USCIS has announced a new policy to evaluate VAWA petitions,
which is great news because this means that more immigrants
will be allowed to apply for a green card through their own self petition.
A VAWA self petition allows an immigrant to request a ten year
green card on the basis of having suffered extreme cruelty or battery by their U.S.
citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse
without ever getting them involved or them finding out.
You can apply for VAWA whether you are a man or a woman,
and through this you may be able to request a work permit
deferred action, a travel document, and your ten year green card.
So what changes has USCIS recently announced that involves
VAWA self petitions?
First is a critical update to their criteria for proving shared residence.
Part of the VAWA application requires that you prove that you and your spouse
resided together and shared a home during the course of the marriage.
You can prove this through certain documents such as a lease, bank documents,
affidavits from personal witnesses, school or medical records,
or any other document that can help prove that you and your U.S.
citizen spouse or green card holding spouse shared a residence.
With this new change that USCIS has announced
you now only need to show that you and your spouse
have lived together at any time in the past.
So now this will make it much easier for VAWA applicants to get approved for VAWA.
For example, if you only lived together with your spouse
before you actually got married and after the date of marriage,
you were unable to live together in the same house,
you may now qualify to file for VAWA, despite the fact that you did
not share a residence after the date of legal marriage.
The second change by USCIS has to do
with the good moral character requirements of VAWA applications.
If you have certain convictions within the three year period
before you VAWA application is filed, you may have a bar to being approved
for VAWA.
However, an exemption to this does exist if you can show a relation
between the abuse that you have suffered and this criminal conviction.
The recent announcement by USCIS actually broadens this exemption and makes
more criminal convictions eligible to be waived for this requirement.
Why does this matter?
In domestic violence situations, it is not uncommon
for charges to be brought against both parties,
even if only the abuser is the one who has perpetuated the crime.
This may result in VAWA
applicants in having charges brought against them needlessly.
The government understands this and allows charges
that are connected to the battery or extreme cruelty to qualify
for an exemption so that the person who has suffered abuse
can still meet the good moral character requirement.
And the third change announced by USCIS allows stepchildren and stepparents
to be eligible for VAWA self petitions, even if the parent and the stepparent
got divorced.
For example, if you are the child of an immigrant
and you come to the US because your parent married a U.S.
citizen, the U.S.
citizen then becomes your stepparent, and over time
you may suffer extreme cruelty from them.
If later your parent and your stepparent divorce,
you may still qualify for VAWA, even though the U.S.
citizen is no longer married to your parent,
so long as you meet other VAWA eligibility requirements.
USCIS has announced that they are implementing these changes
effective immediately, and they will be applied
to all VAWA self petitions that are currently pending
or that are filed on or after February 10, 2022.
If you think that you may now qualify, please give me a call
at 212-248-7907
so that I can go over your case and see how we can proceed.
If you want to learn more about VAWA and how to file and who qualifies,
I will leave a link to my other videos that go into more detail
about VAWA applications.
I will also continue to bring you more news and information about VAWA,
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Click here to watch this next video and I'll see you there.