Two-year home residence requirement (HRR) & K-1 visa

[Thilo 0]

Hi there!

Our K-1 petition has been approved and I returned packet III to the US consulate in Frankfurt/Germany.

However, I am a former exchange visitor who came on a J-1 visa (including the two-year residence requirement) to the states. Therefore, the US consulate sent more forms (DS-230 Part II and "statement of exchange visitor alien" - see attached PDF) on which I have to disclose further details about my J-1 stay in the US (if government funding was involved etc). They also asked for copies of my J-1 visa and the associated DS-2019. According to their forms I am going to be ineligible for a K-1 visa as I haven't fulfilled the two-year home residence requirement (HRR).

About ten month ago I applied for a waiver of the the HRR (based on "No objection") and got a favorable recommendation from the Department of State (DOS). The favorable recommendation was forwarded to the California Service Center (CSC) which is supposed to make the final decision and issue the actual waiver. However, CSC was not able to process the application within their projected processing time of 60 to 90 days. The case is still pending.

Has anyone experience regarding such a case? Is it possible to obtain the K-1 visa based on a pending J-1 waiver application/favorable DOS recommendation?

Any help gratefully appreciated!

Thilo

Statement_of_exchange_visitor_alien.pdf

[zyggy 9]

Hi there!

Our K-1 petition has been approved and I returned packet III to the US consulate in Frankfurt/Germany.

However, I am a former exchange visitor who came on a J-1 visa (including the two-year residence requirement) to the states. Therefore, the US consulate sent more forms (DS-230 Part II and "statement of exchange visitor alien" - see attached PDF) on which I have to disclose further details about my J-1 stay in the US (if government funding was involved etc). They also asked for copies of my J-1 visa and the associated DS-2019. According to their forms I am going to be ineligible for a K-1 visa as I haven't fulfilled the two-year home residence requirement (HRR).

About ten month ago I applied for a waiver of the the HRR (based on "No objection") and got a favorable recommendation from the Department of State (DOS). The favorable recommendation was forwarded to the California Service Center (CSC) which is supposed to make the final decision and issue the actual waiver. However, CSC was not able to process the application within their projected processing time of 60 to 90 days. The case is still pending.

Has anyone experience regarding such a case? Is it possible to obtain the K-1 visa based on a pending J-1 waiver application/favorable DOS recommendation?

Any help gratefully appreciated!

Thilo

The consulate is absolutely correct.. they cannot issue you the visa until one of two things happen:

1) You complete the 2 year HRR requirement

or

2) you get a waiver of the HRR requirement from USCIS

Since you've alredy applied for the waiver.. you need to follow up with USCIS to see what's going on with that case... Have your USC Spouse contact the Imigration Liason at their congressperson or senator's office to find out about the status of the waiver. You'll need the WAC case number from the NOA for the waiver give to the Immigration Liason for them to follow up on your case.

Edited April 12, 2006 by zyggy