Jose Antonio Vargas Announces Change To His Immigration Status: O Visa by way of (d)(3) waiver

Jose Antonio Vargas, America’s most famous noncitizen, has obtained an O Visa! (If you don’t remember him, Vargas is the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist behind the film Documented, author of Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, and founder of Define American.)

A change to guidance for inadmissibility waivers under INA 212(d)(3) made this possible. Vargas was able to get two bars to his visa eligibility forgiven: (1) lying about his citizenship in order to obtain work at the age of 19; and (2) the 10-year bar to admissibility he triggered by leaving the U.S. for the first time in more than 30 years in order to obtain his visa from a Mexican consulate.

He now has three years of authorized status in the United States.

-KitJ