Case Study 1: VAWA Self Petition With HIV Waiver
A young woman from Russia came to the U.S. as a student when she was a teenager and eventually attended college. She met a man who is an American citizen after college; they started dating and eventually got married. Unbeknownst to her, her new husband was HIV positive and unfortunately she became infected. Furthermore, the husband had infected several other women before and during the marriage. He was arrested and charged with multiple counts of sexual assault. The young woman divorced the man.
The young woman came to my office asked me if she could still get her green card despite what happened to her marriage and her being HIV positive. I let her know that her case was challenging but that she had options. Here, I told her she is a victim of abuse at the hands of U.S. citizen. As such, the law allows her to apply for a green card independent of her husband. It is called a self-petition which is something that came about through the Violence Against Women Act.
The challenge now was to over come her HIV status. The immigration laws make applying for her green card if she has HIV difficult but not impossible. What we must show is that the cost of her treatment would not eventually fall on the U.S. tax payer. In other words, we had to prove that she would not become a public charge. I was able to do this by showing that she had private insurance that was also supplemented by support from a non-profit organization that relied on donations and not taxes.
I filed her application for her green card and sent proof of how her treatment was being paid. Initially, I was able to have the immigration service grant her a work permit and a few months later she was summoned for an interview. I prepared her for the interview and I attended with her. I made sure it went well. She eventually got her green card and is still healthy.