"DOMA" Filers Living Abroad (Consular Processing)

[lorenalen 29]

Hi everyone! It's so nice to find people that are going through the same situation than us. Thanks for sharing your stories!

I'm from Argentina and my wife is from the US. We met online in 2007 and after 10 months of an online long distance relationship she moved to Buenos Aires to be with me. We have a good life here, but it's impossible for us to pay her students loans. In 2010 we spent 8 months away because she had to go back to the US to work there in order to pay some of them. And even thought we got to spend two christmases in the US with her family, she misses them a lot and it's been very hard.

We got married in May 2011, less than a year after same sex marriage was approved in Argentina. After DOMA was repealed (yay!) we sent our our I-130 application and received NOA1 in July 22.

We were hoping to get NOA2 this year because I have a friend who recently became an US citizen and she told me that when she applied in 2008 she got NOA2 in less than 3 months. But it seems we're not gonna be that lucky.

I wish you all patience. If there's something we learnt from DOMA's repealing it's that many things in life take time and all we can do is waiting for them. And let's keep sharing our experiences!

[AustinCanada 681]

Hi lorenalen,

Welcome! You might receive NOA2 by the end of this year since you sent your I-130 application in July. Each and every application is unique and different so it's difficult to tell. It may depend on how organized your application package is. In other words, if you have included sufficient but not too much relationship evidence (like 1,000 photos! LOL) in your application package. Fingers crossed.

[maeve808 5]

Hi all! We're in the same boat. My wife and I met 8 years ago in Hawaii and we lived there together happily until my wife's student visa expired last year. We had been able to extend it several times up until then, but last year in the fall it wasn't possible anymore. So we had to make the difficult decision to sell everything, close my business, and move to Europe. The weeks before the DOMA decision were nerve-wrecking to say the least. And I've never been so nervous in my life the hours and minutes before the decision. Needless to say it was a huge relief when DOMA was finally overturned. I cannot and don't want to imagine how I would have felt if this hadn't been the case.

We got married in Denmark last month (the only country in the EU that doesn't have residency requirements for foreigners who want to get married) and within the next 2 months we're going to file our green card petition. We hope to move back to Hawaii next summer.

These past years have been really tough, living from expiration date to expiration date. We're so ready to finally start living! Sometimes I wish the DOMA decision would have happened a year earlier. It would have saved us thousands in moving expenses and emotional turmoil, but I'm still very happy it is over now.

[Juan Bravo 14]

Hi All,

Ben and I got married two years ago in Niagara Falls not really knowing what we would do. He is NZ citizen but was living in Sydney when we married. For a while he was coming back and forth from Australia to the US but on one return trip that we both took to Europe he was detained and warned by immigration that he was staying too long (not overstaying his allowed 90 day visa but rather too many trips in one year) and that he would have to leave by mid March 2013. We were told that now that they knew we were married that they would not let him in again because they now knew that he had a probable cause to try to remain permanently. The DOMA decision was still months away! We were devastated! Seeing him leave was so sad... I have been living alone now since March.

Good news is we got our documents for our IR-1 filed and received at MSC on Sept 12th... Ben's back in Sydney and I'm here missing him every day. It's a waiting game now!

[AustinCanada 681]

It's unfortunate that I-130 applications (consular processing) are NOT being processed as fast as we had expected. However, it looks like USCIS is approving applications they received in March, April, and May. They're also transferring June and July applications to different offices to distribute the workload. They're NOW processing applications faster than what it was 1-2 months ago. Finally! Where were you?

I heard that USCIS was planning to reduce the I-130 backlog to 5 months by May. http://www.breitbart...egal-Immigrants Here is my math of our NOA2 dates if they continue to process the I-130 applications at this speed:

12, 2013: Mar/April applicants

01, 2014: May/June applicants

02, 2014: July/Aug applicants

03, 2014: Sept/Oct applicants

04, 2014: Nov/Dec applicants

05, 2014: (5-month backlog)

Some of us have sent I-130 applications right after DOMA died in late June and early July, and you may receive a transfer notice this month or next month. Fingers crossed.

Edited December 15, 2013 by AustinCanada