Kat,

By the law governing these waivers (you can research “Matter of Hranka”), there is no requirement for a certain amount of time to pass.

However, the passage of time is still considered by the ARO. You can research “9 FAM 305.4-3(B) (U) Criteria for Waiver Recommendation”. Here it states that recency (among other things) is to be considered.

Best of luck. I hope you’re able to fix your situation. I’m also waiting to hear from the ARO.

@J Rogers Every lawyer except for 2 told me that I didn't have to wait. One said to wait a year, and one said to wait 3 months. I consulted about 10 lawyers in US and Canada.

I did ask if they are sure, and they said it depends on my ground of being banned - and with my situation it wasn't unreasonable to reapply right away (no overstays, no criminal record - they just thought I was trying to work or get married in US but had no evidence).

So I don't know, maybe they were all crooks, sure, it's possible. How long would you have suggested that I waited? And does the time spent waiting for this waiver, if denied, count towards "time served" when I reapply?

@KatM

Magnus is right. The problem is that if this JUST happened, why would the US give you access after JUST banning you? Makes no logical sense.

Why would a lawyer tell you 3 months? Because they told you something to give you hope...so you would try. Otherwise, no money. I hate to say this, but most lawyers really feel like you are paying them to TRY, not be successful. This lawyer either really doesn't know, so therefore should not be doing waivers, or really doesn't care, which is worse.

I would have told you to wait. I very much doubt you will get approved. When you get your response, if it is a no, they will critique all aspects of the application, but the real reason will be "not enough time has elapsed". Make sure you ask the lawyer at that point....if your are taking money for this service...should you not KNOW I would be rejected?

@Magnus 5 years. The lawyers I spoken to said there's no waiting time required, and one said I should wait a minimum of 3 months. I think it depends on the reason of the ban?

@KatM
My understanding is that one should wait until at least 5 years after a 10 year ban to even have a decent shot at getting approval for a waiver.

I don’t know how long your ban (how long btw?) is for but there’s a good chance you may be applying too soon after being banned. That would be my guess.

@Magnus 7 months ago. Applied 2 months after date of denial.

I don’t know that if they were planning on denying me, they would just do it right away and tell me to reapply later. Or if they are sadistic and will drag it out for a while and then deny me 😭

[ KatM appended this reply on July 14, 2022 @ 3:39 am ]

I’m in a FB group for just waivers and the lawyer there is saying it could take 6-8 months for Canadians. She handles mostly non-eSAFE waivers for people from south america however so I’m hoping her info isn’t too accurate for esafe…

@KatM

May I ask how long ago you got banned?

Forgive me if you’ve already stated that in the thread somewhere.

I’m just curious if not enough time has gone by since you were banned and that may be factoring into the equation here.

Yes I did apply through eSAFE and it’s the I-212 waiver since I got denied and banned and not I-192 so hopefully that’s the difference and you guys won’t be waiting as long.

Also from the random bits of info I scraped from the internet, they might be taking their time for me to “re-establish” my residency in Canada, since I got denied on the basis of suspected employment/marriage from spending too much time in US previously (even with no actual overstay). Perhaps J has some input as to whether that’s something they do?

@KatM wow 130 days that's way too long 😕 😪 and did you apply it through esafe??

@KatM hi. I'm so sorry you are going through that. Did you apply by paper or through esafe.

@candra1 I'm at 130 days now. 5 year ban no criminal record no overstay. I have emailed them twice throughout this period and always got this generic email in response:

Your application is on file with the Admissibility Review Office. It is currently pending further review. Due to the individual circumstances of each waiver application, there is not a set timeframe to give as to when an application decision will be completed."

It just seems that it's pointless to inquire status as the waiver is either "pending review" or just complete. There are no other options as far as what they will tell us.

@J Rogers

I’ve always known you to be a reasonable and thoughtful person who has posted enormously helpful information on here.

I understand sometimes in the world of texting, etc… since “tone” cannot truly be discerned unless actually speaking live with someone things can sometimes sound “snarky”.

Since I’ve never had that experience with you I didn’t want to read too much into it other than just to clarify what my curiosity about a person’s specific waiver experience was. I’m somewhat dismayed that timelines have increased greatly since the early Spring.

I felt the need to lead off my previous comment with thanking you for the clarification on those matters. It’s something I’ve known you to always do since the lay people, myself included, are often bewildered and sometimes anxious about this whole waiver stuff/experience.

Nevertheless you’ve shown great grace by apologizing for something that easily could be misconstrued.

I can tell everyone that these last 2 weeks have been VERY slow for waiver results. I generally get a waiver a day on average and only 1 the last 2 weeks.

We are Wednesday July 13th. The last one I had I posted and it was 74 days. I would count on an average of 72-75 days for the majority of waivers.

If you are less than 120 days, you are not considered "late". So although you CAN email, it generally will be ignored unless you are 120 days or more.

There is absolutely no phone number you can call. Hang in there...you WILL get an answer. I bet once they start to come in all the people posting they are close to 70+ or longer will all get them at once.

I created May 9th and submitted to ARO on May 10th and have not heard an outcome yet. I hope they email back with a decision soon. 🙏 🙏🙏

@candra1

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any number you can call. I applied on May 3rd and today is 71 days for me and I have not heard anything really since the long weekend (July 4th holiday). On this forum at-least….

@J Rogers hi is there any number I can call to check up on my application status I applied in May 8 and still nothing. What timeline are they working on now? Any updates from may

@Magnus

Sorry, I was typing that while doing something else, I didn't mean the "tone" to sound like that, I should have re-read it before I posted.

What I simply meant was that people wrongly assume its the nature of the file that affects the timeline, when in fact its more about the line-up itself.

No offence intended Magnus, as always you ask very good questions.

@J Rogers

Thanks for the further clarification.
Although I wasn’t “making it out to be something it is not.”

I was curious as to why the process was taking so long and was surmising as to the facility one would suppose a fourth time waiver application would be processed.

Once again nothing in there suggests explicitly that I was “making it out to be something it’s not.” That would require me to be DEFINITIVE in my knowledge of the process. Obviously I don’t have that knowledge hence the beauty of being able to glean information on the process from this forum.

Has anyone had any approved waivers in the last week. There have been no updates since before the long weekend :(

@Magnus

You are making the process to approve a waiver out to be something it is not.

Whether it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours to approve a waiver isn't the point. It is "how fast does the waiver get on a desk?"

Yes, once the waiver is looked at, it might be easy to say "yes", but the line-up of waivers is what defines how quickly it is sitting on a desk. I have a ton of files waiting to be "finished" by me. If you are next on my desk, your going to get DONE next. If you are #20 in my pile, then it doesn't matter if you are hard or easy, your turn is still your turn. Homeland Security works the same way. So the delay is because of the traffic jam, not how easy or hard the file is.