Currently, many people who are applying for lawful permanent residence have to leave the United States and request the immigrant visa from a U.S. consulate abroad. Since a large percentage of these applicants were in the United States for more than a year without authorization, they need a waiver of that ground of inadmissibility before they can be granted the immigrant visa to reenter the U.S. The waiver application process abroad usually results in months or even years outside the U.S. and separation from family. In part to remedy these long periods of family separation, in January of this year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service published a Notice of Intent for proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register. This notice proposed a plan to transfer the adjudication of the waiver applications from abroad to processing in the United States before the applicant has to travel. Since the decision on the waiver takes place before the applicant leaves for the interview at the consulate abroad, the waiting time outside the United States and the uncertainty of the waiver outcome would be greatly diminished. As of this writing on October 4, 2012, the proposed “stateside waiver” procedure is not yet in effect. There is no guarantee that the proposed rule will ever go into effect. However, there is strong indication that the change in the process will occur and many speculate that it will be final before the end of this year.
