I used this forum to find information and wanted to share my experience with others. I participated in an exchange program for high school in 1990s and after a year in high school returned to my home country. But at the end of the summer I decided to come back to US and study in a university. I obtained F-1 visa and continued to go back home during the summer. After I graduated, I decided to get my Master degree. In the summer, I had an internship in my home country. After graduating I decided to use my practical training year and get some work experience. At that point, to be frank I didn't even think about J1 since I traveled back and forth, and received multiple F1 visas. But an issue came up when my company decided to apply for H1B - since I didn't have enough time out of the country to meet 2 year home residency requirement, they decided to change my status from F1 to H1B. The opinion was that I was there legally and everything was disclosed when they filed for H1B but I would need to either get a waiver or leave the country. I applied for immigration to Canada and moved there and to complicate situation I met my husband to be in US. The lawyer at the time mentioned that since my residency is Canada, and I would be out of the country for a while, then J1 should not be an issue. As I learned that is not the case! J1 home residence requirement still applied even if you change residency or citizenship; so I applied for a waiver based on No Objection Statement from Canada (while my husband was in US) and my file was approved.
Here is my timeline:
File Submitted (Statement of Reason, Fee, forms, etc) - December 17, 2010
Request for Sponsor Views - February 12, 2011
No Objection Statement Received - February 12, 2011
Recommendation Sent & Received - April 2, 2011
Notice of approval received - April 17, 2011
I am not sure what criteria that is applied when waivers are approved but here is what I included in my file. In filing for the waiver I was trying to be concise and honest about the situation.
1) Described my presence in my home country and included a table summarizing cumulative time spent there. Basically, I would only need to spend 9 month given my count. And my exchange program monetary support was relatively small ($12K for a year).
2) Described what I did while I was in my country. I hosted two of my friends (on two separate occasions) from US and I also had a summer internship. My point being is that I was continuing to follow the objectives of the exchange program. Additionally, I took summer classes in the university and spoke to faculty and students there about US/edu approach. To support all of these statements I included personal letter from my friend whom I hosted, and also attached a letter from the Dean of the University in my hometown.
3) Listed all my voluntary and leadership activities while I was in the university. For example, I organized an international conference for one of the business clubs that our university hosted. This was to demonstrate that while I was in US I continued to develop ties with international community. As part of the support, I attached a letter from my professor.
4) Additionally, included the fact that my husband was living in the US and he was not able to leave the country because he was in the process of applying for green card. Plus his skill set would not be utilized in my home country since he doesn't speak the language. Additionally, we were trying to start a family and given my age it would be putting family planning at risk. Also, I enclosed a personal letter from my husband.
5) Described the impact on my current career path - while I was not living in my home country. I was working at an organization on various international projects whereby investing in various countries (including my home country); as a result, I believed that I was still following original exchange program goals.
Also, I should mention that my embassy was challenging deal with; I kept on calling every day and not getting through to the right person. One woman that picked up my calls was wonderful and helped me to track down the response from the person who was suppose to give me guidance. The sticking point was that they needed original official agreement (signed!) between US side and my home country that related to the exchange and it took forever to locate. Because noone really keeps good records at home and people have changed posts a million times already. Once I got that copy - the embassy issues No Objection Letter very fast. While I submitted my files to the US in December - I started calling and chasing down all the documents for the embassy in November. So the communication with the embassy and then tracking down documents in my home city took about 3 month.
Follow instructions, be honest and present your evidence in organized, concise manner. Remember that government consists of people like us and they get tons of files - so make it easy for them.
Good luck.
Here is my timeline:
File Submitted (Statement of Reason, Fee, forms, etc) - December 17, 2010
Request for Sponsor Views - February 12, 2011
No Objection Statement Received - February 12, 2011
Recommendation Sent & Received - April 2, 2011
Notice of approval received - April 17, 2011
I am not sure what criteria that is applied when waivers are approved but here is what I included in my file. In filing for the waiver I was trying to be concise and honest about the situation.
1) Described my presence in my home country and included a table summarizing cumulative time spent there. Basically, I would only need to spend 9 month given my count. And my exchange program monetary support was relatively small ($12K for a year).
2) Described what I did while I was in my country. I hosted two of my friends (on two separate occasions) from US and I also had a summer internship. My point being is that I was continuing to follow the objectives of the exchange program. Additionally, I took summer classes in the university and spoke to faculty and students there about US/edu approach. To support all of these statements I included personal letter from my friend whom I hosted, and also attached a letter from the Dean of the University in my hometown.
3) Listed all my voluntary and leadership activities while I was in the university. For example, I organized an international conference for one of the business clubs that our university hosted. This was to demonstrate that while I was in US I continued to develop ties with international community. As part of the support, I attached a letter from my professor.
4) Additionally, included the fact that my husband was living in the US and he was not able to leave the country because he was in the process of applying for green card. Plus his skill set would not be utilized in my home country since he doesn't speak the language. Additionally, we were trying to start a family and given my age it would be putting family planning at risk. Also, I enclosed a personal letter from my husband.
5) Described the impact on my current career path - while I was not living in my home country. I was working at an organization on various international projects whereby investing in various countries (including my home country); as a result, I believed that I was still following original exchange program goals.
Also, I should mention that my embassy was challenging deal with; I kept on calling every day and not getting through to the right person. One woman that picked up my calls was wonderful and helped me to track down the response from the person who was suppose to give me guidance. The sticking point was that they needed original official agreement (signed!) between US side and my home country that related to the exchange and it took forever to locate. Because noone really keeps good records at home and people have changed posts a million times already. Once I got that copy - the embassy issues No Objection Letter very fast. While I submitted my files to the US in December - I started calling and chasing down all the documents for the embassy in November. So the communication with the embassy and then tracking down documents in my home city took about 3 month.
Follow instructions, be honest and present your evidence in organized, concise manner. Remember that government consists of people like us and they get tons of files - so make it easy for them.
Good luck.