Need advice on I-130 and J-1 2 year Home Residency Requirement

[Aspasia 0]

Just to clarify one thing. How many months before the residency requirement will be fulfilled would you suggest an I-130 should be submitted for CR-1?

You should see what the current processing times are for CR-1/IR-1 visas, and submit your paperwork that many months in advance. Fortunately, if your interview falls a bit short of your 2 years, you can reschedule your interview so that it falls after you fulfill the 2 years. I know someone who did that and it was totally fine.

[mustafa1232 3]

Hi Aspasia

Спасибо большое!

I REALLY appreciate you answering me and giving me some good "inside information." It has been nearly impossible to get an answer to my question as to exactly how they count the 2 years spent back in Russia. Hearing from a Russian citizen who has been through this really helps. We know they won't count the 3 months she spent here in the US last year, but we hope they will overlook the week or 10 days she has spent in Italy or France every 3 months for the past 2 years. Since May of 2008 she has met me in Montenegro, Paris and Vienna for a total of about 30 days. She has also spent about the same amount of time in Milan and Paris with her Mother conducting business for their family owned fashion business. I am hoping they will overlook some of this at the interview. However, like you said, it may take until November anyway for her to get an interview date. We are sending in the I-130 application this week, so I figure it will be June for that approval, then another 4-5 months to send in the next chuck of paperwork and get an interview in Moscow. I mainly wanted to make sure we could go ahead and file for the I-130 while she still had time left on her 2 year HRR. If we had to wait until the 2 year HRR was up to start ANYTHING, it would take FOREVER to get her here.

Thanks again and best of luck to you!

HI FLPILOT as i told you in my last post there is no way out she must fullfill 2 year in her home country as my knowledge of j1 visa law she must complete 2 year in home country this type of condition you have only 2 choices no 1 as i told you my 14 feb post you filed i-130 when your i-130 approved finally your case transfer to nvc and nvc send you bill you have 1year time to pay nvc bill and 2 option you wait untill your wife 2year home resedency is not complete you have only 2 option there is no other option

[azer_2000 1]

I will give you my opinion. I was in the similar situation. When I filed my I-130 I had only 6 months out of 2 years requirement completed. And I'm glad that I have filed earlier and didnt wait. With additional background name checks and etc. it took over 14 months for my I-130 to be approved. So I would say you could go ahead and file everything now and go all the way to the interview.

Don't think anybody will consider it as you are commuting the fraud if the 2 year home residency is not fulfilled. If this 2 years still be an issue, you will be notified by NVC (there were cases here on VJ), and then during the interview the officer will tell you the choices you got (like waiver or just coming back when the home residency is fulfilled). If there are only several months left out of 2 years then the officer still might issue the visa. I have read cases here on VJ where up to 6 months were forgiven. But again depends on how lucky you are. In my case during the interview the officer didnt seem to be concerned about my J1 visa. I actually mentioned it myself as the reason why I came back home. But during this 2 years I have traveled several times to Europe and nobody went through my passport counting every trip that I was out of my home country.

[FLPilot 0]

Thanks for the additional replies everybody. I went ahead and filed the I-130 4 days ago. Looking at the timelines on here, the average time from filing an I-130 petition to getting an interview for the CR-1 is 10 months. If they count all of my wife's time out of Russia on vacations against her 2 year HRR, then her 2 years won't be up until November, so getting a visa interview in late November or December would be perfect timing. We will just have to be sure we don't send in the packet to NVC TOO quickly and get too early an interview, if that is even possible. I would rather err on the side of caution and make sure the 2 year HRR isn't an issue when she goes for her interview. Saving a month or two, at this point, isn't worth the risk of getting rejected at the interview and delaying things even more.

[Aspasia 0]

Thanks for the additional replies everybody. I went ahead and filed the I-130 4 days ago. Looking at the timelines on here, the average time from filing an I-130 petition to getting an interview for the CR-1 is 10 months. If they count all of my wife's time out of Russia on vacations against her 2 year HRR, then her 2 years won't be up until November, so getting a visa interview in late November or December would be perfect timing. We will just have to be sure we don't send in the packet to NVC TOO quickly and get too early an interview, if that is even possible. I would rather err on the side of caution and make sure the 2 year HRR isn't an issue when she goes for her interview. Saving a month or two, at this point, isn't worth the risk of getting rejected at the interview and delaying things even more.

If your interview gets scheduled too early, you can always reschedule it for a later date. I would advise going through the whole process as fast as you can, because you never know if there will be delays, or RFE's, etc., and then rescheduling the interview to a later date if you need to do so.

And btw - you guys are a very cute couple!

[FLPilot 0]

That makes sense, to go ahead as quickly as possible to get everything done. Is it hard to reschedule the interview? I am just afraid of it putting us at the back of the line and causing some long delay. Is it just a matter of a few weeks to re-schedule?

Thanks Aspasia! She definitely makes anyone look good next to her!

[mustafa1232 3]

That makes sense, to go ahead as quickly as possible to get everything done. Is it hard to reschedule the interview? I am just afraid of it putting us at the back of the line and causing some long delay. Is it just a matter of a few weeks to re-schedule?

Thanks Aspasia! She definitely makes anyone look good next to her!

hi FLPILOT AS YOUR QUESTION OF RESCHEDULE INTERVIEW

you have another option iam including here this is 3 option 1 and 2 option i mention in my previous post

1 and 2 option is only for you i mean to say usa citizen who is the petationer

3 option is olny for beneficiary who is your wife when your wife recieved visa document in her home country she have another 1 year time to send visa document let supose if your wife send visa document after 2 or 3 month your wife process continue again at the time of previous position and it will take another 1 or to month to make interview with embassy in my opinion it is better for you that you can use your 3 option

[DModeMD 0]

My fiance has yet to fulfill her 2yr HRR and I filed the I-129F and we are already up to P3 and should have an interview scheduled in the next couple months. She will interview with the 2yr not fulfilled. She also had numerous visits to the U.S. which technically should be counted against it. As mentioned earlier, I have seen cases here where a few months were forgiven and others where a blue slip is issued and you need to send in proof when the residency is fulfilled and they will check and tell you to come get your visa. The latter is what is technically supposed to happen.

[vopilka 0]

My fiance has yet to fulfill her 2yr HRR and I filed the I-129F and we are already up to P3 and should have an interview scheduled in the next couple months. She will interview with the 2yr not fulfilled. She also had numerous visits to the U.S. which technically should be counted against it. As mentioned earlier, I have seen cases here where a few months were forgiven and others where a blue slip is issued and you need to send in proof when the residency is fulfilled and they will check and tell you to come get your visa. The latter is what is technically supposed to happen.

Hey DModeMD, was wondering if your fiance had her interview already? And if she did, what where the results? I am planning on going to the interview with some time of these 2 years still left, just not sure when exactly it will happen. Would be absolutely amazing to know what happens...

[sofya 10]

FLPilot, I'm excited to have found this threat as my US-citizen husband and I are an exact replica of your case, only a year after. I was wondering how the process went now that almost a year has passed. Could you please share on the progress?

Edited January 15, 2011 by sofya