Stand alone I-130 for stepchild(ren)

[beejay 123]

SerenityNOW -

1) This is country specific. As long as you meet the requirements/have proper documentation for the child to permanantly immigrant (not just travel) according to the laws of the child's country of residence/birth you will be ok. The documents will be required at the interview stage and potentially could be asked for at NVC stage. We provided a notarized letter from the mother but some places require court documents with proof of legal custody and permission from nonimmigrating parent.

2) As cgayle said if a DNA test is requested it will be at the actual interview. If bio mom will take the child to the interview you might want to prep her to make sure she leaves with a copy of the letter requesting the DNA so the she can email it to you to help speed up the process rather than waiting for the embassy to mail a letter to you in the U.S. Do you know if DNA is frequently requested at your embassy? It may not even be an issue.

3) The child will need a medical. I think in most cases they might have a reduced fee and may be exempt from a few things depending on age but they will have to go. At the very least just to make sure they are current on their vaccinations.

Sancruz- You are right, immigrant visa interviews are scheduled by NVC. Nonimmigrant visas, like the k1 are scheduled by the petitioner/beneficiary directly with the consulate or embassy. Hope you hear soon about your interview. You can check the timeline feature on this site and sort by country to see what the avg. amount of time it takes to schedule for your embassy.

Thanks velrich!

[beejay 123]

Hi all, just a quick question, I recieved a checklist from nvc for i864w to be sent in for my kids, i completed them and sent it with the AOS coversheet from the payment portal instead of the checklist coversheet, would that be a problem? Thanks so much for your replies.

I don't think it will be a problem as long as you didn't mix IV and AOS intake sheets. I would start calling about a week after submission to see if they have received it. You could also call NVC to see what they say about it.

Out of curiosity if you are willing to answer - did you initially send the I-864 and then NVC requested the 864w? Is it a stepparent or bio parent petitioning for the kids? Which one or are both of you USCs?

[SerenityNOW 11]

THANKS SO MUCH for the answers to my questions! It helps so much to know what to expect/be able to prepare slightly. I am sending this info to my husband immediately so his ex-wife can start to prepare the document(s). I have no idea if a DNA test is common in Bulgaria or not. So I'll just wait and see what they request of us.

I am curious too about the I-864W process, as I think that is what we will file as well (my husband is now a USC and I found out recently that this changes the I-864 form that is required).

When I filed for my husband in 2008, I used the "shortcuts" and never waited for anything to be mailed out to me. I have forgotten everything in this process - or more likely, blocked it out! - and I am having to re-learn all of it.

Sancruz - did you speak with the NVC about your interview date? Not sure if they can give you any more information, but I remember calling them about my husband's interview and was told the date way before the embassy mailed out anything. Fingers crossed for you to get February!

Anyway, thank you thank you thank you! I hope to see lots more approvals soon -

[asset 0]

I don't think it will be a problem as long as you didn't mix IV and AOS intake sheets. I would start calling about a week after submission to see if they have received it. You could also call NVC to see what they say about it.

Out of curiosity if you are willing to answer - did you initially send the I-864 and then NVC requested the 864w? Is it a stepparent or bio parent petitioning for the kids? Which one or are both of you USCs?

Hi Beejay,

Yes, initially the i864 was sent for each child (2 kids), the nvc sent a checklist for i864w instead for them, their bio dad is the usc and is doing the filing, am being filed for as well, my case is completed, am just waiting on the kids cases to be completed as well.Thanks for your reply.

[sancruz 26]

We got our interview date....Feb. 21. Honduras here we come!!!!! Very Happy Dance

[Kazulie 132]

CONGRATS!!!!!!

Sooooo.....best feeling ever or what? Lol did u cry?

[sancruz 26]

CONGRATS!!!!!!

Sooooo.....best feeling ever or what? Lol did u cry?

YES best feeling and Yes teary eyed as i told my husband we finally had a date! When we called Honduras to let biological mom know we had a date I could hear in her voice she was sad even though she was trying to sound positive. That is the hard part for me. As excited as we are i know this is hard for her and i know she is going to be really sad but she wants her daughter to have a better life than what she can give her in Honduras. Now just praying everything goes well. Already booked our Hotel and working on airplane tickets.

