Canadian L-1 Applicant Admitted for Three Years with a Canadian Border Crossing Card in Lieu of an I-194 issued by the Admissibility Review Office (ARO)

Our client, a Canadian citizen seeking L-1 status, not only needed to apply for admission into the U.S. in L-1 status, but required a non-immigrant waiver to waive his inadmissibility resulting from a criminal conviction. (Unlike most foreign nationals, Canadian citizens seeking L-1 status pursuant to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may file their petition at the Port of Entry (POE) for immediate (same-day) adjudication.) However, because he possessed a lifetime waiver vis-à-vis, a Canadian Border Crossing Card, we were able to have his L-1 petition adjudicated without first obtaining a waiver from the Admissibility Review Office (ARO), which most recently is taking over 130 days on average to adjudicated non-immigrant waiver applications.