K-1 petition information

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I continue my back and forth with the VSC director and thought this question would be of particular interest. He has responded to all my questions now and I will post them in appropriate areas and also in the pinned topic above. I am very grateful for his frank and direct answers and hope it helps VJ members to file better petitions and understand the process better.

Q. Some people have asked if you could outline the procedure for adjudicating a petition. A brief step by step.

This one could get a bit long so we'll try for the Cliff Notes version: When a petition arrives, they look for the two things that constitute a filed petition (signed and paid for). It is then data entered and placed into a receipt file. A receipt is sent to the petitioner when there are enough petitions to be processed. At this point, the names of the petitioner and beneficiary are scraped and run through a data base (same one you hear them bandy about on CSI and other cop shows) where we are looking for issues of criminality or immigration violations. If nothing untoward comes up it goes to "the shelf" to await it's turn. When an adjudicator asks for work the first petition in is the first one out. The first thing the adjudicator does is go through the file looking for other names or name variations to run through the data base. That takes 12 to 24 hours for the results to get back. If there is a problem (real or perceived) it goes to my area where the problem has to be resolved. Once the problem is resolved satisfactorily it goes back to the adjudicator. (my note...this explains some of the touches VJ members see) Most of them are fairly quick and if the required information was submitted it zips on through to approval. For an 129F or I-130 where the beneficiary is outside the US it gets bundled and sent to the National Visa Center where some more checks are made and if all is fine it waits for the next diplomatic pouch to the embassy. From then it is a DOS thing and we don't see it again until the I-485 is filed.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Sorry Everyone

While cutting and pasting his email to me I left out this paragraph which goes with his answer about petitions above...

"We run into problems when the USC petitioner has a criminal record. Depending on the record he/she may fall into the Adam Walsh or IMBRA realm and that can get sticky. I would strongly recommend that you tell anyone who may have a criminal history to bypass go and proceed directly to an AILA certified laywer."

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

This may be more appropriate for the AOS forum, but since that is where you will end up and this topic has been pinned, I will add it here.

Q 6. Though K visas are exempt from another medical exam if they have had one within one year, sometimes an intending immigrant arrives and does not have all their necessary vaccines. USCIS requires that they have the vaccines completed and the form I-693 signed off on by a civil surgeon. MANY civil surgeons will not sign off on the form without doing a full medical exam and charging many hundreds of dollars for this. $600 to $1000 is not unusual. It seems downright abusive to me. I always encourage people in this process to get whatever vaccines they need BEFORE arriving here.

A. Is there any other procedure to avoid this?

B. Can USCIS do anything to take control of what physicians can charge for this or forcing unnecessary and expensive medical exams on people?

Lena and Anya were both missing a shot or two when they got here. We just went to the county public health folks and made arrangements for them to get the shots and annotate a US shot record that the shots were given and they were then up to date. Some of these civil surgeons know that they have a license to steal and take advantage of it. The shots do not have to be administered by a civil surgeon. A county or state public health department should do.

Q 8. K-2 visas. Unfortunately our website as good as it is, has little information about K-2, K-4 and even CR-2 visas. I often give advice in this area just because I am one who has been through both the K-2 and K-2 Follow to Join process. (Which, by the way the local office in St. Albans was very helpful with) I think everyone understands the qualifying factors for each and I know they are different regarding when relationships were established, etc. But the question often arises about the age-out at 21. I have read of three federal court cases where K-2s were granted AOS that they had filed before they turned 21 but had turned 21 during the processing of the I-485. So, the courts ruled in their favor, for various reasons, but USCIS obviously argued the cases meaning they did not believe the persons were entitled to adjust status from a K-2. I often see the question...

A. Does the child of a K or CR beneficiary have to FILE the AOS before age 21 or be APPROVED for AOS before age 21?

B. Is there anything someone in this situation can do to assist USCIS in handling their AOS process?

This one is constantly being argued before one court or another. Congress passed the CSPA a while ago. Depending on who and how it is interpreted you will get different answers regarding "age out". I would most strongly recommend that the I-485 be filed prior to junior turning 21. Once again, wishy washy answer but we are talking about lawyers and gommint. (<---- direct quote)

[MrsBocanegra 3]

Gary,

I want to thank you for always providing great information and advice. You seem to have quite a bit of knowledge and it is great you are willing to share it with us all. Again thank you!!!

[Yahya54 4]

just keep it in mind (vawa)

thanks

[Me&Her 2]

I'd love to know if they, (VSC) still have a ton of adjudicators working the K-1s trying to get caught up or if they've shifted back to other projects. Getting an NOA2 in 30 days would absolutely make my day. Actually, it's coming up on 30 days in another week, so we'll see.

As of Monday evening, yes. I do not know how long that will last. "Until they get caught up" I was told.

Hopefully USCIS will have the same numbers or more of adjudicators working on the K-1s, because, I don't know what do they really meant by "until they get caught up", does it mean reducing from the current 5-month to a 3-month, or 2-month, or 1-month, or virtually no waiting period, is considered "caught up"?

