Hey friends in this video, we're going to talk about the pathway to a green card for
victims of domestic violence. Yes. I'm finally talking about Bauer now,
for those of you who are new to me, welcome to my channel. I'm Latoya McBean Pompey.
I'm an immigration lawyer in New York, working with clients all over the us and in many different
countries on very complex immigration matters. Contact us at McBean law at 5 1 6 8 6 6 3900,
or visit us@mcbeanlaw.com where you can book your consultation online. Let's
talk about vow. Firstly, guys, there is a lot of fraudulent filings out there. So be very careful.
We have people who come to us from time to time who are victims of this type of fraud.
And they didn't even know that the person who was preparing the vowel petition for
them was actually lying about some things and the individuals they end up being denied.
And they now have this bad record with immigration of a fraudulent vowel petition.
So be very careful. Now what is foul Bauer is the violence against women act. And it allows those
who have, uh, experienced battery or extreme cruelty to file on their own for a green card.
Varroa helps both men and women. And in fact, we have some clients who are men, who we help with
Varroa violence all the time. And so you don't have to be a woman to, uh, apply for vowel vowels.
Self petitioners can be those who enter the United States with a visa and those who entered without
inspection or admission to be eligible for vowel. You must fall into one of three big categories.
The first category is spouse of a us citizen or green card holder. Secondly, parents of adult,
us citizen, children, and then thirdly, children who are under 21 who were abused by a us citizen
or a green card holder, parent, not the law does allow children who are a little bit older than 21
to apply for vow, but they must be under 25. And they must prove that the reason for the late
filing is based on or connected to the abuse that they suffered at the hands of a parent follow self
petitioners may apply for adjustment of status. Even again, as I mentioned earlier, even those who
enter the United States without inspection, they could also apply for vowel, however, Vala doesn't
cure all and admissibility problems. So for example, if you have fraud, misrepresentation or
certain crimes on your record, you will need a waiver work with us or another lawyer of
your choosing of course, to determine whether you need the ice 6 0 1 waiver, along with the rest of
your application materials. Our applicants are also eligible to the employment authorization
document or the work permit, a travel document, and they may also access certain federal benefits.
Now, how do you really prove that you are a victim of domestic violence under vowel?
The government has a list of required evidence that you must submit when you file for vows,
but I'm going to touch on some bigger picture issues here that I want you to think about with
your vowel filing. First one is this you're going to need a very good victim declaration that tells
the story of what you experienced the horror, right? Um, I always say it this way. When the
adjudicated officer is reading your story, he or she must be able to really visualize
what you experienced, the pain, the suffering, the abuse you've got to, you know, methodically
tell your story as difficult as it may be to tell it. You've got to tell it in writing
and having a very strong victim. Declaration is something that we emphasize at McBean law. When
we prepare our vowel cases, you must also have proof, right? Proof of the abuse.
It could be easy to have proof of abuse if you suffered battery, right? Because you
could have a police report or medical, you know, you may have an ER report or something like that.
You know, you have hard evidence, but if you don't have battery in the abuse story, well, you've got
to have extreme cruelty and attach proof, um, of the cruelty that you suffered over time in
your relationship with that individual. Now let's talk about some special issues related to
those of you who are filing follow-up based on abuse by a us citizen or green card holder spouse.
Firstly, you have up to two years to file for vow if you're now divorced. But if you're
an immigration court, you have a little bit more flexibility with respect to the filing
of your vowel petition. But if you're filing this before us CIS, it has to be within two years of
the divorce or if your spouse, your abused spouses now deceased, you have up to two years, um, from
the time of death to file the vowel petition. Secondly, you must prove that you had a good faith
marriage. You entered into this marriage, uh, for the right reasons and in good faith. Otherwise
your petition can be denied if you don't have evidence of that. The next thing is this friend,
you must prove that you resided with your spouse. And then lastly, you must also be a
person of good moral character and submit some evidence to that effect. Now, what if
your abused spouse had filed for you? And that petition was denied, could have been denied for
many different reasons. Perhaps there wasn't enough evidence to prove bonafide or maybe
the petitioner with true after things started to go south in the relationship. He or she may
have withdrew their petition. Whatever the reason may be. You, you might now be thinking, well, I'm
going to just do a self petition under foul. One thing I want you to think about if you're in this
scenario is that previously you may have said a lot of good things about your marriage, right?
And your relationship to the government, particularly if you've been interviewed and
you're on the record talking about the bona Fides of your marriage, the good faith marriage and
how great everything is and your love story and how your, you guys share a life together now.
And now you want to file this abuse case who can do that, but keep in mind that you have
a record with immigration. And so you're going to have to kind of tie things together from the first
filing to the second filing. What happened, what led to the deterioration in your relationship,
right? It requires kind of almost reconciling the two filings so that it makes sense to the
government. How did things go from being so great to so bad? But if you have battery,
you know, if that person, and this happens in relationship, if that person turns on you and,
um, beats you or something like that, yeah. Go for it. Do vow. Um, also if all of a sudden,
since the denial, the, the pattern of abuse in the home just started, uh, the cruelty started
talk about that do vow or right. So, but just keep in mind that you have to don't have this
disconnect between the first violent and the second filing very important work with a lawyer.
If you had a previous file in marriage case that was denied. The other thing to think about is
if your marriage case was denied based on lack of bone, no bone fights, right?
It wasn't a bonafide marriage. That could be a problem for vowel because vowel, you still must
prove that you had a good faith marriage. So you need evidence, uh, in your vowel of file and to
show it was a good faith marriage. Now, lastly, parents, if you are a parent who suffered
abuse by, um, an adult, us citizen child, I want you to keep this part in mind.
The abusive child must be at least 21 years old at the time of filing. I've had meetings with people
who said, you know, about our petition was filed on my behalf. And I really wasn't too sure about
the details. I didn't really understand what I was doing and what that person was doing for me
until I got the denial. And the denial said that my child abused me, but my child is
actually only 12 years old. Those are the things I want to leave you with with respect to vowels. If
you're out there and you, um, are thinking about doing the green card application process on your
own, because you did suffer abuse by either a spouse, a parent, or an adult child contact
us so that we could take a look at your case and see how we might be able to assist you
to get that 10 year green card on your own. I hope you found this video helpful. Be sure to share it
with other people comment below. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and hit the notification
bell before you go, guys, I'll see you in the next one. Thanks for watching. Bye-bye.