Getting a J-1 waiver most efficiently

I’d like to provide a detailed account of my quest to obtain a J-1 waiver almost 10 years after returning from the US.

Here I will also provide some useful tips on each step of the process, pitfalls you need to avoid and all the document templates you need for getting clearances.

Read on, this will be the ultimate guide you need for being successful in your J-1 waiver application.

Few things to know about the J-1 visa foreign residence requirement-

1. The restriction requires you to spend 2 physical years in the home country, which is your country of citizenship or country of permanent residence at the time of applying for a J-1 visa. The physical presence need not be continuous. Every stay counts. But if you have 50 different trips counting to 736 days, you need to document and prove all these trips are real by saving tickets, boarding passes, passport stamps etc. This is not recommended as it’s finally up to the consular officer to take this evidence into consideration. I tried to document my 10 years of travel and ended up at 450 days over 25 trips, a good 250 plus days short on the requirement.
2. The restriction applies to the same home country even if you get permanent residence or citizenship from a different country after returning from the US.
3. The restriction applies even if you marry a US green card holder or a citizen.
4. The restriction applies irrespective of how many years have passed since you returned from the US. Once subject, always subject.
5. The restriction applies only if you want to apply for a work visa (H1, L1) or a work eligible visa (H4, L2). It does not apply for social visit and business visit visas (B1, B2).
6. The restriction does not apply if you want to go back to the US on another J-1 visa or on a F (student) visa.
7. The restriction applies even if you returned to the US on a F visa after being on a J visa. You can be on any type of student visa but you cannot seek to convert to a work visa.
8. If you were married at the time and your spouse joined you to the US, he/she is also subject to the restriction.
9. If you studied in the US under multiple exchange programs each under its own J-1 visa, you would need to obtain a waiver from each corresponding country of citizenship or country of residence if it changed between your programs.
10. If you joined as a spouse (J-2) and as a principal applicant (J-1) at a different point in time, you need to obtain the waiver on your own and along with your spouse.

Your visa stamp on the passport should have an annotation stating whether you are subject to the restriction. Mine stated this: “Bearer is subject to section 212(E) 2 year restriction does apply: India”. That’s it, if you see that clause, you no longer need to wonder whether you are subject, which country you are subject in and so on. If you do not have an annotation on your visa, you can submit an Advisory opinion to the DoS to confirm your restriction.

Remember, you can apply for a waiver only if you did not receive US Government funding. The reason(s) for your restriction will be marked on the DS-2019 form by your interviewing consular officer. My requirement was due to “The Exchange visitor skills list”. If there is any instance of Government funding, it’s very unlikely to be successful in your waiver application. Also, there are certain specialty occupations that are not eligible for a waiver. I’m not an expert in options for people with these restrictions.

Waiver application process

Start date: 20 Jan 2018

This is a 6–step process.

Step 1: Getting clearances from your home country

Step 2: Mailing in the petition for waiver to Department of State (DoS)

Step 3: Getting your home country embassy in the United States to directly send in a No Objection Letter to the DoS citing your petition number.

Step 4: This is the most gruesome part of the exercise. Waiting! And being patient. Patience is a virtue and you will learn it by going through this process.

Step 5: Getting a Favorable Recommendation on the waiver from DoS

Step 6: Getting Waiver approval notice from USCIS

Note: I applied for the waiver while still living in a 3rd country which is not US or India (my home country). The process is not significantly different (in fact some parts were a little easier) but there could be some differences that I may fail to document here. Also, the step 1 of my process is specific to getting clearances from India. This may be (and will be) different for other countries.

Tip: Assemble the following documents and ensure you have sufficient photocopies before kick-starting the process.

1. DS-2019 Form (original or photocopy)

2. J-1 visa stamp and other US visa stamps

3. SEVIS Form (for knowing your Sevis number, Program number, Dates and subject codes). If you don’t have this, you may be able to obtain this from your University.

4. Date and place of first entry into the U.S. on your original exchange visitor (J-1) visa.

5. Your mailing address that’s not likely to change until you complete the process. You can update your mailing address later but that would be another task and you don’t want to miss these mails.

6. US Postal stamps (check the value you need here)

7. Passport copies (Current and Old Passports)

8. US Legal size envelopes (not easy to get if you are outside the US)

9. Identify your waiver basis (No Objection in my case)

10. Statement Of Reason (more on this later).

Step 1: Getting clearances from your home country

Everything described in Step 1 is specific to India. If the country you are subject to is not India, move on to Step 2.

Tip: In India the term used for this clearance is NORI (No Obligation to Return to India).

