go to the spouse’s home country.

One thing we showed was the history of psychological trauma that the U.S. citizen had and how that could continue to occur or even increase significantly because of the separation. That is known as psychological hardship.

Second – we talked about financial hardship, the fact that the couple had a home and they could very well lose that home if the spouse had to go to Mexico. Additionally, childcare, as well, would become so expensive that the household would not be able to afford it: that’s another argument that we made for this case. And then we tie all of these factors together to show the extreme hardship.

In many of our cases there’s not just ONE factor in and of itself that constitutes extreme hardship, but when we combine all of these factors BOOM! We’re able to show exceptional hardship! There’s one important factor that I left out – there is the spouse’s health condition as well that played a significant factor in the hardship as well.

What’s very important to remember when presenting an exceptional hardship Waiver case:

  • Provide a lot of medical records documenting all of this because you cannot just make stuff up you have to substantiate it with evidence.
  • Create a very extensive legal brief with attention to detail, outlining all of these factors as well and tying it into a legal argument demonstrating the exceptional hardship and how, through the totality of circumstances, all of these factors create exceptional hardship.

Alright, so we want to thank you for tuning in, you can leave your comments below and we will respond in our next show or we can respond below to your questions or call us at (916) 613-3553. Thank you and have an awesome day!

Latest I-601 waivers processing times And an important H1B update

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Hi it’s Kaushik Ranchod here from The Ranchod Law Group with Brian and we are here with our weekly immigration show giving you the latest updates.Today we’re going to be talking about an important H1-B Visa update, I-601 “>I-601 Waivers processing times, and other timing issues.We recently got this question:

How long is it currently taking for the I-601 waiver?

that is currently taking eleven to fourteen and a half months.

The I-601A Waiver

  • where you have a spouse that is a United States citizen or permanent resident
  • you may have entered without inspection
  • you have a parent that’s a United States citizen or permanent resident

In this situation the processing times are currently six and a half to eight and a half months, so the times have been slowing down – we’ve been noticing a slowdown with the Trump administration and I don’t expect it to speed up. I expect only to slow down.

Moving on to a very important update the H1-B system has been flipped on its head. We have H1-B as a work visa where if your employer sponsors you and it’s in a specialty occupation (very common types of those are software engineers or a physician or an architect or a teacher) then you could be eligible for an H1-B Visa. There’s also other types of visa as well. I’m going to tell you about this very important H1-B update that has happened in a second and if you have any questions give us a call (916) 613-3553 or put your comment below. So, the H1-B update is that now master’s degrees will be a given priority over bachelor’s degrees in the quota. So typically before, with the H1-B Visa, there were 60,000 H1-B Visas available for bachelors and 20,000 for masters. Now that’s been flipped and masters are going to be given the majority and bachelors will be taken given a second smaller spot of that 20,000 quota. Master’s must be from United States University.So what do we have next brain? For other questions we’ve been getting this is a different topic but clients ask:

When should I apply for work authorization

So you can apply for a work authorization depending on what type of application you are considering – so for instance if you’re applying for a marriage-based green card you can apply for the work authorization at the same time as well as the travel document. Typically we’re seeing that take around five to six months for clients to get that approval and that’s why your application is pending: see a lot of times people are wondering they have to wait until the end of the process – no! This gives you an opportunity to work while your application is pending.

Then the other question that we’re getting as well is:

Should I apply for the marriage-based green card immediately? Should I wait?

As soon as you get married you can go ahead and apply for the marriage-based green card there’s no need to wait at all. USCIS will look at how long you’ve been married and evidence of your relationship so it’s important to note that those are things that are going to be reviewed and what they’re looking for us to see if you have a real relationship that can be evaluated in a variety of different ways.

Alright well we want to thank you for joining us today live, we will see you next week, so post your questions below give us a call at 916-613-3553 if you have questions. Thank you and have an awesome day

Related Information on H-1b Visas, Green Cards, and I-601Waivers

I-601A waiver for Mexican national – Health Insurance, Psychological and Medical Conditions

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I-601A Waiver Approval Document for Mexican national




Our office is proud of our track record in helping our clients keep their families together through the I-601A Waiver process – including our latest success story – approval in 3 months!

Our client is the husband of a U.S. citizen and father to two U.S. citizen children.

Working with The Ranchod Law Group, we were able to identify numerous exceptional hardships to USCIS to help win the Waivers.

A deep dive into the citizen spouse’s medical history revealed a rare condition and our office researched Mexico’s medical system to show that this condition would not be covered by foreign health insurance.
The citizen spouse, also known as the qualifying relative:

  • has good employment;
  • has a significant student loan debt;
  • depends on our client’s joint income to repay this debt.

Among other hardships, we further highlighted the citizen spouse’s psychological impacts of not just being separated from our client, but also raising 2 children in the U.S. as a single mother.