[Kazulie 132]

Such a quick date, too!!! Wow! So jealously happy for you! Lol

[katraska78 6]

Hello everyone!

Thank God for you guys! A month ago we sent my son's I-130. My husband (the US Citizen) is petitioning for him when I first started this process I was running amock, all over the place: I started a new thread, since I couldn't find much information on my case, just to realize two days ago that this wonderful thread exists!

We received his NOA1 on Decrmber 11, 2011. Back then I was told that I had to send the petition immediately, so I could "lock" my sons age, so I just filled and printed the forms, included the documents the USCIS requires on this type of petition and then sent the package to the Phoenix Lockbox. A few days later the check was cashed and we received our NOA1, with a MSC number.

During the past couple of days I have been reading the whole thread and got out of it, a great amount of very valuable information. I thank everybody for contributing to those of us who come behind you, and congratulate everyone on their approvals. To all of us, still waiting, a word on encouragement and may all of us have the blessing of being reunited with our loved ones.

My son is turning 20, this coming May. I have a couple of questions regarding the process, that I find confusing:

1. After we receive the Approval (NOA2) and the case leaves for NVC, what is the procedure.?

2. I have all the original documents with me. Do I need to send them to my son for his interview, or do I have to send them to the NVC, along with the Affivavit of Support.

3. My ROC is still pending, but in about 4 months I can apply for citizenship. If, for any reason, I get my citizenship before my son's approved, which will the procedure be, so he can obtain his citizenship as soon as he arrives? (Do I have to write the NVC, the USCIS, or is it an automatic thing)

4. My husband is the petitioner, and I did not included the copy of my stamped passport with the one year extension for LPR, until my case gets approved, does this mean we're gonna receive an RFE?

5. Where can I find information on the vaccination list for Ecuador, and my son's particular age group?

6. Anyone here from Ecuador that has already been through the interview on the dreaded Giayaquil Consulate? If so, your input would be highly appreciated!!!

7. Finally (yes! Finally)!where can I check timelines for our case

Thanks from the bottom of my heart for your wisdom, patience and experience!!! <3

[SerenityNOW 11]

Hi Kata - we are almost at the same stage in this process... my husband also sent the petition, 2 months ago, but in our case he is now a USC, so our cases will be slightly different at the NVC stage (still not completely sure, but I *think* we will file an I-864 waiver since my stepson is under 18 and should become a citizen when he arrives in the U.S.)

I am still learning about this process - wasting a LOT of time, so I am also incredibly grateful to the folks here. In the short time that I have been back on VJ, I have seen several complaints that there aren't many resources specific for the process of immigrating a child (compared with immigrating a spouse). There are some differences in the processes, so I started a wiki page here. I hope everyone with far more experience than I have yet will contribute there. I just wanted to get a template going, so I could stop trying to read through every thread in this forum digging for information. (I even went into the spouse forum - bad memories from waiting for my husband to be approved!)

I don't know answers to many of your questions, except:

1. The NVC process is very similar to that of the spouse process; check out the NVC guides and forum (and I put some links on that wiki page) for the details.

3. Hopefully your son will be here before you are a citizen (If you can apply in 4 months... then it takes about 4 months to complete and some people get immediate appointments for an oath ceremony and others have to wait a while - my husband's was about 2 weeks - you will have to check your local USCIS office for details on how they do it there...) Don't know how your change in status affects your application, since a USC is already applying for your son... (in other words, is a 20-year-old processed differently depending on whether the sponsor is a parent or stepparent USC? If he was under 18, I think it would be different because he could derive citizenship from a citizen parent, but I don't know about those between 18 and 21 years old.)

5. Don't know anything about Ecuador in particular, but VisaJourney to the rescue! Check out the consulate page - includes a list of vaccinations.

7. Timelines are hard for those of us whose petitions were routed through MSC - I gather from other forums that USCIS started using this center to try to speed up their processing times. Last time I checked, there were no estimates for people at MSC, otherwise known as the "National Benefits Center." I was estimating about 4 months to approval, but who knows.

Best of luck to you, and I hope we both sail through this process... sorry I don't have more specific answers to your questions.