This is the part that can take the longest (for most countries it is, there are exceptions like Singapore where you can do this in a day if you are a Singapore citizen but the rest of the world is not Singapore, here you can get most things done in a day!).

For India, you need to get clearances from 3 Government departments.

1. Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD)/ Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) (New Delhi)
2. Regional Passport Office (Chennai in my case)
3. Home department in your State (Tamilnadu in my case).

Step 1.1: Preparing Affidavit and Bio Data

Process started: 14 Feb 2018

In order to apply for clearances, you need to prepare 4 copies of Bio data and affidavit. The template for these documents is available here. This tends to change from time to time, so please be sure to use the latest one when you apply.

Tip: Fill out the documents digitally and print it to make sure there’s no misinterpretation of your name and other details because of your (bad) handwriting.

Each copy of affidavit needs to be notarized. I went to a Singapore lawyer, paid 80$ for a each affidavit and they attest, seal and bind the pages so it cannot be separated. If your lawyer insists on binding the pages together for procedure, make sure you keep the affidavit and bio-data separate because you need to upload them as separate documents when you file it for clearance with MHRD.

Each copy of affidavit needs to be attested by the Indian embassy in the country where you live. This process is clearly described if you are obtaining the attestation from a Indian embassy in the US.

Luckily, the embassy in Singapore was aware of this process due to some previous cases and they did not make a fuss to provide the attestation. If you live in a country where the embassy claims they don’t understand what you’re asking, it’s probably going to come down to your negotiation skills to convince them to provide this.

I had to submit the following:

1. documentary proof of my residence in Singapore
2. copy of my passport with signature
3. photocopies of my J-1 visa stamp
4. Educational certificates (for verifying my Bio-data)
5. fill out a miscellaneous form and
6. pay the attestation fee.

They asked me to provide 4 copies of the affidavit for attestation, retained 1 and returned 3 copies to me within a couple of days.

Tip: Make sure the affidavits are notarized first before you seek an attestation. The embassy may not expect this for their attestation however the Govt. departments in India might expect it hence it’s better to do this.

After you have obtained the affidavits, now it’s time to apply for clearances.

The template of the clearance letters are attached here .

Process completed: 18 Feb 2018

Step 1.2: Clearance 1: MHRD/MEA

Process started: 25 Feb 2018

For getting clearance from MHRD / MEA, you can do this through a No Obligation to Return to India (NORI) website www.nori.ac.in

The request letter is to be addressed to

Section Officer,

ES-5 Section,

External Scholarship Division,

Ministry of Human Resource Development,

2nd Floor, Wing-6, West Block-1,

R.K. Puram, Delhi-110066, India.

You need to create a profile first and enter an address that’s exactly the same as the address in your Affidavit and Bio-data otherwise it will be rejected.

Tip: You need to create a profile in the website with an address that’s the same in your affidavit that you will upload to the portal. The site is extremely basic and poorly maintained so if you don’t enter the correct details, you need to create a new profile with a different email id.

You need to upload the following documents:

1. Affidavit (notarized and attested by embassy)
2. Bio-data (notarized and attested by embassy)
3. Bachelors Degree and Masters Degree
4. J-1 visa with a simple clarification letter explaining why you are seeking a waiver (merged into the same pdf)
5. Passport First and Last Page
6. Cover letter

Once I submitted all of the above documents, it was approved within a couple of days and I was able to download the clearance letter from the portal.

Clearance obtained: 7 Mar, 2018

Step 1.3: Clearance 2: Regional Passport Office

Process started: 12 Mar 2018

The next clearance should be obtained from the Regional Passport Office. The following documents should be submitted.

1. Affidavit
2. Bio-data
3. Cover letter
4. Passport copy
5. Degree certificates
6. J-1 visa page
7. Current Immigration status and associated documents

The request letter is to be addressed to

Officer,

Passport Office

Royala Towers №2 and 3, IV Floor,

Old №785, New №158, Anna Salai, Chennai,

Tamil Nadu-600002

The passport officer will attest your application and send it to the clerk for assignment. Make sure you ask for an application reference number, before they forward it for Police verification. This can take about 4–6 weeks and you cannot follow up much on this process. I believe it goes to a central police station and then gets routed to the nearby station in your locality. The local police station will receive this request by post (the digital verification process does not apply for this clearance). Usually, there is a one person from the station assigned for all passport office related clearance processes. You should find that person and talk to him directly.

Tip: Keep checking with the local police station if they have received this verification request. Since they receive it by post, it’s very easy to miss it among so many other mails they get everyday. I went to the local police station to check this mail myself as they did not want to look through it.

