Transcript of the above video: 

In a video I made contemporaneously with this one, I cited the film Jupiter Ascending when talking about a recent police raid of a party here in Thailand. For those who are interested in that check out our channel, you can see that video on what went down there. I thought of Jupiter Ascending in connection with that video and then some recent events here at the office involving some recent case processing got me thinking about US Immigration bureaucracy just generally.

And the thing that got me thinking about it was we were just approved on a case I filed some years ago now, for a K-1 Fiancé(e) Visa that ended up having to have an I-601 Waiver. So we got denied. It was on a grounds of inadmissibility, what is called legal grounds of inadmissibility involving what's called Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude (CIMT); in this case it involved issues pertaining to trademark infringement etc. Basically it was somebody who was inadvertently selling, I think it was apparel, like t-shirts with trademarks on them that hadn't been registered. They weren't aware of it. They were a cash vendor here in Thailand. Now they are marrying an American, they want to go to the United States and they are barred because of this Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude finding during the interview, and it was on their police record. They had been cited for it; they paid a small fine; they moved on. But it does meet the elements of Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude for legal grounds of inadmissibility to the United States which caused us to have to seek an I-601 Waiver. And when I was thinking about the movie Jupiter Ascending, there is a great scene and that is where I'm taking this thumbnail from - it's this scene where she has to go in and deal with the intergalactic bureaucracy. I'm going to put a link in the description below to that scene, but yeah if you have to deal with an I-601 waiver in the context of getting a US Visa for the United States, Jupiter Ascending's depiction of bureaucracy is I think a pretty accurate analogy for what it's going to feel like going through that process because it is Byzantine, you have kind of got to know how to deal with the Department of Homeland Security, then you have got to deal with National Visa Center, then you have got to deal with the Embassy here, then you are dealing with Department of Homeland Security again, oftentimes in the context of a waiver. Again depending on the posture of the case, you may be able to front load that process; you may not, again it depends on your circumstances. In my situation it oftentimes will depend on when I come into the case, because sometimes issues involving I-601 waivers, they don't come up until post interview, and we don't get contacted until after the finding of inadmissibility has been found. So again, it's going to depend a little bit on the underlying facts. 

But the thing to take away from this video is one, I-601 Waivers do get approved. I know that there are people out there that kind of scoff at it. There's a lot of cynicism, rightly so especially since the first Trump Administration regarding legal immigration. I will say this second Trump Administration seems to be more accommodative of legal immigration - notwithstanding the fact they are unaccommodating of illegal immigration, which I agree with - but they are much more accommodating than during the first term, thus far. Early days by the way. We still have roughly three and a half years left of this Presidency, but thus far, I think overall we're seeing legal immigration being treated with the respect it deserves. 

Now that being said, the I-601 waiver process is Byzantine and time-consuming at the best of times and in this circumstance, where we finally got the approval, it's been years later after the initial filing for the Visas and there are protocols associated with getting the Visa even after the approval which I get to in other videos made contemporaneously with this one. That being said, the thing to take away from this video is one) I just sort of put the two together because I was thinking of Jupiter Ascending and then I was sort of thinking of this entire I-601 process, and it made me think of that scene of the bureaucracy in that movie. 

But the thing to take away from this video for those who are interested in I-601 Waivers generally is yeah, it's a long process and you are going to be dealing with multiple departments and multiple cabinet level departments throughout the process of ultimately getting the Visa. And again a lot of the overall analysis regarding eligibility for I-601 waivers, which not every ground of admissibility is eligible for a waiver, only some. So again, the analysis on whether or not an I-601 waiver will be feasible is going to be dependent on the facts of the underlying case.