July 2013 I-130 Filers

[deleteme 34]

From what I have read on the VJ, and my experience working for an airine, the rule of thumb when it comes to visits to the USA on VWP is more time out of the US than in it.

I don't think your wife will have a problem coming in for 3 months on the first visit, given that she can prove ties to her country, but exiting the US for a month and then trying to enter for another 3 could be a problem. The CBP officer will see that she is trying to spend 6 months in the US and only 1 month in her home country.

I am not saying it can't be done, I'm sure it has be done before, just keep it in mind that second entry might be problematic. Your wife should be armed to the teeth with evidence of ties to her home country.

Thank you for the advice. Damn frustrating, though.

[SWebner 1]

Hello ladies and gents.

Glad to see we are all nibbling down our fingernails waiting soooo patiently for our applications to process. *winks*

Scary info about having our applications on hold until this month but you know.. I believe we are gonna be ok and see mostly normal processing times for us.

I just thought i would share my recent experience trying to re-enter the USA after having been there for 6 months then coming back for a short period of time.

I was in the USA for 6 months then came back for one month to work then I was going to come back for another stretch of time. My plan was to come back and hang out with my wife and kids like I had done for the previous 6 months. No return ticket and no concrete idea of when I would return to Canada.

So there I was talking to a very nice customs officer being brutally honest, as I usually am with customs officers. I mentioned that I had spent 6 months in the states a month ago but that I was just taking care of the kids and not working ( truth ). She then advised me that you are not supposed to spend more than 6 of the 12 last months in the USA, followed by her recommending I talk to the immigration officer in the next room ( my city has an advanced screening customs/immigration office IN the airport).

So there he pretty much said that without proof of my ties to my country he cant let me in to the USA and sent me home with an application withdrawal notice, which pretty much says that I was not allowed to enter the country but that I had not broken any Immigration laws. He asked me things like : "when are you going back to work". "do you own a home here?". both of those questions I did not have good answers for.

I was pretty upset that I had to be away from my family, but this led to my application being filed for now, which turned out to really be the best situation in the end.

So four months later, and 2 months into my I-130 application, I tried to re-enter the USA to visit my family. This time I had a letter from my employer and a return flight itinerary. That along with a bit of explanation made for a pretty smooth customs experience and I was finally able to see my family, if even just for a short time.

If you are trying to go to the USA to visit. you really only need proof of your ties to your home country.

The law says nothing about the amount of time you can spend here or there, You just have to have proof of some kind that you are coming back if they ask for it.

What you don't want to have happen is you getting caught in a lie about your intentions for your visit or being asked about your ties without any proof such as Utility bills for a home address in your home country, Letters from your employer, Lease agreements or mortgage agreements for a home in your home country, or some other kind of concrete evidence that you're not just coming to the USA to hang out indefinitely.

So be prepared pretty much if you are planning to visit.

Good luck to us all!!!

Edited September 9, 2013 by SWebner

[Gilmian 0]

Hi, Just passed the Interview for Citizenship and now waiting for my oath this coming September 17. How can i request to upgrade my petition from Permanent resident to US Citizen?

My PD is July 23,2013. How long will this take?

I've checked other timelines, Perm Resident Aug 2013 PD and they are already approved

Thanks

[Lakehouse 293]

Good to hear your story SWebner, and thanks to forums like this for such great information. I will leave next week for a short (<2 week) visit to see my husband as well, so will have all that information with me to make certain I have proof of ties to Canada.

*Fingers-crossed*

[CaizLurol 36]

Hi, Just passed the Interview for Citizenship and now waiting for my oath this coming September 17. How can i request to upgrade my petition from Permanent resident to US Citizen?

My PD is July 23,2013. How long will this take?

I've checked other timelines, Perm Resident Aug 2013 PD and they are already approved

Thanks

This is the wrong forum to ask this. Don't hijack the thread, please.