Finally, when they received the mail, the policeman came home for a verification. He asked to submit the following additional documents:

1. My Passport copies
2. Passport copies of my family members
3. Other documents like Ration card, Aadhaar card, Driving license etc. to prove my proof of residence
4. Letter written and signed by my parents stating I am not ‘abandoning’ them

Once I submitted all these documents and took care of him($$), he sent the clearance back to the passport office within a week. You need to keep following up and remind them to get this done.

It took another 2 weeks for the passport office to acknowledge receipt of the verification clearance from the police station. After that, it took a few more trips to the passport office to obtain the clearance letter.

The letter was directly sent to my email provided in the application and it was addressed to the Indian High Commission in Singapore (who attested the affidavit). The letter had 3 pages.

Clearance obtained: Apr 5, 2018

Step 1.4: Clearance 3: State Home Department

Process started: 01 Mar 2018

This takes the longest due to number of sub-tasks and documentation involved. I went to the Secretariat (where the State Home Department resides) and it took a while to find out who is the right person for this request. There is a Citizen-II department that takes care of the No Objection requests.

I submitted the following documents:

1. Affidavit
2. Bio-data
3. Cover letter
4. Passport copies
5. Degree certificates
6. J-1 visa page

The request letter is to be addressed to

Home Department

The Secretary

Home (Citz II) Department

Government of Tamilnadu

Secretariat, Fort St. George

Chennai — 600 009

Tamilnadu, India

First, the documents had to be attested by an assigned Deputy Secretary before the application can be accepted. Then, one of his underlings filed the application, provided a reference number and asked me to come back after 3 months. That wasn’t going to work!

The Home Department will send out a letter to the following offices:

1. Controller of Examination of your University (not your college)
2. SBCID (Special Branch CID) for NORI verification clearance

I wasn’t exactly sure what was written in these letters but I at least got to learn exactly where these requests were being sent. He wouldn’t give me a tracking number to track these mails. I then followed up (through some contacts) with the University to confirm they received the request. The University has to reply back to the given address stating that they have no objection to the clearance. Generally, the University would have no qualms in doing this but the difficulty is to get them to actually do it, which is why I had to do it using inside contacts.

Next, getting clearance from SBCID department is another drawn out process. Through some inside contacts, I learnt where the request was sent. Upon contacting them, they mentioned that it has been assigned to one of their officers. I got in touch directly with this person and before visiting my home for verification, he requested for the following set of documents:

1. All old and new passport copies
2. All old and new immigration papers, such as Student passes, visas, any scholarship letters from local or overseas universities
3. All old and new employment letters (India and Overseas)
4. My spouse’s documents for 1,2 and 3
5. All school and University degree certificate copies
6. Proof of residence in the given address in India
7. Proof of residence overseas
8. Letter that the police officer needs to submit to his superior (he wasn’t going to type it himself)
9. My Bio-data signed by my mother
10. Proforma (No-objection statement) signed by my mother
11. Proforma signed by my sife
12. Aadhaar card copy
13. Marriage certificate copy
14. Letter from my mother addressed to Superintendent of Police, SBCID requesting for a NORI

I have templates of all the letters mentioned above. I will attach them here soon.

Once I had the above documents ready, and after a few phone calls to him, he came home for physical verification. Your parents need to be home to confirm that you are not abandoning them in India. As long as you don’t abandon him ($$), he will then proceed to sign the verification letter and submit to his superior.

I kept following up to ensure he submits the clearance to his boss. After that, his boss will sign the clearance and forward it to the clerk for sending it back to the Home Department. This took around 2 weeks. Once again, you cannot track much of this process, you need to wait until the Home department receives the letter.

After knowing that the Home department has received the clearances from the University and SBCID, I continued to follow up with them for the clearance letter. Since I wasn’t in India at that time, I had to provide an authorization letter with a physical blue-ink signature for someone else to collect on my behalf. It took a few more trips to the Secretariat and they managed to issue the letter which has to be signed by the Deputy Secretary. The letter was addressed to the Singapore Indian High Commission and they were going to send it by post to the “Diplomatic Bag section in Ministry of External Affairs” who will forward it to the Indian Embassy in Singapore. I knew it will take ages before the letter will reach Singapore hence I used my internal contacts and requested them to provide me a copy of the letter. Luckily, they obliged.

Clearance obtained: 10 Apr 2018

That’s all it takes for Step 1.

Tip: You don’t need originals or hard copies of the clearance letters. A copy will just do as well. Many Govt. offices will not hand over the original to you.

Step 2: Mailing in the petition for waiver to Department of State (DoS)

Process started: 21 Mar 2018

I waited to mail in my petition to DoS until I have some certainty on Step 1. When I was reasonably confident of the time frame within which I will obtain the clearances from India, I started putting together the documents required for the DoS petition.

