Exceptional and extremely unusual hardship is a legal term in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, primarily in the

Immigration and Nationality Act The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act may refer to one of several acts including: * Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 * Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 * Immigration Act of 1990 See also * List of United States immigration legisla ...

(INA).

United States Immigration and Nationality Act

The term "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" is mentioned in a number of statutes of the

(INA),See generally {{uscsub, 8, 1229b, b, 1, D which was enacted by the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

in 1952 and amended a number of times over the past sixty years. The terms "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" and "

extreme hardship Extreme Hardship is a legal term in the United States of America's Immigration Law. United States Immigration Law: Extreme Hardship In U.S. Immigration law effects of certain grounds to deportability and inadmissibility can be waived, under the d ...

" are not

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

but obviously different from each other.''Matter of Montreal''
23 I&N Dec. 56
64 ( BIA 2001) (

en banc In law, an en banc session (; French for "in bench"; also known as ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank'') is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by one judge or a smaller ...

) ("This case presents a good example of the difference between the '

' and the 'exceptional and extremely unusual hardship' standards."). Under the INA, effects of certain grounds to deportability can be waived by

immigration officer An immigration officer is a law enforcement official whose job is to ensure that immigration legislation is enforced. This can cover the rules of entry for visa applicants, foreign nationals or those seeking asylum at the border, detecting and ...

s under the

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security The United States secretary of homeland security is the head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the federal department tasked with ensuring public safety in the United States. The secretary is a member of the Cabinet of the U ...

or by immigration judges under the

U.S. Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

. Their decisions can be appealed to the

Board of Immigration Appeals The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) is an administrative appellate body within the Executive Office for Immigration Review of the United States Department of Justice responsible for reviewing decisions of the U.S. immigration courts and certa ...

(BIA) and then reviewed by

authorized Authorization or authorisation (see spelling differences) is the function of specifying access rights/privileges to resources, which is related to general information security and computer security, and to access control in particular. More for ...

federal judges Federal judges are judges appointed by a federal level of government as opposed to the state/provincial/local level. United States A US federal judge is appointed by the US President and confirmed by the US Senate in accordance with Article 3 of ...

References

External links

Chapter 5 – Extreme Hardship Considerations and Factors
(USCIS) United States immigration law