My NOA1 is 10/7, and I had seen other members got their NOA2 only 23 days from their NOA1, I wonder why. I refused to believe (naively) that VSC has drastically slowing down NOA2s (according to Igor's list, only 10 reported NOA2 this past week, compares to 37 a the week earlier), I am keeping the hope up.

[TomZ 0]

Thanks. I just joined, and was pleasantly surprised by all the useful information.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Thanks. I just joined, and was pleasantly surprised by all the useful information.

It's a great site, check out the rest of the forums. There is a very active Russia/Ukraine/Belarus sub-forum down below.

[VSCvictim 0]

http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2009/11/17/205012 please go and check the news . Will this be an obstacle in visa issuance after today ? Slight freaking out info.

[jbmail 0]

Hello All

I had a great opportunity Saturday evening to have dinner with and spend several hours with a director at the VSC. He is currently in charge of the department that handles I-751s among other things. His wife is an adjusicator that handles YOUR petition (if it went through VSC). His wife is Russian, arrived on a K-1 and is now a citizen. This man has worked for USCIS for many years and was at several local offices before being assigned to the VSC. His wife is a friend of Alla's and we were all at a dinner party for several American/Russian/Ukrainian couples Saturday. We had a long chat, he was very open and helpful. We talked about a lot of the things we see here on VJ and I was trying to remember all the "usual questions" I read about and pin him down for some answers. I also have asked him if he will give an "official interview" for VJ. He said he will check out the site and I will call him later this week. So, anyway I will try to cover what we discussed, he was quite frank and direct in his answers, not rude, not at all, but he knows his stuff and answers without hesitation. It turned into an impromtu and fun "interview" with me trying to remember all the hot button issues I see on VJ

I told him that the number ONE and number TWO "complaints" I see are Why is the VSC taking so long and why can't we get through to you guys?

Why is VSC taking so long, what happened? I was approved in 58 days!: We had problem with labor last year and lost many workers, we hired more last November and it took some time to get them trained. Some of the petitions were sent to California and we also assign people to different tyopes of visas. They will concentrate on one tyoe, get behind on another and then shift many people back to the other type. Lately we have shifted many, almost all, adjudicators to I-129fs, so that should make people happy. They will do that until they get caught up. Summer is a busy time for I-129fs, usually about June we get slammed with them. The winter or early spring is the slowest time for I-129fs, but then it depends what they have everyone working on also.

OK, why can't we get through to you? The 1-800 line is useless. Those are contract employees and they are trained to select answers from a menu of 14 answers. They pick which one is best for your question. There are thousands of visas being processed at any time and everyone is special and everyone has special circumstances and if we had direct lines we weould do nothing but field requests by petitioners to give them priority, we just can't do it. How would you feel if your petition got bumped because some woman called and cried on the phone and then her petition got moved up ahead of yours. We simply have to operate in a way that avoids any chance of fraud, corruption or unfairness.

So what about some people get approved ahead of others? Sme petitions have problems or delays, we do not hold back others for this. If an adjudicator has problems, he puts that one aside or sends an RFE and goes on to the next. The next one may be clean and gets approved right away, in just a few minutes, they adjudicate 15-20 petitions a day per person, and the ones with problems may wait weeks for the petitioner to respond to the RFE, or maybe it is a name check they are waiting for. Petitions are assigned as they arrive, when we are working on those petitions, but they do not go out the door in the same order they came in.

G-325a, Signed or Unsigned? Unsigned.

WHAT? Ok I have seen the memo but lots of VJ members got RFEs for unsigned G-325s, what gives? They do not have to be signed,they can be signed at the consualte interview. Some adjusicators haven't read all the memos, we get hundreds of the things, and maybe they make a mistake. If you want to be sure there is no mistake, sign it. Or send a letter expalining why it is not signed and request it be signed at the interview. Do you have that memo?

It is on the VJ website somewhere You can print a copy of that and send it with the I-129f and G-325a.

Fiancee intent letter? Signed or unsigned? Signed.

What about a faxed or emailed signature? When I was adjudicating, if I could see a signature, I accepted it, but many adjusicators will not. Signed is better.

Lawyer or no lawyer? For what?

Enough said. Now a hot issue, a very controversial one. There seems to be a trend in some countries of foreign men marrying American women and the women are considerably older. There is always a question if this is a problem. It never seems to be a problem for older men/younger women (My wife is 13 years younger, his wife is also considerable younger than him) Is it a problem? For us, USCIS, no. "Free to marry".