The following documents are requires:

1. Fill out DS-3035 here and submit it to generate an application package. The form is not submitted online but it’s only a tool that helps you fill out and generate an application packet. That means, you can fill out a new one again if you make mistakes. Keep our SEVIS details handy to provide in the application. Your SEVIS number may also be annotated on your visa stamp.
2. Statement of reason. This is part of the DS-3035, where you write in simple words why you seek a waiver. Try to explain in 200 words or less. This is not a legal statement, so don’t think too much about it. Just state when you went to the US, why you seek a waiver and why you believe you are eligible for one. There is no need to plead.
3. DS-2019 form that was used for your J-1 visa application
4. 2 self-addressed, stamped legal-size envelopes. It took me a few weeks to get a friend from US to mail stamps to me. I pasted about USD 35 worth of stamps on each envelope.
5. Processing Fee of USD 120. If you are outside the United States, you may pay the fee with a bank international money order or a foreign draft from an institution in the United States. It must be in U.S. currency and payable to the U.S. Department of State. I went to a local bank and they issued a draft from their US subsidiary. On the back of the draft, write

• Your waiver case number
• Your full name
• Your date and place of birth
• Your social security number, if you have one.

Assemble these documents and mail them to (*check on DoS website)

Department of State J-1 Waiver
P.O. Box 979037
1005 Convention Plaza
St. Louis, MO 63101–1200

Do not include any additional documents beyond this unless you have a clear reason to do so.

Tip: Write your case number and country/region of last residence is written on any documentation submitted, as well as on the outside envelope of ALL future correspondence with the Waiver Review office.

Personally, I had some challenges with this step because I had lost the original and all copies of my DS-2019. Hence I did research on three fronts on how to obtain it:

1. Seek to obtain DS-2019 copy from the University
2. Email DoS and ask them what are the options
3. Raise an Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with ICE to request them for a copy of DS-2019. I obtained a reply in 6 weeks stating they don’t have this document.

The DoS takes an average of 4 weeks to reply to emails. They replied as below:

“If you do not have a copy of your DS-2019 . The Waiver Review Division will accept a sign letter from your responsible program officer with information about your program and your participation in it.”

That was good to know, but luckily I didn’t have to do this, my University in Singapore that helped me apply for J-1 had a copy of my DS-2019 (almost 10 years later!!). I was still concerned because the DS-2019 the University provided did not have endorsement from the Consulate on whether I am subject to the 2-year residence requirement and why I am subject (Govt financing, Exchange visitor skills list etc.) Essentially, the copy was from before my visa interview for J-1.

I had no other choice hence I just mailed in the document as-is.

Timeline:

Packet mailed on: 21 Mar 2018

Once I mailed in the petition, below is the timeline on the DoS waiver tracking page:

Packet delivered on (as per the Courier): 24 Mar 2018

On the DoS website— Statement of Reason, DS-3035, DS-2019, Passport Data page, Fee- Received on 11 Apr 2018

Step 3: Getting your home country embassy in the United States to directly send in a No Objection Letter to the DoS citing your petition number.

Process started: 12 Apr 2018

This is a continuation of Step 1.

Now that I had clearances from all 3 Government departments, I went to the Indian High Commission in Singapore for the next steps. Here’s how it works:

1. You submit the clearances you obtained from the 3 departments in Step 1 along with some supporting documents like passport copies, J-1 visa copy, DS-2019 etc.
2. The Indian High Commission in your country issues a No-objection letter
3. They forward it to the Indian High Commission in Washington D.C. with other supporting documents that you provided by Registered Post. It can take a few weeks to reach them ( 4 weeks in my case).
4. They also forward a copy of the No Objection to the US Embassy in their country (Singapore in my case). This was completely unnecessary and caused some issues.
5. The High Commission in Washington D.C. forwards the No Objection Letter received with an additional cover letter addressed to the DoS waiver division citing your petition number.

Things to remember:

DoS recognizes No Objection letter only if it arrives from the embassy of your home country in the US.

Make sure your application packet is received by DoS and is updated online (Step 2 completed) before the No objection letter from the embassy reaches them

The Indian High Commission in Singapore forwarding a copy of the No Objection letter to the US Embassy in Singapore caused an hiccup in the process. It seems the US Embassy in Singapore identified the letter and forwarded it correctly to the DoS waiver division (I thought they wouldn’t care). Upon receiving this letter, DoS sent me an incomplete information letter stating that the No Objection letter did not come from official sources (they will accept it only if it comes from your own Consulate in the US). This had me nervous for a while but finally after 4 weeks, the No Objection letter from Singapore reached the Indian High Commission in Washington D.C.

