R-1 Petition and Change of Status Approval for a Nun at a Convent

Facts

The client was a women’s monastery. A well-meaning but ill-advised DIY I-360 immigrant petition for a special religious worker resulted in a disastrous denial and a visiting nun’s overstay of her B-2 visitor status by over 6 months.

Strategy

When I took the case there was only one option: filing an R-1 petition seeking a temporary religious worker status with a change of status retroactive to the start of the overstay (so called nunc pro tunc). Failure was not an option because the nun’s departure from the U.S. would have triggered a 3 year bar on admission. Her long overstay precluded all other status nonimmigrant status change or immigrant visa petition options.

In the R-1 petition, I argued that the client’s failure to file a timely petition to change the nun’s status (and also filing a wrong petition to seek her immigrant visa approval) was due to extraordinary circumstances beyond their control. The argument was based on the client receiving well-meaning but ill-advised instructions from a brother at an affiliated monastery and the client’s detrimental reliance on that advice. Convincing the USCIS that the status lapse of over 6 months was commensurate with the client’s circumstances was like pushing a heavy boulder up a very tall mountain in really bad weather. But we did it.

Result

First, a worthless R-1 petition approval arrived from the USCIS within 5 months of filing containing a consular notification and without a retroactive status change; worthless because the nun couldn’t leave the U.S. and reenter without triggering the bar on admission, and because the USCIS hadn’t granted our retroactive change of status request. So I had to file a motion to reopen and reconsider this already approved petition again seeking a retroactive change of status approval. I don’t think there are many (or any) cases out there where petitioners challenge their approvals, but that’s what we had to do. A nunc pro tunc approval finally was received 9 months later and the nun’s nonimmigrant status had been restored.

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