[RjKatya 17]

Yes, I am all for starting the process and already have the I-864 form prepared ready with my tax information... so absolutely ready to research more if needed.

So am preparing as we stated earlier on the 27th, I have filled and completed forms I-864 and have the DS230 forms ready... just trying to have everything ready so we can move fast when the time arrives..smile!

[scienceworks 64]

So am preparing as we stated earlier on the 27th, I have filled and completed forms I-864 and have the DS230 forms ready... just trying to have everything ready so we can move fast when the time arrives..smile!

Read somewhere that DS230 is now electronic, DS260 or something

[Terry J 50]

I just received a case status update that they are transferring our petition from the VSC to another office for processing because they have jurisdiction over the case...now to hunt down which office this is going to be routed to

[Terry J 50]

I just received a case status update that they are transferring our petition from the VSC to another office for processing because they have jurisdiction over the case...now to hunt down which office this is going to be routed to

Wow, another case status update in less than 2 hours! This time it says they transferred it to the local USCIS office...now I guess that means New York City...UGH!!! Ok I have to remain positive, any action is a good thing at this rate

[Lakehouse 293]

Is the transfer to New York a bad thing?

[Terry J 50]

Is the transfer to New York a bad thing?

I think so Lakehouse. The NYC field office as of June 2013 had nearly 42 thousand I-130 petitions that were not even touched yet - pending adjucation status. They also received over 5600 new applications to add to their existing pile!

If in fact our petition is headed to NYC, this will likely mean months and months of our petition sitting on a shelf before they decide to get around to it

I along with everyone here must remain strong and positive. This process is truly a test of the relationship for those with spouses processing outside of the US.

If you get though this, you can pretty much surmount anything life throws at you.

[scienceworks 64]

In April 2013 filer post, there is a reply from NBC congressional delegate

"

Good morning .....

A review of our systems shows that Case MSC xx xxx xxxxx, Form I-130 filed by ..... on behalf of ...... was received in our office on 04/03/2013 and is currently pending. At this time, the stand-alone Immediate Relative Form I-130 petitions are being sent to the NBC for transition to the local field office of jurisdiction for adjudication. Due to the current workload at the field offices, our current processing time for I-130 applications is approximately 9-12 months."

Wonder if they know what they are doing. This is becoming a disaster.

[RM-MM 1]

I am a little late in the game posting here, but I have been lurking for a while.

We filed I-130 and I-485 concurrently at NBC on 7-24-2013. We recevied a NOA last week and had our inteview scheduled for 10-8-2013 in San Francisco, we are nervous this seems to be moving faster than others.

Partner is here on an F-1, we were married shortly after same sex marriage resumed in California and the Windsor decision became effective/implemented.

3-31-2010 Met while partner was here in US visitng family and looking at schools

1-20-2011 He entered on a F-1 Student Visa

7-5-2013 We were married at our home in California

[YulingZhu 4]

I am a little late in the game posting here, but I have been lurking for a while.

We filed I-130 and I-485 concurrently at NBC on 7-24-2013. We recevied a NOA last week and had our inteview scheduled for 10-8-2013 in San Francisco, we are nervous this seems to be moving faster than others.

Partner is here on an F-1, we were married shortly after same sex marriage resumed in California and the Windsor decision became effective/implemented.

3-31-2010 Met while partner was here in US visitng family and looking at schools

1-20-2011 He entered on a F-1 Student Visa

7-5-2013 We were married at our home in California

Congrats, your journey is almost complete :-)

[deleteme 34]

In April 2013 filer post, there is a reply from NBC congressional delegate

"

Good morning .....

A review of our systems shows that Case MSC xx xxx xxxxx, Form I-130 filed by ..... on behalf of ...... was received in our office on 04/03/2013 and is currently pending. At this time, the stand-alone Immediate Relative Form I-130 petitions are being sent to the NBC for transition to the local field office of jurisdiction for adjudication. Due to the current workload at the field offices, our current processing time for I-130 applications is approximately 9-12 months."