What about the consulates or for AOS or I-751? Consulates do what they do, it is not USCIS, some of them are bastards. Kiev is easy, they approve everyone (laughs), they used to be bastards but they got easier since they first started doing those in 2005, before then you would have had to go to Warsaw, you know. For AOS if they can prove they are legitimate we do not care about age but anything that is "not normal" for the culture will draw suspicion. They probably will not get a no questions asked interview (I had told him our AOS was "no questions asked")

What about birth certificates, some people have trouble getting them? This is a problem for us also. Some people, especially our younger staff, think all the world is like the USA. I remember one, when I was in the Kansas City office, the beneficiary was from Viet Nam, she was born in 1954 there was no birth certificate. The CO asked me about this and I looked at the file. I said "Do you know what was going on in Viet Nam in 1954?" She looked at me, straight faced and said "What, their computers were down?" If a birth certificate cannot be obtained they can usually get something from a church, a village official, something, and send that with a letter of explanation. Or just their passport and a letter explaining the situation (this applies to AOS more than I-129f as beneficiary birth certificate is not required for the petition, but I wanted to ask anyway, it seems a common question here)

What about extra documents? Proof of relationship? We don't need it, only that they have met for the fiancee visa.

What about the consulates? Consulates do what they do, as I said, some are bastards. They get whatever we get when it is sent on. I can't tell you what NVC and consulates do, I know some are terrible and some are really easy, but I do not know all the details of each. Kiev is easy, western Europe is easy, Nigeria is horrible, but you would not believe the scams from Nigeria, I get jaded. I am surprised a lot of them get visas and then we have to deal with them.

I have to ask for a collegue, Ecuador? Bastards.

What about changes? Are there any in the works? Is Obama ouching you guys to work faster? I am not sure Obama knows we exist. There have been no changes and no pressure other than the usual workload and shifting things around. I do not expect any immigration changes in the next year or two, at kleat not in rules or amnesty or anything like that. I do expect FEE INCREASES within the next year...across the board.

How much more? I cannot say, that is not my area, I just hear talk.

He added, "We try not to deny petitions, people really get angry and make lots of trouble. Denials usually come at the consulate or maybe AOS or sometimes even with the I-751. If we deny someone we need good reason, if they meet the criteria, we will approve it, they just have to give us what we need to approve them."

So how can I speed up my petition? You can't really. If it gets to be too long and if you can get a congressman or senator to call, that will get some action, but half the time those guys dont'' call or they do and the petition has only been there 3 months. Sometimes one falls through the cracks, gets overlooked, we are human. A congressman can get through and get them to dig it out if it has been too long, but I wouldn't call that "speeding it up". That's a fix for whn it is too slow.

we talked for some time more, about 5 hours altogether, briefly interrupted by Alla every now and again who had her own questions about the I-751 procedure which I posted in that forum, about VJ and other topics (his Navy days) He said he will check the site and gave me his home number. He said "call anytime but not 3 in the morning" I asked about an interview or answering prepared questions, he said possibly, he will check the site. He said many internet sites are advertisement for immigration attorneys or instructing people on how to pull scams, I assured him he would be very pleased with VJ and he thinks it is great that there is a good site for information and advice. (he never heard of VJ before this)

I can also say, that speaking to him, I heard so many of the same buzzwords or advice that I have seen right here, this is really a great site with some great folks giving some really great info.

Hey Gary,

Nice info, and the part that says:::If we deny someone we need good reason, if they meet the criteria, we will approve it, they just have to give us what we need to approve them."

Thats what I asked for last week, so either I will get an RFE with Dr Arnold as the reason? or we should be waiting for her green card. I rememeber you told me you talked to the director, but i didn't see your post until I spoke with you last week

Thanks for the post. Did you forget to tell everyone that you couls SPIT at the front door of USCIS and that you slept out front for a week to get this interview??? ONLY KIDING!!!, i knew it was only 5 days!!!

Be well...J

PS. Thanks for the PM on the attorney help. I know how much you LOVE recommending attorneys!

Happy Thanksgiving to all

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Well, that would be some world record spittin', but it is close enough to see. VSC is a big employer in this area and we actually have several neighbors that work there and one that talks to me about it a little. Most are pretty closed mouthed about it. The woman that married us, the local JP and neighbor, works there. And if that sounds like Mayberry RFD to you, let me assure you...Mayberry is a HUGE city compared to us!

The rumors about me sleeping there are overblown, really

[PanamaJack 1]

Sorry Everyone

While cutting and pasting his email to me I left out this paragraph which goes with his answer about petitions above...

"We run into problems when the USC petitioner has a criminal record. Depending on the record he/she may fall into the Adam Walsh or IMBRA realm and that can get sticky. I would strongly recommend that you tell anyone who may have a criminal history to bypass go and proceed directly to an AILA certified laywer."

What is an AILA certified lawyer. And I do not have more than 3 drug posession charges and revealed them with the I129-F petion along with original certified court transcripts...I hear of others with only drug posession felonies get approvesd as long as it was not a violent offense or Adam Walsh type of crime. Is this True?

[Bacon 0]

Here's my question.

Have they moved on to another visa? There's still NOA 1's and 2's coming out though only about 10% of the amount that was coming out in October and the beginning of November. So I'm assuming that they've moved the bulk of the adjucators on to another visa. But have they also left a few so that there's a hope of getting an NOA 2 before the five month time frame.

[emilyjane13 0]

Ah this information was grand.

[thongd4me 69]

For the USCIS director:

Question about I-129F documentation - # of Marriages to document