The provisional I-601A waiver application allows those who are immediate relatives of US citizens (parents, spouses, and children 17- 21 and unmarried) and who have a qualifying relative to whom extreme hardship would befall if the waiver was not granted (US citizen spouses or parents) to file for a waiver of the three or 10 year bars upon return occasioned by their illegal stay in the US while they are in the US and have the waiver adjudicated prior to making a decision to leave the US for consular processing of their immigration papers. Under prior law, such individuals would have to be interviewed by an American consulate officer, refused the immigrant visa, and then informed that he or she could file for an I- 601 waiver. During the waiver application's pendency, they would have to remain outside the US in hopes of a favorable adjudication. The I-601A waiver, however, is restrictive in the type of individuals who can apply in that it only cures illegal stay in the states. Although there was much comment that the provisional waiver should include those with orders of exclusion, deportation, or removal, the final rule did not include persons with other problems. Mothers who have been deported would not be included.
The regulation (not a law) that takes effect March 4 merely allows those who have accrued unlawful presence in the US to apply for a waiver of that ground of inadmissibility from within the US (prior to this, you had to leave the US and go to a US consulate abroad to apply for this waiver).
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