Edited January 17, 2013 by SerenityNOW

[katraska78 6]

Hi Kata - we are almost at the same stage in this process... my husband also sent the petition, 2 months ago, but in our case he is now a USC, so our cases will be slightly different at the NVC stage (still not completely sure, but I *think* we will file an I-864 waiver since my stepson is under 18 and should become a citizen when he arrives in the U.S.)

I am still learning about this process - wasting a LOT of time, so I am also incredibly grateful to the folks here. In the short time that I have been back on VJ, I have seen several complaints that there aren't many resources specific for the process of immigrating a child (compared with immigrating a spouse). There are some differences in the processes, so I started a wiki page here. I hope everyone with far more experience than I have yet will contribute there. I just wanted to get a template going, so I could stop trying to read through every thread in this forum digging for information. (I even went into the spouse forum - bad memories from waiting for my husband to be approved!)

I don't know answers to many of your questions, except:

1. The NVC process is very similar to that of the spouse process; check out the NVC guides and forum (and I put some links on that wiki page) for the details.

3. Hopefully your son will be here before you are a citizen (If you can apply in 4 months... then it takes about 4 months to complete and some people get immediate appointments for an oath ceremony and others have to wait a while - my husband's was about 2 weeks - you will have to check your local USCIS office for details on how they do it there...) Don't know how your change in status affects your application, since a USC is already applying for your son... (in other words, is a 20-year-old processed differently depending on whether the sponsor is a parent or stepparent USC? If he was under 18, I think it would be different because he could derive citizenship from a citizen parent, but I don't know about those between 18 and 21 years old.)

5. Don't know anything about Ecuador in particular, but VisaJourney to the rescue! Check out the consulate page - includes a list of vaccinations.

7. Timelines are hard for those of us whose petitions were routed through MSC - I gather from other forums that USCIS started using this center to try to speed up their processing times. Last time I checked, there were no estimates for people at MSC, otherwise known as the "National Benefits Center." I was estimating about 4 months to approval, but who knows.

Best of luck to you, and I hope we both sail through this process... sorry I don't have more specific answers to your questions.

Thank you so much! You've been really helpfull! I hope your process is a smooth sail for you too!

[SerenityNOW 11]

I am happy that everyone has posted their experiences here - I spent the weekend reading through all 47 pages! Lots of good info when you guys from the start were going through NVC... I thought I might be jumping the gun a little, but I scheduled a phone call to the embassy in Bulgaria tonight (midnight for us = 10 AM there) to ask about the specific document that is required from the mother and a couple of country-specific items...

Then today (yes SUNDAY) I got an e-mail from USCIS - APPROVED! Much faster than I expected - but I had been peeking in on the CR-1/IR-1 section and saw people who applied after us had already been approved, so ya never know. Our petition went through the MSC/National Benefits Center.

Anyway, that means we don't have all the documents in hand yet, my stepson and his mama are going to have to scramble this week to get *original/certified* birth certificate, *police report/court report* (he turned 16 two weeks ago.... arg we almost avoided needing this), *signed* DS-3032 and DS-230 and I-864W. We are going to include one copy of the document from the bio-mom saying it's OK for her son to immigrate (I have seen more than once that the NVC issued an RFE for that, though it was supposed to be required at the embassy stage.) I have heard it takes around two weeks for the NVC numbers to be entered into the system. I hope I have all the documents in hand close to then so we don't lose any extra time..

I am figuring out the DS-3032 now, how to get it to come from my *stepson's* e-mail account... no account was listed on the I-130 so they don't have any record of what is his e-mail. I suppose it just has to come from his name... I think we are going to create a new account for this purpose. All we need is some important message getting lost in a teenager's inbox.

QUESTION: Did anyone have success just sending an e-mail for the DS-3032? Not attaching the signed document with the e-mail? I feel like I read about both ways but I can't remember if anyone was successful with only the e-mail. I won't have his signed documents for a while, since he will send everything in one package.

Thanks again for all your insight! I felt really involved in all these cases as I was reading all the stories here. So nice that some of them have come to happy endings.

[velrich 50]

I am figuring out the DS-3032 now, how to get it to come from my *stepson's* e-mail account... no account was listed on the I-130 so they don't have any record of what is his e-mail. I suppose it just has to come from his name... I think we are going to create a new account for this purpose. All we need is some important message getting lost in a teenager's inbox.

