Hi,
I used to be on a F1-visa from 1994-1998. I met my wife (American) in college and we got married 1998. After our marrige I applied for the green card while I was working in the US. I finally got my green card early 2000, but during the time of our application we decided to move out of the US and did so middle of 2000. We did not know if we were coming back or not. Well, we never came back except as tourists. During this time we failed to report a change of address so the US government never knew we had moved out of the US so they thought after 2 years I was living in the US illegally so they filed a warrant for deportation that I never received or knew about. I did file a I-407 in 2003 were I surrenderd my green card (because we thought we wanted to come back when our daugther was older). Now in 2007 we want to move back and we started filing a immediate family immigrant visa adn everything was fine until my interview were I was questioned heavily on where I was at certain dates. I did not understand what was happening and the consular soon realized this. The reason I was able to go in and out of the US as a tourist was because they misspelled my name on my green card + I got a new passport with a new passport number.
The embassy now has told me that I need to file a I-212 with supporting documents to Cleveland where my warrant for deportation resides, they never gave me an address so I assumed it was the UCIS field office in Cleveland, they mentioned ICE. We have now sent that form with proof that I have been living in a different country all this time and not in the US. I have a letter from my employeer and papers from my government.
What are they rules for deportation? And do you guys think they will remove this bar and resolve this issue?
I know we made a mistake for not notifying of our new address but we never intended for all of this to happen and we just want to start our new life in the US.
So our application for visa is now pending...
Thanks.

