Hello,
TLDR: Emma over stayed her visitor's visa in the USA, resulted in her DV Lottery Visa Green Card being rejected. What can Emma do?
Long Form:
I am looking for sound advise in aiding a family member who recently had their Green Card interview in Bogota, Colombia.
The names used below are fake to protect the individuals.
Context:
Robert was a main applicant for a DV Lottery Visa (Green Card). Robert's Wife (Emma), Robert's daughter (Olivia) and Robert's Son (Oliver) were also included in the DV Lottery application. Robert's application for the DV Lottery Visa was selected and Robert was waiting for a scheduled interview in Colombia's US Embassy. Due to COVID19 complications, the interview was delayed significantly.
During the continuous delays for a scheduled interview, Emma, with a visitor's visa, entered the USA in December 2020. Originally, a return trip was scheduled for March 2021 to the country of origin. In March of 2021, Emma was not able to return to the country of origin due to testing positive for the coronavirus and needing to quarantine. Emma attempted to reschedule for a later flight to return to her country of origin, although due to the present political crisis and limited COVID19 flights, she was not able to reschedule her flight: no flights were available to her country of origin. Emma stayed in the USA hoping for the coronavirus restrictions to ease, to allow for a flight to be booked to return to her country of origin.
In the meantime, in anticipation of potentially needing to extend her time in the USA beyond the allowed 180 days provided by her visa, Emma applied for a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the purpose of remaining in the USA while she searched for flights to return to her country of origin.
Unfortunately, the situation did not improve, and she was not able to find a flight to return to her country of origin, as well, there has been no results to the request for the Temporary Protected Status application.
Emma remained in the USA past the 180 days allowed by her visitor's visa. She remained in the USA with the hopes of finding a flight to return to her country of origin and hoped to successfully obtain a TPS.
In August 2021, Robert was notified that the DV Lottery Visa interview was to be held in Colombia's US embassy in Bogota in September 2021. Robert, Olivia and Oliver were to arrive to Bogota by land, and Emma would leave the USA and arrive directly in Bogota where they would meet and proceed with the interview process for their DV Lottery Visa Interview.
In Sept 2021, Emma exited the USA and arrived to Bogota, Colombia and proceeded with the interview along with the rest of their family. Emma overstayed her visa 100 days. In the interview, the US Embassy marked Emma as inadmissible for a green card due to the criminal offence of overstaying her visa for 100 days in the USA, and the visa was granted to Robert, Oliver and Olivia. The immigration officers advised that Emma should have applied to an extension to her visitor's visa.
The US embassy in Colombia advised that Emma might be eligible for a pardon/forgiveness for the criminal offence from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The pardon would allow for Emma to proceed with her DV Lottery Visa and be granted a US Green Card. They did not provide further information outside of their website.
Questions:
1) Where could I find any information for requesting a pardon or forgiveness from USCIS? Is there a form on the USCIS Website that needs to be filled out? Is there a place where I can look into this?
2) Is there any way that Emma would be able to return to the USA if her TPS status is accepted while present in Colombia?
3) Can Robert, being Emma's husband, request an immigrant Visa for Emma once Robert is in the USA?
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/pplmot/overstaying_us_visa_results_in_dv_lottery_visa/