going to cuidad juarez for visa interview

[lari0351 0]

my father petitioned for my family and i...he got his legal stauts fixed here in the US beacuse he qualified for the Ronald Ragon admisty....he has been a perment recident since 2008....we where brought here in 1995....only my mother and my 16 year sister and i quilified to get a visa....my other sister for begin older dont quilfy until my dad is a US citizen.....my sister is 16 and i am 21....we may be getting an appointment interview within the next months....we are so scared beacuse we have heard of so many people begin punished for entering the US without insepection...a ban for 10 years...we dont know what to do our lawyer say we will not have any problems beacuse she will do the wavier for us but we most likely wont need it and also beacuse we were underage when we arrived...like i said we have been here since 1995 so i know deep down that there will be a ban for a long time and we dont want that to happen we are so scared....i have a daughter here and it will be so hard for us, for so many other reasons as well...like my mother having 3 other under age children and so forth...has anyone else gone through this same situation???? we are also thinking about contacting another lawyer but we dont have much money left....plus i have also heard that there is an application fee for aroung 2500 dollars to be paid at the appointment...please help give me some adivse what shoud we do???? thank you and good bless

[Penguin_ie 5,994]

***** Moving from K1 to Bringing Family Members of US Citizens, as Op's father is applying for her *****

I am not sure I understand your timeline correctly, but your sister should not need a waiver, as she is under 18 years old when leaving the USA to go back to Mexico for the interview. You will need a waiver, as illegal presence starts to accrue when you are 18 and you are now 21- therefor the ten year ban will apply, and your father (through the lawyer) will need to file for a hardship waiver.

[Jojo92122 1,924]

It doesn't matter if someone was brought to the US as a minor. It is true that illegal presence is not counted against a minor. As soon as that person turns 18 years old, that person is an adult and that is when illegal presence in the US starts to count against the person. If a person stays over 180 days and less than one year, that person is subject to a 3 years ban after leaving the US. If a person stays over 1 year, that person is subject to a 10 years ban after leaving the US.

IF YOU LEAVE THE US, YOU ARE RISKING A BAN. Most likely, you and and your sister will be subject to the 10 years ban. Your visas will be denied. Waivers will have to be filed for you. It is not easy to get these waivers. Having US citizen children will not guarantee you a waiver.

Before going to Mexico, ask this lawyer how many waivers has he/she filed and how many were approved. Ask if you can talk to one of these clients. Because of client-attorney privilege, the lawyer cannot give you the name of past clients. However, the lawyer should be able to get one of them to call you.

Be careful of lawyers who don't care about you. These lawyers don't care if you are separated from your family. All they care about is you paying them money for a waiver that may never work.

Go get a second opinion from another lawyer about the waiver. It is not that easy.

Good luck. You and your sister have difficult choices.

If your sister is under 18 and 1/2, she needs to leave the US now. She is not subject to a ban until she has 180 days of illegal stay in the US after her 18th birthday.