Wonder if they know what they are doing. This is becoming a disaster.

I checked out this post in the April 2013 filers' forum....

The filer typed the text of the email from a staffer at USCIS, who is responsible for responding to congressional inquiries. Apparently, the filer contacted his or her Congressman, and the Congressman's office kindly forwarded the reply to the filer. The filer then re-typed the reply with the personal information redacted.

A few observations:

- Field office adjudications - I've scoured the message boards for March filers - September filers, and I see very few people saying that their I-130's had been transferred for adjudication at field offices. One of our July filers above did get an interview at a field office, but that was a concurrent I-130 and I-485 submission - somebody whose spouse was already here on an F-1 student visa when they married. Take out the expedited cases and other exceptions, and just look at standalone I-130s (us), and you don't see many March-Sept 2013 filers saying that their respective field offices are handling their cases. Those that are reported are more recent. For months I-130s held by the NBC have been going nowhere, just backlogging, if our anecdotal reporting is true, and I believe it is.

- The 9-12 month prediction. What was USCIS's prior, projected wait times, for standalone I-130's? On the phone, on their websites, from you, I've heard various official predictions. Usually, it was around 6-9 months and my study of the VisaJourney timelines for pre-March 2013 filers was showing a median wait time of around 5 months. Their new 9-12 month prediction is larger than what we have heard before, and this correlates with USCIS's management of the NBC that we have been observing and deploring. So now, we have some evidence that they know that the process is elongating, which they have not admitted before.

- Reason to hope. The note above says that the reason for the 9-12 month wait time is the backlog at the field offices. But not all field offices are the same. Some workloads are bigger than others. Check your local field office. You might find that your field office (like mine) has a fairly light workload. That is why I went to my field office last month and asked them if they could request my file from the mountain of applications accruing at NBC. They could not or would not do that at that time, but if the NBC does get around to farming out our I-130s to the field offices, at least some of us might benefit. I would not be so sure that the NYC office is slow, as someone lamented here, because we don't know what their staffing levels are. Yes, they might have many applications, but they also might have many competent staffers - we just don't know how quickly they are buzzing through the standalone I-130s, nor, whether they are labeling standalone I-130s as high priority cases, as statutory law requires.

My guess is that the timelines for standalone I-130 adjudications are growing, and that May 2013 to November 2013 filers will be hit the hardest, then the timelines will begin to shorten again.

Some of us July filers, and certainly some filing in subsequent months might want to consider the K-3 visa. You might recall that lawyers were discouraging standalone I-130 filers from filing a K-3 for their spouses, because the wait time for I-130s had been cut, and the K-3 wait time, extended. That was before the I-130s began to backlog with NBC in March-April 2013, or before the lawyers apparently became wise to this (I'm not sure they are aware of this now). So, since the wait time for I-130s is probably growing, it might now make sense to go for a K-3. I forget the filing fee off the top of my head (something < $1,000), but even if it cuts a month or two from our time apart, it might be worth it.

We are not going to opt for the K-3, since we are already 2+ months from our NOA1, and she can be here on the visa waiver program for 3 months at a time. But some of us, especially people filing the I-130 now, might be together more quickly.

Incidentally, there is a petition up on the White House website that we can sign, asking to speed the I-130 processing time for our immediate family members. It could be written better, but it's there, and had 600 signatures, last I saw it. We need 1,000+ more signatures before the WH will consider it. Unfortunately, they measure the eligibility of the petitions by the number of signers, not by the intensity of our aggregate dissatisfaction.

I remain convinced that we should all be prepared for a long wait, and make our plans accordingly. The USCIS does not show that they are interested in our group's inconvenience, and we are too few in number to get the attention of the higher-placed officials. The best we can do, I think, is to just organize our family's lives within these constraints.

We married foreigners, I assume, because we met people worth the time and distance. I know that I sure did. In remembering this, maybe the wait will sting a little less.

--Alaskafan

NOA1: July 15, 2013