US Waiver for Canadians

US attorney Laurel Scott (of Scott and Associates ) has been providing a live chat on her site for the past view months. She specializes in the I-601 hardship waiver but seems to answer all immigration/waiver related questions including those around the Canadian application (I-192) for the waiver I-194. The chat session is held every Wednesday at 11am (central time) at the following website: Scott and Associates chat room. The chat sessions are anonymous . Archives of her previous chat sessions can be found here: Laurel Scott chat logs. For legal advice and representation on obtaining an I-194 waiver of inadmissibility Laurel recommends attorney Daniel E. Green. His website and contact information are here: Hudson Valley Immigration Law.

This definitive article written by a Windsor law firm and published by the Ontario Bar Association on January 24, 2006 covers everything your lawyer needs on gaining you lawful admission into the US. You can read the entire article here ( PDF ). There are a couple of interesting points. On page 5 for example, there is a piece under Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude ( CIMT ) called the US Petty Offence Exception: Pursuant to the US petty offence exception, a non citizen may be determined admissible, notwithstanding a single CIMT conviction if three essential requirements are satisfied: (1) he/she has committed only one CIMT ; (2) he/she "was not sentenced to a term of imprisonment in excess of six months (regardless of the extent to which the sentence was ultimately executed"; and (3) the offence of conviction carries a maximum possible sentence of one year or less. Unfortunately all 3 don't apply to me (I was convicted of 2 minor offences) but it is worth considering and...

It took just over 9 months since submitting my I-192 application and almost 12 months since my process started but today I finally received my I-194 US waiver! For those of you that haven't gotten yours yet. Here is what it looks like: It comes on an ordinary letter sheet and includes a cover letter. The letter was dated November 3, 2006 and reads: Your application for advance permission to enter the United States as a nonimmigrant has been been approved. Enclosed is a copy of form I-194. The terms and conditions are: You are granted multiple entries into the United States at various points of entry as a visitor for business/pleasure/employment for a period of stay to be determined by the admitting officer, provided that you are not inadmissible to the United States under any other section of the law other than Section 212(a)(2)(A)(i)(I) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended. VALID FOR FIVE YEARS FROM THE DATE OF APPROVAL. This letter and the form I-194 must be present...