Good news from USCIS regarding provisional waivers!!!!

Good news from USCIS! As many people know back in March of 2013, USCIS started allowing the spouses of U.S. citizens to submit new provisional waivers, where immigrant spouses could remain in the United States until their waiver was decided, rather than being separated from their families for months. USCIS stated they would not decide any other issues except for unlawful presence in these waivers and this led to USCIS denying provisional waivers submitted by people with previous crimes that did NOT make them inadmissible in anyway. People were devastated to find out their waiver had been denied over a DUI from 10 years ago when it was not a bar to admissibility. We’ve had to tell everyone that if they have even ever stolen gum from a store then they should not submit the new waiver and to just wait until USCIS corrects this issue. Well, USCIS has now corrected this issue! USCIS just issued a Field Guidance memo telling officers to not deny provisional waivers submitted by people with previous crimes that do NOT make them inadmissible. Those with minor crimes can now go forward, AFTER consulting a lawyer to make sure it is indeed a crime that is not a bar to admissibility.