I emailed the Washington embassy to check if they received the letter. Once they received it, they processed it within a couple of days and forwarded it to Waiver Review Division in Washington D.C. Note this address is different from the address where you mailed in your petition. That’s ok.

The Indian High Commission in Washington D.C. also emailed me a copy of the final No Objection letter they are sending to the DoS waiver division.

Process completed: May 15, 2018

I received another update on the DoS waiver tracking page:

No Objection statement — Received — May 16, 2018

Step 4: Waiting

Process started: May 17, 2018

This can be the most frustrating part of the process. Once DoS receives all the documents in your application packet and the No Objection statement from your embassy, the timeline can vary anywhere between 1 day to 56 days (documented timelines, sometimes it can take longer if your case is not straight forward or you need multiple waivers).

Tip: On the J1 waiver tracking page, all “items” must reflect an action of “received” or “sent” before your case is considered ready for deliberation.

I emailed the DoS to check on the status, after 4 weeks I received a standard reply that all applications are important and they will process it as soon as possible.

Step 5: Getting a Favorable Recommendation on the waiver from DoS

Timeline:

It took me exactly 8 weeks to get an update on my application:

Favorable Recommendation- Sent — July 10, 2018

It’s not done yet. While DoS waiver division reviews and approves waiver petitions, they will forward the Favorable recommendation to USCIS and the final approval needs to come from USCIS. In most cases, USCIS will accept DoS recommendation and grant you the waiver.

Tip: You don’t have a waiver until you get the approval notice from USCIS.

DoS sent me a copy of the favorable recommendation letter that they are sending to USCIS in one of my self-addressed stamped envelopes.

Process completed: July 20, 2018

Step 6: Getting waiver approval notice from USCIS

Once USCIS receives the recommendation from DoS, they will issue a receipt with a receipt number that you can use to track the status on the USCIS website. There isn’t much information when you track this, other than to state that they received the petition from another Government office.

Timeline:

USCIS receipt I-797C was sent on 18 July, 2018

USCIS receipt was received on my mailbox on 23 July, 2018

The mails from USCIS seemed to arrive a lot faster than the ones from DoS.

I certainly knew this was the green mile in the process but some online research showed that things can go haywire even at this step.I decided to ignore them and simply wait.

Hurray!

I finally received the waiver approval notice I-612 Application to waiver foreign residence requirements from USCIS on 1 Aug, 2018

Timeline:

USCIS notice date: 27 Jul, 2018

USCIS waiver approval notice received by mail: 1 Aug, 2018

That’s all. The process I started working on 20 Jan 2018 finally came to fruition on 1 Aug, 2018, taking a total of 203 days.

Some steps had hiccups that could have been avoided, some that could not be avoided and some steps where I got through only due to all the inside influence (especially in Step 1).

Overall, I think this would be a record time for obtaining a waiver for a citizen of India. Most cases I have read about have taken longer, I knew someone who took almost 2 years for the same process.

If you are from Tamilnadu and/or Chennai, I have a local contact who can help you get the clearances in Step 1. Please contact me directly and I will provide you the contact.

What next?

After I obtained the waiver, I proceeded to apply for my US work visa and got that approved in no time.

That’s all, good luck to you and I hope this article helped you get clarity on the J-1 waiver application and approval process.

Please like and share if you found this useful. If you have questions, please post them in the comments.

Update (02 Aug 2021)
When I wrote this article, I didn’t expect it to take off like it did. There has been several thousand views and many of you have sent thank you notes and asked several questions. I have tried to answer them whenever possible to the best of my knowledge.

I have an update on my story- since obtaining the J1 waiver in August 2018 and my L1 work visa in September 2018, I moved to the US in November 2018. Since then, my I-140 (Immigrant petition for Alien worker), I-485(Application to Register for Permanent Residence or Adjust Status), I-765(Application for Employment Authorization) and I-131 (Application for Advance Parole) have all been filed and approved. Last week, I completed the final interview for Adjustment of Status and it was approved for myself and my family. I’m now an immigrant and a Permanent Resident of the United States.

Moment of joy!

I will write another detailed post on this experience. Again, the planning, documentation and the interview preparation process is more extensive than the J-1 waiver process and is worth sharing. Luckily, my company has one of the best immigration attorneys who guided me through this process.

This seemed almost impossible when I started my J-1 waiver process, which to this day is the most important documentation required for many of the other processes. I consider myself lucky and blessed, as I have several friends/relatives spending a lot more years in this pipeline. In my opinion, it’s 10% preparation, 90% perseverance and in the end, you have one heck of a story to tell.