Anyone else filing to Chicago Lockbox from abroad?

[Laure&Colin 558]

Hi everyone!

Colin and I still both live in France, but C will start a new job in CA in the begining of January.

We got married very recently and just sent out the I-130 application to Chicago Lockbox so I can join him in the US, since France does not have USCIS office and DCF is dead

I'd like other applicants who are in the same situation to gather here, wherever you guys file from!

Anyone in an ex-DCF situation already got an NOA2 through US based service centers? Does that make things longer/more complicated/different? Let's share experiences!

My first concern is something really silly: if we receive the hard copies of the NOAs here in France in Colin's name after he left for the US, I won't be able to get them from the post office, since they'll only give them to the recipient, not their spouses!

[Allegra+Hadrien 2]

Laure,

You should be getting your NOA 1 soon. Probably next week. I don't know if they'll send it to Colin in France though....

you should definitely have Colin try and call them as they probably have had to deal with similar situations as yours.

Your NOA 2 will take approx. 3-5 months so Colin can change his address to the US one when he moves.

You should go on the USCIS website portal once you get your NOA1 number and get updates through e-mail, like that you'll know when your case has been accepted and then approved.

I had NO idea they no longer do DCF in France (that is insane!!!!!!!). I lived in Paris for 8 years but I moved more than a year ago and had been living in LA more than 6 months when Hadrien proposed and we got married.

We had no choice but to do the Chicago Lockbox way.

Send me messages if you need help with anything (en Anglais ou en Francais).

I would be happy to help - there are just a handful of I-130 French Couple filers in this forum.

BON COURAGE ET FELICITATIONS POUR TON MARIAGE!!!

Edited November 10, 2011 by Allegra+Hadrien

[KevinF 3]

The Paris embassy does DCF. Check out the official website.

[Ryan H 3,812]

The Paris embassy does DCF. Check out the official website.

No it doesn't, the following passage is quoted directly from the Immigrant Visas page of the US Embassy in Paris:

Special Announcement

Effective August 15, 2011, petitioners residing overseas will no longer be able to routinely file Forms I-130,Petitions for Alien Relative, with U.S. Embassies and Consulates except in locations where U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has a public counter presence within the Embassy or Consulate. Petitioners residing overseas in countries where USCIS does not have a public counter presence will be required, starting August 15, 2011, to file their Forms I-130 by mail with the USCIS Chicago lockbox. U.S. Embassies and Consulates that do not have a USCIS presence will only be able to accept and process Forms I-130 in exceptional circumstances, as outlined below.

Forms I-130 that were properly filed at an Embassy or Consulate overseas where USCIS does not have a presence before August 15, 2011, will not be affected by this change.

France is not on this list of USCIS international offices. As other posters have indicated, there is no DCF in France.

[Laure&Colin 558]

No unfortunately as there's no USCIS office in France, they don't do DCF anymore, that's a pretty recent change (August 15th of this year).

Allegra: thanks for your reply! I think they do send out the papers like NOAs to the country where the US citizen resides, wherever it is: actually I saw something appear on the I-130 download page, saying to applicants filing from abroad that they should pay particular attention to filling in their files without any mistakes, because of the cost of sending papers back and forth.

If anyone is filing from abroad through Chicago lockbox and already received some NOAs or RFEs, could they please tell us here where/how they received them? In the country where they reside? Express mail, signed for?

[KevinF 3]

Wow, very recent. Sorry for the bad information. And sorry to see that no longer available in Paris.

[Laure&Colin 558]

Hi everyone!

A quick update which may be of interest for all the other members in the same situation: for the petitioner address in form I-130, we gave our current address in France, and we did receive the NoA1 hard copy by snail mail here.

It took exactly 2 weeks from priority date until we got it in our mailbox.

[Laure&Colin 558]

More updates for people in the same case:

- my husband called IRS and they sent the tax transcripts to France, no problem. He had filed giving our address in France for the last 3 years. We're expecting it in the mail next week.

- we received our NOA2 in the mail, it took 6 days to arrive.

- another case of a couple in a similar situation as ours (USC living abroad in VWP country, no DCF in that country) just got their NoA2 after 15 days. It confirms my idea that these cases nowadays are expedited without request or processed with high priority (Igor's list is full of members like us being approved recently). We don't know why, but the facts are here to prove it. However, nobody knows how long this is going to last, so if you are in this case, I would suggest filing ASAP to benefit from this superfast processing time at USCIS stage.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Laure&Colin

[milopnkr 0]

- another case of a couple in a similar situation as ours (USC living abroad in VWP country, no DCF in that country) just got their NoA2 after 15 days. It confirms my idea that these cases nowadays are expedited without request or processed with high priority (Igor's list is full of members like us being approved recently). We don't know why, but the facts are here to prove it. However, nobody knows how long this is going to last, so if you are in this case, I would suggest filing ASAP to benefit from this superfast processing time at USCIS stage.

Who knows how long this will last... I imagine for a few months or until people forget that DCF was ever offered in VWP countries. Also, I think Igor has to update the type of data collection for the timeline lists. There should be some type of question pertaining to where the USC lives and if DCF was once available. I would think the few cases like ours skew everyone else's timelines...

[Laure&Colin 558]

Who knows how long this will last... I imagine for a few months or until people forget that DCF was ever offered in VWP countries. Also, I think Igor has to update the type of data collection for the timeline lists. There should be some type of question pertaining to where the USC lives and if DCF was once available. I would think the few cases like ours skew everyone else's timelines...

Yeah I agree with that. The Immigration Timelines tab now shows CSC is processing cases received in September, which is far from the truth.

The system can't calculate timelines with more "exceptional" cases like ours being approved than normal cases.