Hello,
I am an international student. I started my program in late 2015. I married a girl in 2018. During this period, we traveled to my country of origin a couple of times. In November of 2019, we applied for my green card. My original interview for the green card was scheduled for Jan 2020. The COVID-19 quarantine did hit, and the interview was postponed until further notice.
We fell out of love and in April 2020 we had a divorce. I sent a letter to citizenship and immigration to cancel the application. Until this point, I’ve been on my F-1 status and always been a legal presence.
On a sad turn of events, I received a letter from Homeland Security saying that I entered the country in 2018 with a tourist visa, and since I took classes, they terminated my visa. This was an error from the border officer, I had never had a tourist visa. They said that they could revert the changes if I showed them documentation from the border showing that I never had a tourist visa. Since this happened in the middle of the pandemic, I had no way to get anyone to reply to my calls, emails, inquiries.
I talked to the Director if International Services at my college. He suggested to leave the country as soon as the divorce completed, and reapply, for a new visa (instead of trying to get my old one back) with a new I-20 that the university would issue to me. He told me to explain all my situation at the visa application and share all the documentation needed. I did so.
I went to Mexico right after the divorce processed (late April 2020), after a couple months of waiting, I had my interview for a new visa, renewed passport, with a new I-20, etc. The officer approved my visa. I re-entered the country on August 2020 to finish my studies. I made sure they put the right status this time. I am currently working on my second to last semester.
Today I got a letter from citizenship and immigration saying that my residency application was denied. There’s a section that says the following: “The evidence of record shows that, when you filed your application, you were present in the United States contrary to the law. You are not authorized to remain in the United States. If you fail to depart the states within 33 days of the date of this letter. USCIS May issue you a notice to appear and commence removal proceedings against you with the immigration court “. This obviously refers to my previous visa and those documents. However I am really worried about this. I left the country and did everything according to the law. Would this still impact me?
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/l9pnf7/advice_on_immigration_status/