Because of our dedicated team of attorneys and professionals, we were able to show enough evidence of extreme hardships to secure a successful outcome in under three and a half months, at a time when immigration is averaging five to seven months for these waivers!

Call our office at (916) 613-3553 or fill in the form if you have questions regarding your case.

A Detailed list of other information on I-601A Waivers

I-601A Waiver for National from Guatemala

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I-601A waiver Approval Document for Mexican national

I-601A Waivers Approval Document for national from Guatemala



Here at The Ranchod Law Group, we take great care to ensure that we put forth the very best case possible we can prepare for each and every one of our clients. This is evident by our high approval rating for I-601a waivers.

Recent Success Story for a Guatemalan national

A recent I-601a success story can be found with a Guatemalan national who is married to a United States citizen, and who has two U.S. citizen children.

By employing our Hardship Matrix, we were able to prepare a strong case for this family.

  • Our client is the main provider for his family, and his absence would have caused certain financial trouble and exceptional hardship for his wife and children.
  • His wife, the qualifying relative, has medical bills due to ongoing medical issues.
  • Additionally, an evaluation of his wife’s mental health revealed that she suffered from depression and psychosomatic symptoms—largely stemming from our client’s lack of status1 in the United States.

We worked closely with this family to gather compelling evidence to demonstrate exactly why our client’s absence from his family would result in exceptional hardship. Our Legal Team worked to ensure the client’s case was filed with no stone unturned. Our hard work and dedication resulted in an approval for this client, and they are one step closer to their green card!

If you would like to find out more about extreme hardship waivers, and if you would qualify, please contact our office today at (916) 613-3553.

definition of “lack of status”:
Lack of status refers to persons who:

  1. Have overstayed a visa for work, visit or study.
  2. Have worked or studied in the United States without authorization
  3. Have entered the United States without a valid passport or travel document

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A Detailed list of other information on I-601A Waivers

About the Government Shutdown and Filing I-601A Waivers

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Hi this is Kaushik Ranchod from The Ranchod Law Group here with Brian and today we are going to talk about hot topics:

  • The government government shutdown
  • How to prepare an I-601A waiver

So we have been getting a lot of calls about how this government government shutdown is going to affect or is it going to affect filings with the USCIS. So great news, the United States CIS and the department of state are funded with filing fees. So since they are self-funded the government government shutdown does not affect your filings with the USCIS or your United States embassy interviews.Alright now onto our next topic we recently received an I-601 “>I-601 A Waiver.So I wanted to share with you how to file an I-601A waiver it’s really important to demonstrate that there is exceptional hardship to the United States citizen it’s not enough to just show that there is going to be separation. Now you might be thinking, well being separated from my children, from my spouse that’s exceptional hardship to me, but unfortunately what the law states is that mere separation is not enough, but how we build the case is by looking at what the hardship factors would be to your United States citizen spouse.We file many spousal cases, it could also be to your United States citizen parent as well. So for instance in the case that we just got approved they had a United States citizen spouse, United States citizen husband, and they also have two children and what we talked about is:

We were able to do that through extensive documentation, providing economic surveys for instance, and we also like to explain this in detail through a legal brief, which is really important in demonstrating the exceptional hardship.With the health issues it’s really important that you document with actual evidence. You want to make sure you have, for instance, medical records because you can’t just make it up and say “Oh I have issues with my heart” they want to see an actual medical record.Alright, so moving on to the next type of hardship, you could also look at for instance psychological hardship. I mentioned mere separation is not enough however for instance:

  • if you have a history of depression then looking at the psychological evaluation;
  • having a psychological evaluation done, looking at the history of therapy that you might have had and providing that documentation as well demonstrating how that depression could be affected by the separation of you and your spouse.

You also want to document the country condition.How we do that is by providing extensive documentation and research on the country conditions with statistics from a reputable organisation. We also like to refer to what the department of state has put out as well. Additionally we like to look at career disruption and also financial aspects as well because in that situation we are able to show that perhaps you wouldn’t be able to get the same career if you had to go to your spouse’s home country or you would face adverse financial conditions and we back this up with economic surveys and other forms of documentation as well.Alright, we just got a question(I believe it’s Maleek from Los Angeles asking us):

What do I do if I’ve received a denial?

We like to see what the reason of the denial was: was it because the case wasn’t prepared well? We see that a lot of times happening in the situation with a notario or immigration attorneys who just didn’t do a good job if the case wan’t prepared thoroughly then it may warrant re-filing or if there’s some kind of new factor or something that happened in your life that has changed since the filing, then it may warrant a new filing as well. So it is very case specific and we need to look at the individual factors, so in these situations what I would advise is to call us for a consultation because we need to look at all of the factors to determine wether or not it makes sense to re-file or to take it a step further as well or to just not do anything.

We are going to call a wrap for today, so we’ll see you next week again. You can ask your questions and we do respond throughout the week – thank you and have an awesome day!

Related Information on I-601A hardship waiver cases and success stories