Immigration attorney Charles Kuck flagged a filing-order trap that is costing people their green cards. If you have a prior removal order, you generally need consent to reapply, a Form I-212, to overcome the bar in INA 212(a)(9)(A) before you can adjust status. The instinct is to file the I-212 together with the adjustment. Kuck says that is now backfiring.
mic What the Attorney Says
“Now the recommendation is if you have a removal order that you went to, or if you can argue that it’s no fault of your own that you didn’t go, file the 212 first. Don’t file with an adjustment.”
In two cases Kuck described, applicants filed the I-212 alongside the adjustment, and USCIS denied the adjustment by simply declining to rule on the I-212 first, treating the unresolved removal-order bar as a reason to deny the green card. Filing the I-212 on its own, and waiting for its approval before submitting the I-485, removes that opening. The cost is time.
mic What the Attorney Says
“212s are taking 3 years. I know this sucks.”
Three years is a long wait, but a denied adjustment with an unresolved removal order is worse. It can put you back in front of an immigration judge. This is especially relevant for DACA recipients who traveled on advance parole and have an old order underneath, which is the same exposure behind the DACA recipient deported at her green card interview and old in-absentia orders that surface years later. When there is a live order, the sequencing and the burden both matter, as they do when someone marries a citizen while in removal.
Sources
- 8 CFR 212.2, Consent to reapply for admission after deportation or removal (I-212), Cornell LII open_in_new
- 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A), Aliens previously removed (INA 212), Cornell LII open_in_new
- USCIS, Form I-212, Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission open_in_new
- Charles Kuck, Kuck Baxter Immigration live Q&A (YouTube) open_in_new