Nick

I am totally stress out by my wife situation in Taipei. She has been
in the US for the last 13years and traveled back and fore to the US
frequently without any problems. A few days ago, she has been accused
of "out of status" and barred from coming into the US for the next 3
years.

The INS consular wrote this on her change of status application:

Unlawful presence in the US for 180 plus days under section 212A
9B1. Barred from entry to the US from Feb14 2003 -> Feb14 2006

Furthermore, they cancelled her current H4 visa in her passport!

How it happened :

I am currently holding an O-1 visa. I recently switched from H-1B
because my H1-B expires this 3/14/2003 same goes for my wife with her
H4. Now my new O-1 visa is valid from 8/14/2002 till 8/14/2005. My
attorney told me that my wife needs to travel back to her own country
and get a new visa stamp and change her status from a H4 to 0-3.
Sounds straight forward and simple.

When she presented all her records and college transcripts, the
consular found that she was late on enrolling for her internship to
keep her in status. She explained that she was having a hard time
finding internship position locally in Savannah, Georgia and had to
move to a bigger city where there are more opportunities. (She is a
Furniture Design major: Masters) At the same time she wasn't aware of
the immigration law of "unlawful presence" of 3/10 bar that started
on April 1 1997 - Oct 1 1997. Furthermore, she explain the problem to
her professor and he approved her internship search in another city
and told her that it would be all right if she finds it later.

So, in her transcripts there was a time gap from Summer 96 -> Spring
98. She later found her internship in late Dec 97 and enrolled her
internship class with the school in Jan 98 and got her grades in
Spring 98. I don't know why the consular wrote 180+ days??? Starting
from when???

I am shocked when I got the news and totally confused about the
section 212A 9B1.

Then, later I found

http://www.shusterman.com/ds.html
F. In cases where the unlawful presence determination is based on an
INS or IJ finding of a status violation, the clock starts to run from
the date of the INS or IJ determination, not/not from the date on
which the alien actually began violating status. For example, if an
alien enters on an F visa on September 1, 1997, drops out of school on
October 1, 1997, and fails to depart, and if the INS or an IJ
subsequently makes a finding of a status violation on, say, February
1, 1999, the unlawful presence clock begins to run on February 1,
1999, not on October 1, 1997, and the alien would not be subject to 9B
unless he remained in the U.S. without authorization for an additional
101 (sic - This number should be "181".) days or more after the
February 1, 1999, determination.
Now, I am desperately seeking legal advise and willing to pay to help
lift the 3 years bar. Could someone please get me some advise on this
situation and perhaps point me to a good attorney. I'm in Oakland, CA.

Thank you so much for reading.

Nick F.