Gay K1

[jaske78 1]

Hi.

New to it all. I am so glad that I found this site though: the information here is really more organized and better than anywhere else.

I'm the USC, filing for a same-sex K1. My state is one of many that does not recognize marriages, so we have to travel several hundred miles one way to get married in the closest place, which is, at the moment, DC. Because getting married like this isn't stressful enough, let's add one last additional barrier after all of this.

At the moment, I am still in Serbia. I fly out in two days and will file on Monday using the checklist that we found.

For a while everything about this was so confusing once DOMA was abolished that I even got duped into paying a deposit for a lawyer who sold me smoke and mirrors and didn't. Know. A. Thing. I will call him and tell him that we will not use his services, because he didn't. Do. A. Thing. I wonder if he will give me the money back. Or, not.

I see that Texas is now three months behind, is this true? Is this frequent? Will they catch up? Texas is where our application will be processed. By my calculations, if they are at 8 months now, filing next week would put the application in front of the local Embassy sometime in April or May.

For those of you who might have the ick factor about the gay thing, don't. I'm tired, I'm sad, and in forty-eight hours some guy who doesn't know me is going to put an exit stamp on my passport, and from that moment, I am separated from the person I love. Anybody who's gone through that once and knows what it's like to fight tears in public knows the wrenching agony, the hurt. I have been doing it for ten years, and now I can do something about it. So if you want to hate us for it, please remember what you feel like at the airport that last day and ask yourselves seriously if you would like like to go through that for ten years in a row and have a little bit of compassion, okay?

Thank you.

[JohnR! 5,495]

Jaske, there is a lot of good news for you. There is no such thing as a 'gay K-1' because in the eyes of the law a fiance/e visa also applies for same-sex couples. Before the USCIS your petition is as legal as any other. What it means is that as soon as you land stateside you can file for your fiance. If you're internet savvy you'll not need a lawyer. There is absolutely nothing different for your K-1 visa, except that in the form you'll need to specify you are planning to get married in DC. That is only needed because you live in a state that doesn't recognize marriage equality - although that should change soon as many states join America in the XXI century.

Your process will not be different than any other so just follow the instructions on the link above under 'guides' http://www.visajourney.com/content/guides

Take a deep breath, get on that plane, head home and start planning your future.

Congrats and good luck!

Edited August 12, 2014 by JohnR!

[kehills 217]

Hi.

New to it all. I am so glad that I found this site though: the information here is really more organized and better than anywhere else.

I'm the USC, filing for a same-sex K1. My state is one of many that does not recognize marriages, so we have to travel several hundred miles one way to get married in the closest place, which is, at the moment, DC. Because getting married like this isn't stressful enough, let's add one last additional barrier after all of this.

At the moment, I am still in Serbia. I fly out in two days and will file on Monday using the checklist that we found.

For a while everything about this was so confusing once DOMA was abolished that I even got duped into paying a deposit for a lawyer who sold me smoke and mirrors and didn't. Know. A. Thing. I will call him and tell him that we will not use his services, because he didn't. Do. A. Thing. I wonder if he will give me the money back. Or, not.

I see that Texas is now three months behind, is this true? Is this frequent? Will they catch up? Texas is where our application will be processed. By my calculations, if they are at 8 months now, filing next week would put the application in front of the local Embassy sometime in April or May.

For those of you who might have the ick factor about the gay thing, don't. I'm tired, I'm sad, and in forty-eight hours some guy who doesn't know me is going to put an exit stamp on my passport, and from that moment, I am separated from the person I love. Anybody who's gone through that once and knows what it's like to fight tears in public knows the wrenching agony, the hurt. I have been doing it for ten years, and now I can do something about it. So if you want to hate us for it, please remember what you feel like at the airport that last day and ask yourselves seriously if you would like like to go through that for ten years in a row and have a little bit of compassion, okay?

Thank you.

The service centers ebb and flow in how long they take to process paperwork. Right now, people here are reporting TSC is running at 6-ish months to process paperwork. But, there's significant sample bias, sooo *shrug*. Also, you could get a request for information, the computers could crash at the NVC again,...so many variables. This is why they say "don't plan anything until you have your VISA in hand."

My now-husband and I decided that we would play the K-1 "game" on the "hard" setting. We read all the Visa Journey FAQs, looked at the estimated timelines, averages, etc, and assumed everything was going to take somewhere between the average to the longest period of time. That way, when things went faster, we were pleasantly surprised. :-)

Good luck!

[sma1488 155]

From what I've seen on these forums, gay K-1 applicants have not been subjected to any additional problems at the I-129F stage, which is handled by USCIS. Variation in standard operating procedures can occur at the embassy/consulate visa interview stage depending on your region, so check the regional forums for more info on that.

Texas Service Center is not eight months behind. If you look at the most recently approved petitions on this site for TSC, you'll see that most of them are from January/February. That would make for processing times of about six months. However, an entire batch of applications was recently transferred away from TSC and other actions that will shake up processing times may come in the near future. But remember that after USCIS approves your petition, it goes to the NVC, and then to the appropriate consulate in your beneficiary's home country.

These forums are a great resource. Apart from the terms of use, the only other golden rule is to always keep your timeline up-to-date as it helps other users and the site's estimation calculator. Welcome!

[jaske78 1]

Thank you SMA! The six months is exciting news. That is a massive change from just five days ago, when, according to the State Department's official release, Texas was dealing with NOA1s from December 31, 2014. It still is showing on this website: https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processingTimesDisplay.do;jsessionid=abcaxq1yjyVFLcuoxYlFu - where are these new numbers coming from?

I am glad that there is no significant extra hurdle for gay people. It is a relief to me. Living in a deeply anti-gay, anti-American country can be stressful.

[sma1488 155]

The link you posted contains USCIS' latest report which came out a few days ago, but it's only current through June 30. If you look at the Immigration Timelines tab at the top of any VisaJourney page, you can follow users' timelines, which are updated in real time (or at least as soon as the users choose to do so) and contain case-specific information. There might not be enough results to draw statistically valid conclusions, but it's pretty reliable and more current than anything the government publishes.

[Pitaya 2,577]

Welcome to the forum.

[Zedayn 485]

Welcome and good luck on your process!