QUESTION: Did anyone have success just sending an e-mail for the DS-3032? Not attaching the signed document with the e-mail? I feel like I read about both ways but I can't remember if anyone was successful with only the e-mail. I won't have his signed documents for a while, since he will send everything in one package.

Thanks again for all your insight! I felt really involved in all these cases as I was reading all the stories here. So nice that some of them have come to happy endings.

We sent the email without any attachment and had no problem. Modified the template on VJ to my taste and that was it. You can consider using your husbands mail for him as well as creating a new one. We used mine for my son and it worked.

[sancruz 26]

Just an update. Our interview is scheduled for Feb. 21. My stepdaughters mom made the appointment for medical exam for Feb. 12th. When she asked how much it would be they told her 6,925 lempiras which is about $350. I told my husband that was probably if she had to have all of her immunizations but as far as we know she is current on everything. When he called back yesterday to ask this question he was told there was no appointment. He confirmed the date with our daughters mom and called back. Again the lady told him there was no appointment because they were going to be closed the whole month of February and would open again in March. He called bio mom back and so she called and spoke with the lady who told her the same thing. She told the lady she was given a confirmation number for the appointment and so the lady asked for the number. When she looked it up she said oh yes, that is an appointment number but we had to cancel that appointment because we are going to be closed. Ugh!! I just wonder if they were planning to call and let us know or if we would have just showed up and told no appointment. Anyway, there were two other doctors listed on the embassy website so we called both of the others. We were told they couldnt make the appointment until the first of next month and said to call back then. I guess just another frustrating part of this process. Hopefully, we will get an appointment and get this taken care of. We were told by the other clinics 7,000 lempiras which is about $400 whether or not she had any immunizations or not.

We have our plane tickets bought and our hotel reserved.....28 days and we will be in Honduras. I can see the finish line Good Luck to everyone else!

[SerenityNOW 11]

Just an update. Our interview is scheduled for Feb. 21. My stepdaughters mom made the appointment for medical exam for Feb. 12th. When she asked how much it would be they told her 6,925 lempiras which is about $350. I told my husband that was probably if she had to have all of her immunizations but as far as we know she is current on everything. When he called back yesterday to ask this question he was told there was no appointment. He confirmed the date with our daughters mom and called back. Again the lady told him there was no appointment because they were going to be closed the whole month of February and would open again in March. He called bio mom back and so she called and spoke with the lady who told her the same thing. She told the lady she was given a confirmation number for the appointment and so the lady asked for the number. When she looked it up she said oh yes, that is an appointment number but we had to cancel that appointment because we are going to be closed. Ugh!! I just wonder if they were planning to call and let us know or if we would have just showed up and told no appointment. Anyway, there were two other doctors listed on the embassy website so we called both of the others. We were told they couldnt make the appointment until the first of next month and said to call back then. I guess just another frustrating part of this process. Hopefully, we will get an appointment and get this taken care of. We were told by the other clinics 7,000 lempiras which is about $400 whether or not she had any immunizations or not.

We have our plane tickets bought and our hotel reserved.....28 days and we will be in Honduras. I can see the finish line Good Luck to everyone else!

Congratulations on the interview date! Exciting.

What a pain about scheduling the medical. Luckily you checked on it! But crazy that it is so expensive. Just another fee to add to the tally.

BTW - I checked the list of required vaccinations. Rotavirus is one of them. I had thought that was only for babies, but what do I know, I don't have any kids (YET!)... that was listed as costing $98 for that single vaccination in Bulgaria at least. ANNOYING. I think my stepson is up to date but I'm not sure about hepatitis. I wonder how they handle that, as both HepA and HepB vaccines are multi-dose... so would they just give the first dose at the medical exam and hope you follow up in the States?... ah I answered my own question. Here it is FYI:

Q. Certain vaccine series can only be completed with multiple visits to the civil surgeon. Am I required to complete the entire series before the civil surgeon can sign the Form I-693?

A. You are only required to receive a single dose of each vaccine when you visit the civil surgeon. You are encouraged to follow up with your private health care provider to complete the series.