Immigration Corner | Will I ever be able to migrate to America?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

Can you help me please? In 2001, I bought a visa and went to America and was busted. I was sent back to Jamaica the next day. In 2014 my daughter, who is an American citizen, sponsored me to move there, but I was denied because of the visa I bought. Will I ever be pardoned, and will I be able to enter the United States?

– Y.W.

Dear Y.W.,

Unfortunately, what you did in 2001 by purchasing a visa is immigration fraud. So many people fall into the trap of buying a visa because they want to travel now and they think only of immediate gratification, without thinking about the future. They are also often convinced by the person selling them the visa that it is a fail-safe way to get to America. Immigration fraud never goes away, it is a lifelong, inadmissible condition that prevents travel to the United States on a temporary or permanent basis.

There is a waiver available for immigration fraud for persons who wish to migrate to the United States. The immigrant who committed the fraud must have a qualifying relative in America, and that relative must show that the failure of the intending immigrant to migrate to the United States presents an extreme hardship. Additionally, the qualifying relative must demonstrate that they cannot move to be with the intending immigrant in their home country. This process is complicated and requires proof at every step of the process – it is not simply that the qualifying relative misses the intending immigrant and wants to be with them in America.

The problem in your situation is that an American citizen daughter/son is not a qualifying relative for this waiver. You would need a United States citizen or permanent resident spouse or parent, or be the beneficiary of a US citizen-filed fiancé visa petition. This means that if you were married to a green card holder or American citizen spouse, your spouse would qualify to file a waiver of your inadmissibility.

You can also apply for a non-immigrant visa waiver in conjunction with an application for a visitor’s visa, but you have the high burden of proving to the US Embassy that you would only visit the United States and return home, and that they should forgive you for purchasing a visa in the past.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq, is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a diversity and inclusion consultant, mediator and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com