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I-601 Waivers: What Is a Qualifying Relative?

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today as the title suggests, we are going to be discussing the I-601 Waivers. Specifically we are going to be discussing them in the context of dealing with what is called a “Qualifying Relative”.

Basically what are we talking about here?  Well first of all an I-601 waiver, for those who aren’t aware, there are listed legal grounds of inadmissibility to the United States that are designated in the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act and if a finding of inadmissibility has been made by a Consular Officer at a US Embassy or a US Consulate outside the United States then oftentimes that finding can oftentimes only be remedied by use of an I-601 waiver

What do we mean here?  Let’s say there is a crime involving moral turpitude, for example some species of forgery because the individual applying for the visa, let’s say it’s a marriage visa to the United States, has a prior conviction for a minor forgery charge. In that set of circumstances most likely the adjudicating officer is going to make a finding of a crime involving moral turpitude and that individual can only be admitted to the United States after an I-601 Waiver has been issued. One of the aspects or one of the components of being able to get an I-60 waiver issued is showing that extreme hardship would befall a “qualifying relative” of the applicant in the United States. What are we talking about with respect to “Qualifying Relatives”?  Well, first of all “Qualifying Relatives” need to  be either a United States Citizen or lawful permanent resident in the United States and the need to  be an actual relative; they need to be a family member.  Spouses and parents, they are always going to be generally considered qualifying relatives so if you have got a US citizen spouse or a US citizen parent that you can show extreme hardship specifically with extreme hardship, there is another video on this channel that goes into some more detail about the issues associated with that, we are simply talking about “qualifying relatives” in this video. But basically if you have got your parent or spouse, and they are a US citizen and you can show that it would cause them an extreme hardship to not admit you into the United States as the inadmissible alien, then you are probably going to be able to deal with that. Children also can be considered “qualifying relatives” under certain circumstances involving the I-601 waiver and where children exist, again they have got to be a US citizen child or a lawful permanent resident child and again they have to be actually related to the applicant; you can‘t have a sort of tenuous relationship, non-familial relationship.

So this is something of a narrow scope of people. It is not just any old American citizen or any old lawful permanent resident. It needs to be a relative of the person who is applying for the I-601 Waiver. Now in most K-1 or marriage visa cases, it is going to be pretty easy to show that because you have got a spouse involved who is an American citizen or presumably an American citizen or possibly a lawful permanent resident.  But that being said, the waiver has to pertain to a qualifying relative and it needs to show extreme hardship and as explained in another video on this channel extreme hardship can be something of a difficult threshold to overcome but I will leave that for that video to discuss in more detail.