CARUSA
07-02-2007, 02:03 AM
Hi I am in desperate need of some assistance with understanding how the i212/I601 process works. Let me give you all some background information:
I am a 26 year old American woman married to a 41 year old man from Central African Republic. We have four children together the oldest is almost 6 and the other three are 3, 2 and 9 months..My husband came to this country in December 1993 to participate in the IMET program. He was supposed to leave when his duties here were completed but didn't due to the political unrest in his country. Instead, upon completion of his duties, he reported to INS and begin the process for seeking asylum. In 1997 his asylum was denied by an immigration judge and he appealed to the Board of Immigration appeals. During all of this he and I married in 2001 a few months before I had our first child.
Three months after we were married we got a letter saying that the BIA had decided to uphold the immigration judge's decision and that he had a certain period of time to leave the U.S. I think 90 days. We immediately went looking for an attorney and found one who said he would handle our case. Unfortunately we found out later that this guy had several disciplinary actions on his record and was under suspendion when he took our case. Anyway he told us all we needed to do was apply to adjust my husband's status. So he started out by just filing the I-130 which I thought was odd cause we knew a couple whose attorney filed their I-130 and AOS papers together but I didn't really question this. Well our petition was approved in mid 2004 and the notice was sent to our attorney who was supposed to send it to us. The approval notice he sent to us had a note saying there may be important info on the back or something like that but the back was blank, I think he sent us a copy instead of the orignal we requested because the original may have said something about my husband not being able to apply for AOS and he didn't want us to know.
Later that year I begin dong my own research trying to see if i could complete the process myself I ordered the aos packet from the Immigration website and when I received it and read the instructions I noticed it said that a person who was ordered deported could not adjust their status. This is what led me to the web where I did my research and found out that, that was unfortunately true. I was heartbroken, angry and in disbelief all at the same time. I couldn't believe that someone could take advantage of people the way our attorney did and he saw that we had just had a baby and were desperate and all he cared about was making some money off of our desperation. Well its over and done now and I know there is nothing we can do about that so now that our hope in this immigration bill passing has been shattered, we have no choice but for my husband to go back to his home country some time soon and for us to apply for a hardship waiver for me and our four kids.
The problem is I have no idea where to start. I have no clue what papers to file, when to file or where they should be sent. I am totally lost. Can anyone help me understand what I need to do? Thanks for reading this, any replies will be greatly appreciated!
I am a 26 year old American woman married to a 41 year old man from Central African Republic. We have four children together the oldest is almost 6 and the other three are 3, 2 and 9 months..My husband came to this country in December 1993 to participate in the IMET program. He was supposed to leave when his duties here were completed but didn't due to the political unrest in his country. Instead, upon completion of his duties, he reported to INS and begin the process for seeking asylum. In 1997 his asylum was denied by an immigration judge and he appealed to the Board of Immigration appeals. During all of this he and I married in 2001 a few months before I had our first child.
Three months after we were married we got a letter saying that the BIA had decided to uphold the immigration judge's decision and that he had a certain period of time to leave the U.S. I think 90 days. We immediately went looking for an attorney and found one who said he would handle our case. Unfortunately we found out later that this guy had several disciplinary actions on his record and was under suspendion when he took our case. Anyway he told us all we needed to do was apply to adjust my husband's status. So he started out by just filing the I-130 which I thought was odd cause we knew a couple whose attorney filed their I-130 and AOS papers together but I didn't really question this. Well our petition was approved in mid 2004 and the notice was sent to our attorney who was supposed to send it to us. The approval notice he sent to us had a note saying there may be important info on the back or something like that but the back was blank, I think he sent us a copy instead of the orignal we requested because the original may have said something about my husband not being able to apply for AOS and he didn't want us to know.
Later that year I begin dong my own research trying to see if i could complete the process myself I ordered the aos packet from the Immigration website and when I received it and read the instructions I noticed it said that a person who was ordered deported could not adjust their status. This is what led me to the web where I did my research and found out that, that was unfortunately true. I was heartbroken, angry and in disbelief all at the same time. I couldn't believe that someone could take advantage of people the way our attorney did and he saw that we had just had a baby and were desperate and all he cared about was making some money off of our desperation. Well its over and done now and I know there is nothing we can do about that so now that our hope in this immigration bill passing has been shattered, we have no choice but for my husband to go back to his home country some time soon and for us to apply for a hardship waiver for me and our four kids.
The problem is I have no idea where to start. I have no clue what papers to file, when to file or where they should be sent. I am totally lost. Can anyone help me understand what I need to do? Thanks for reading this, any replies will be greatly appreciated!