Immigration

Most people who want to enter the U.S. or get legal status in the U.S. must show they are not prohibited (barred) by a long set of rules called the “grounds of inadmissibility.”¹ This is also true for T visa petitioners. These rules are very complicated and your lawyer will need to know what the immigration courts and federal courts have said about them in order to understand whether any of the inadmissibility grounds may apply to you.

If you run into problems with one or more of the grounds of inadmissibility, you can apply for a waiver with your T visa petition. Then, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will consider the pros and cons of your waiver application and decide whether or not to excuse (“waive”) the inadmissibility ground(s) by granting you a waiver. There are two types of waiver arguments that can succeed with a T visa. In the first, a waiver can be granted if there is a connection between your experience as a trafficking survivor and the event or action that makes you inadmissible. For this, USCIS also has to believe “it is in the national interest” to grant the waiver, which basically means it thinks the positive social and humanitarian considerations in your case outweigh the negative factors in your case.² In the second type of waiver, the three considerations balanced against each other are, (1) the risk of harm society might face if you are granted a T visa, (2) the seriousness of your inadmissibility ground(s) and any criminal history, and (3) your reason or need to be in the U.S.³ USCIS denies many waivers, which means it also denies T visas for many petitioners asking for waivers. This is one main reason you must work with an immigration lawyer or advocate who knows about T visas.

¹ To read the list of inadmissibility grounds, go to INA § 212 on our Selected Federal Statutes page
² INA § 212(d)(13); 8 CFR § 212.16(b)
³ INA § 212(d)(3); Matter of Hranka, 16. I&N Dec. 491 (BIA 1998)