hi welcome to Tsang & Associates, today we'll be talking about a 204-l relief
it is a super super touching case that i want to share with you today so this is a story about
this faithful faithful pastor that just had one bad thing after another happened to her
she initially applied for a green card for one reason or another she didn't get it
10-15 years ago and now she's waiting for her sister's application for her to go through
it's a long wait but it's only a couple years left at that point she came to us we had we filed
an r-1 religious visa for her so she's now in the u.s with her husband she's working for the church
very faithful but it's just a long wait and it's a very long processing and constant renewal
and she's constantly telling us all these other people are getting legal status work
permits green cards she knows a lot of them are doing it illegally but why is it so hard for her
um serving the lord uh and to maintain her status i just explained over and over again but this is
the right way you know you want to work for the church this is the religious visa other people
might be doing asylum refugee different things that might be true might not be not true but
you're doing it the right way and she just keeps on accepting that and constantly working this year
her sister passed away and this is before the adjustment of status application
which means the principal had passed away and when the principal passes away the beneficiary
automatically loses the status so her case got denied she's been waiting for 10 15 years
and she was able she was going to just pack up her bags and just leave she didn't expect
uh this to happen she's super sad she's been this has been her whole life
her husband her children everybody was planning for this and all this planning was just gonna be
gone um and she was just gonna be uprooted and and and leave um but before she left she came back to
us and just to say look you know we understand our application is denied we're gonna go home now um
what do you recommend if there's anything you can do we took a look at it we're like well
we could try to argue the 204 uh i provision um you have a very good case for that um you
should really do you think it could really go through even though my sister passed away and our
entire application was based on that like yeah we just have to deal with these couple things so um
we proved that she was physically here when the sister passed away what she was um she
was residing in the u.s that her application was already the i-130 was already approved
that we were able to get a substitute sponsor for her and the most important thing that the officer
has discretionary power to grant this case and that she deserves it she's a faithful
pastor she's serving the community she has all these letter recommendations no criminal record
been faithful following the immigration law and presented all of these documentation fingers
crossed and then the case was approved super super happy it's it's the basically the last thing
before the approval just all these bad things happened to her and her case was extra extra
complicated because she was on a religious visa with no salary and so it was really difficult to
prove that she was in legal status in the u.s but just given her amount of publication that she did
when she was working at the church and the officer just looked at everything and said you know yeah
this provision applies to you and we will approve your green card um so she's super relieved super
happy most of these cases actually get denied because yes people been waiting for 10-15 years
but they're not physically present in the u.s when they died some people might be on
a tourist visa when they were present taking care of the sick relative then we can try to
argue a case in this case our client has been here for four or five years on a religious visa
serving faithfully at a church and there's a good argument to be made that she deserves the
green card so that's it for today that's the 204-l provision it's a very judicious and understanding
provision that allows beneficiaries still to still get the benefit even though the principal
whether it's the employer or the or family member passed away or closed down the business
if you guys have any questions feel free to reach out happy to talk to you about it thank you bye