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I-601 Waivers for Fraud and Misrepresentation

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we're going to be discussing legal grounds of inadmissibility, specifically fraud and misrepresentation as defined by the Immigration Nationality Act. As sort of an update, I guess as some sort of a synopsis with respect to this video or a summary as far as what we're going to go over in this, basically we've done another video specifically on this topic with respect to what's called an I-601 Waiver, but I wanted to go ahead and do this do sort of an addendum video to that video to provide a little bit more insight as there was one thing in there that I wanted to mention and it specifically came up in my practice about the past two weeks that's not oftentimes mentioned directly with respect to fraud and misrepresentation but it should be because it's quite an incredibly important notion that technically falls under fraud misrepresentation.

So strictly speaking, what are we talking about with respect to fraud and misrepresentation? Well, the Immigration Nationality Act 21286-C, so sort of just a general synopsis – “anyone who by fraud or willfully misrepresenting a material fact, seeks to procure a visa, other documentation or admission into the U.S. or any other benefit provided under the INA is inadmissible for life”. In some situations, some we should note, and this is the reason for the addendum, as in the previous video I don't think I quite got this fully across, that this only applies in certain instances, a waiver may be available under INA 212-I for immigrants or INA 212-B3 for non-immigrants. Another thing to keep in mind with respect to this: “False Claims of United States Citizenship” and this is rather important.” If anyone falsely claims for any reason or benefit whatever, under the Immigration Nationality Act or under any other law, there is no waiver available.” So what we're talking about here is if somebody claims to be a United States citizen falsely, and I’ve had seen this come up in very innocuous ways, if someone claims to be a United States citizens falsely, essentially under the amended Immigration Nationality Act - this didn't always exist - basically, it is possible that that person will not be admissible to the United States for the whole of their natural lives. That's extremely important.

I've actually seen cases involving this where the issue was not one of whether or not it was in fact a false misrepresentation of U.S. citizenship, I've actually seen situations where even something is sort of mundane as a traffic ticket which is written by a police officer and the police officer will note, in some cases without specifically asking the individual in question that that they are a U.S. citizen. This can happen, it depends state to state. Such notations are sometimes made. I've seen situations where that alone was enough to create at least a presumption of a bar to any type of immigration benefit. Under those circumstances, if it can be proven that in fact the individual in question who is the immigrant or the non-immigrant or the foreign national, I should be specific I guess, if it can be proven that the foreign national was not in fact the one who made that assertion, it was just sort of “punched in automatically” into a government document and there are many government documents that have if not an automatic function noting U.S. citizenship it's darn close, where it can be notated almost without the person filling out the document really taking the time to make note of the fact that they're claiming U.S. citizenship, this can happen. It's fairly clear under the Statute that any sort of false claim creates an inadmissibility; and a lifetime inadmissibility. This is some important stuff.

Finally with respect to this overall, as stated in some situations with respect to fraud and misrepresentation it may be possible to get a waiver. As noted in the previous video, fraud and misrepresentation is not something to mess around with. I have seen over the years individuals talk about immigration proceedings especially things like visa applications in sort of a cavalier manner thinking that “Well we'll frame it this way whatever.” Don't walk anywhere near the line of fraud and misrepresentation because, as I've stated, it may or may not be waivable to begin with, and the other thing is it destroys credibility. So if one is seeking a waiver down the road, who's to say that an officer looking at that waiver is really going to believe what that applicant is asserting with respect to the waiver because it's clearly been seen that in the past, they didn't have total credibility. So for that reason, fraud and misrepresentation is not something to mess with hence the reason for this addendum video and hence the reason for adding on some further information with respect to it, with respect to false claims of citizenship and just how serious this ground of admissibility can be.