PASTJOURNEY18

If you don't mind me asking, how long was your statement of reason on the DS-3035 and how long was your statement for USCIS? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't send all the evidence to DOS, instead to USCIS then they will send their I-613 to DOS if they find hardship right? Thanks!

Very curious where you've read this...

Processing time update.

Got it! That's great that it made it to DOS! What was the funding amount they put on the DS-2019?

was your sponsor ECA?

Who was the original sponsor on DS-2019 (ECA/x/x for example) or something else and did your program number have a G-1, G-2, etc? Congressman/Congresswoman would be your best bet.

Was the funding from US government or university? I will likely reach out when the time is right, so they can at-least keep an eye out for sponsor views when it's requested. Was your sponsor ECA?

What was suspended? Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

State department as well. ECA?

Hi Sabina, who was your sponsor? We were denied no objection and hoping we don't have to go through sponsor views request again for hardship. Who was your sponsor?

I doubt this is true.

I-601/601A being of higher standard and harder, right?

My USCIS statement is 18 pages - with 50+ pages of supporting documents

So it is ok to use the same statement that I send to USCIS? It's fairly long.

Yes

Hi Everyone, For those of you that went through the exceptional hardship waiver (I-612), did you use the same statement on DOS's DS-3035 as you did on your USCIS statement? Our USCIS statement is long and we're not sure if we should copy/paste it into the DS-3035, or if we should summarize it for DOS? Thanks!

Need assistance/guidance regarding hardship waiver please. Our statement for USCIS is quite long, but confused about the statement of reason for DOS DS-3035 form - do I copy/paste the same statement from USCIS or do I write a summary? Thanks!

This is where the whole thing becomes subjective in my eyes. The promise that was made may be broken, but based off of changes in life that were unforeseen - just like they offer the waiver in the first place, it's from their understanding that things do change in life. Particularly in hardship cases, my personal opinion is that it is about protecting their citizens from going through a legitimate, documented hardship. Whether it's been on-going or caused by the program home residency rule itself (the US citizen never signed up for it, very important to keep this in mind). The most confusing part to me is when a program no longer exists or doesn't operate yearly because there aren't enough participants - not sure if they treat that more lightly or not.

Do you believe that they weigh the short term programs (few weeks) - in which the participant didn't get paid more lightly than Fulbright?

There are many, but examples could be the various bureau's of the government. Not sure what category Fulbright falls under.

I absolutely see your point. At the end, we're all people and we realize what is hardship and what is not. I just believe there is a lot of "scare" in hardship cases, especially when it comes to government funding, but overall, there overall denial rate for exceptional hardship cases are not high (I think less than 5% per year the last few years). Likely, and this is just a guess, the denials come from lack of documentation and proof. Even though I have spoken to an attorney that has said it doesn't matter if it was $1 or $1,000,000, they look at the case as government funding only - which I still have a hard time believing this is such a thing, other than to cause fear to get one's business. Maybe they tread more carefully if the funding is more than tens of thousands of dollars, but it wouldn't make any sense to harm their citizen over a few dollars or thousands of dollars (as long as their is legitimate exceptional hardship). At the end of the day, the US government is here to protect its citizens and their well being - if all documentation is given for proof, there is no reason for a denial.

15 months including USCIS?

If this theory is true, that they just say "no" to save time, that was be misleading the waiver title itself. Incompetent and technically fraud for taking a citizens money without doing the work, but wasting thousands of dollars of its citizens and in many cases I'm sure, hundreds of hours wasted of the person going through hardship and one can argue that it made their hardship even worse.

Who was your sponsor?

I don't agree with this nor do I believe this is true. Every situation is different and the bar actually makes the hardship waiver case stronger with most attorney's that I spoke to - but again, everyone's case is different as to why they are out of status. The argument no longer becomes 2 years, but 10 years instead.