Form I-212 | Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission into the United States After Deportation or Removal

Form Is Used for

The form is intended for foreign citizens who cannot enter the USA after they left the country because they fall under section 212(a)(9)(A) or (C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). They can provide this form in order to receive Consent to Reapply for Admission (also known as Permission to Reapply). This permission is obligatory for their legal return to the USA.

Two parts of the INA section 212(a)(9) regulate the order of assigning the inadmissible status.

Part A assigns the status to people who are requesting entry permit to the USA after they were removed from the country. This status is valid during a certain time, calculated on the grounds of previous removal and the number of removals in total. According to this part, leaving the US territory in the course of removal order duration may also lead to designating the status.

Part C enacts the status for persons returning or trying to return to the USA without entry permit in the following cases:

• removal from the country;
• Illegal presence on the territory of the USA for a year or more for a total.

Details

Filing the form based on different parts of the INA section 212(a)(9) requires different approaches.

Applicants under part A must submit the form if they aim:

• to receive immigration visas;
• to change their status under INA section 245 (excluding T or U nonimmigrants requesting for changing status under 8 CFR 245.23 or 245.24);
• to be admitted as nonimmigrants at a USA port of entry, excluding individuals who are not obliged to receive nonimmigrant visas. When applying for nonimmigrant visas at any of the US consulates, the applicants have to receive consent to reapply due to their inadmissible status. Those individuals should contact a corresponding consulate for the advice about requesting this approval. In some cases, the applicants do not have to fill in the I-212 form for getting the consent.

Applicants under part C must submit the form if they aim:

to receive immigration visas; to be admitted as nonimmigrants at a USA port of entry, excluding individuals who are not obliged to receive nonimmigrant visas. When applying for nonimmigrant visas at any of the US consulates, the applicants have to receive consent to reapply due to their inadmissible status. Those individuals should contact a corresponding consulate for the advice about requesting this approval. In some cases, the applicants do not have to fill in the I-212 form for getting the consent.

Individuals residing in the territory of the USA are not allowed to submit the form when having inadmissible status under part C. They can be allowed to reapply only upon a 10-year period from the date of the last departure from the USA.

NB: Those self-petitioners who fall under The Violence Against Women Act can apply for removing their inadmissible status under part C by choosing Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility based on part C(iii). In this case, Form I-212 is replaced by Form I-601.