Should I use an attorney for NVC ?

[oui 0]

I'm a child of a permanent resident who had a law firm file I-130 F2A for me (along with G-28).

My timeline is:

10/20/2009 - receipt notice

09/08/2010 - case touched

09/17/2010 - petition approved and forwarded to NVC.

The work of the same attorney for this stage will cost around $3k. I wonder if me and my parent can do this ourselves (how hard is it, is there any VJ guide for children)? And considering that there is an attorney on record, does this mean that there will be no DS-3032 and IV&AOS bills will be sent at once, directly to my attorney? How do I remove the firm later?

Thank you all.

P.S. Should I be concerned that NVC automated system still says "we have no record of your case" after all this time?

Edited September 9, 2010 by oui

[Darnell 8,478]

you were approved on Sep 17th? what?

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NVC processing for a CR-2/IR-2 is very similar to a CR-1/IR-1 - there's some scant differences.

You and your parent could study up on LingChe's Shortcuts here, also review

DS-230 - http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/info/info_3190.html

I-864 - http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/info/info_3730.html

General NVC stuff - http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/info/info_1335.html

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IMO, can handle all without lawyer involvement

and

without lawyer intervention

if

Yer Father can be pro-active about doing stuff at NVC, and use the online payment portal, never, EVER waiting on NVC to send something out via postal mail.

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You should check with USCIS as well, to understand what your PRIORITY DATE IS, and how your PRIORITY DATE affects movement from USCIS to NVC - it may be that yer casefile has been sent off to storage, instead of NVC.

call USCIS, get an ISO - http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/gc_1221837986181.shtm#5

and ask !

Edited September 9, 2010 by Darnell

[bobby_kvisa 7]

Your attorney will receive the IV Bill and the DS-230 Bill directly in the mail. By virtue of the G-28, your lawyer is automatically designated as agent so there is no need to fill out a DS-3032.

Unless your financial situation is complicated or you need assistance obtaining or assembling a package of civil documents, you might be able to do the NVC processing without a lawyer.

This is the process I went through to remove my attorney. There is probably a cleaner way to do this, but it has worked for me so you can use it as a guide for how to do it.

1) NVC immediately mailed the IV Bill and the DS-230 Bill to my lawyer after assigning a case number

2) Lawyer notified me and asked me to pay

3) I called the NVC and gave them my email addresses

4) NVC yelled at me and told me that I was using a lawyer and using email correspondence would not be sent to the

lawyer

5) I told the NVC I am aware of this and so is the lawyer.

6) I asked the NVC to please, pretty please re-send the IV Bill and DS-230 Bill to me via email.

The NVC decide (on their own) to re-send the IV Bill & DS-230 Bill to everyone on the case (lawyer, me,

beneficiary). They specifically said they will update everyone on the case via email.

7) After I paid, I removed my attorney with the NVC via email.

8) Directly informed my lawyer that I was doing consular processing on my own

Edited September 9, 2010 by bobby_kvisa

[oui 0]

Thanks Darnell and bobby_kvisa,

Sorry about the mixup with the dates, it should have said 08 instead of 09 for a month.

Isn't the priority date the date of NOA1? In that case, mine is current as per September's bulletin.

The yelling part sounds ominous. I had an impression they weren't that stressed out, in fact, much friendlier than USCIS.

[bobby_kvisa 7]

It depends on who you get - the guy I got on the phone was not very friendly so he kind of yelled at me. What I meant to say was that they will probably mention to you something about how you are using a lawyer.

Your priority date will be the NOA1 if you are a US Citizen.

[oui 0]

Your priority date will be the NOA1 if you are a US Citizen.

Correct me if I'm wrong. This USCIS page states that the priority date for preference categories (F2A, in my case) is the date of filing, which is the same as NOA1, I believe.

For U.S. citizens there is no such thing as a priority date as the visa numbers are immediately available.

[tokyo.lovers 6]

if your case is really complicated for some reasons (like criminal records or something)

you may want to consider a lawyer. or if you feel like you really cannot handle the process.

[oui 0]

if your case is really complicated for some reasons (like criminal records or something)

you may want to consider a lawyer. or if you feel like you really cannot handle the process.

No criminal records, yet. The NVC instructions and the guides here do give me confidence in my ability to handle this.

By now the only reason I see for sticking with one are the barriers to exit (removing attorney from the application), like perceived increase in the probability of things getting lost + the prospect of unpleasantness; and the perceived speeding up of the process when there is an attorney on record (no wait for DS-3032), other privileges?

But if these are worth $3k, I don't know.

Additionally, I cannot use Darnell's suggestion for ISO because only the representing party can contact the USCIS (according to that party) and there hasn't been 90 days yet since the approval.

Oy vey is mir.

Edited September 11, 2010 by oui

[bobby_kvisa 7]

Correct me if I'm wrong. This USCIS page states that the priority date for preference categories (F2A, in my case) is the date of filing, which is the same as NOA1, I believe.

For U.S. citizens there is no such thing as a priority date as the visa numbers are immediately available.

You are right, but on one correspondence I received from the NVC it listed my Priority Date assigned to our case, which was the same as our NOA1 date.

For US Citizens the visa numbers are immediately available - but the way they accomplish that technically is to assign you a priority date that is already current by the time the file reaches the NVC.