Immigration law allows the government to cancel deportation of certain temporary residents if the resident has been in the U.S. continuously for ten years, has good moral character and has not been convicted of certain crimes. The resident, however, must show that his deportation will cause an exceptional and extremely unusual hardship on an American or a green card holder. The government has decided that sending a relative back to Syria is too hard on Americans.
The worsening conditions in Syria now create an exceptional and extremely unusual hardship on an alien’s spouse, parent, or child who is a U.S. citizen or green card holder. This was a recent unpublished decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), a division of the administrative office charged with reviewing immigration court decisions.
In this case, a Syrian was facing deportation for violating his fiancee visa. The immigration court decided that the Syrian did not prove there was exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his U.S. citizen parents. The BIA thought differently. It considered the hardship that Americans must face in being separated from a loved one who must go back to Syria with the horrible conditions that Syrians are facing there. Ultimately it decided that sending a relative back to Syria is too hard on Americans.
[Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.]
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