Embassy's will no longer accept I-130

[John and Sonya 0]

Forgot to add... that once my I-130 is approved, they will not be contacting my wife by phone or email, they will just send the visa to my wife's address in Australia. My wife left a 3kg prepaid priority envelope.

The only way to find out the status of pending approvals is to keep checking the Sydney website, or you can email the Sydney Consulate.

First I want to say wonderful news for you!!! Appears Sydney may of handled this whole mess properly, I wished they kept the interview with my wife on the 23rd, then let the adjudication occur afterwards and just send the VISA in the mail when ready. My hats off to Sydney.

Now the question is how come they were able to do this and no other embassy could of thought of this instead of sending people home after long trips to the embassy's around the world?? I hope your wait is not long, keep in touch so we can get an idea the time frame to get adjudicated, then we can add the time to whenever they even decide to send out our applications to the appropiate USCIS center.

John

My wife was on the FINAL interview. My I-130 was already filed back in November when I flew to Sydney. When DCF stopped, last week, they called my wife and told her if she would like to keep her appointment. Of course my wife said yes since her plane ticket was non-refundable. So I'm assuming that people who already had the final interview had the option of keeping it, those who haven't submitted the I-130 got denied.

Maybe in Sydney. My wife was on her final interview on the 23rd, all paper work was completed, medical done, paid the $380 for her and her daughter. And was sitting there till they called her for interview. Then handed her money back, and told her to go home. Now when its time to go back for her final interview, she will have to travel again. So Sydney did it right!! And I am happy for the two of you and all others who were fortunate. It would be nice to hear from anyone else who had the same experience with still keeping their interviews at a NON-USCIS facility.

Aw man, I'm sorry John! I didn't realize we were in the same boat! Oh my goodness... how awful. They should have taken your wife's stuff!

Yes awful along with many other families. You are the first story I heard that allowed the interview anyway. We are still waiting for Ukraine to mail out approved I-130 petitions to Moscow. They keep saying waiting for instructions, but the instructions are posted. They are to mark "not clearly approvable" and send to Moscow. I have a B-2 visa appointment for Sonya on 2/6, we are going to try for a visitor visa till all this is take care of. I donot put much confidence she will get it because she is intending on immigrating, even though we have no plans on the B-2 to do this. This would be fraud anyway.

But if we donot get B-2, I am going to take advantage of the time to have a little face to face to get some info, the staff is wonderful at Kyiv, but they need a fire under them to get this process going But very happy for you, now hopefully they do your background check quickly for you so you can get her to the states!!!

[David A. 0]

John,

Continue to follow through... don't stop until you get definite answers.

I do have my hopes up, but until my wife has that visa in her hand, how I warn everyone else, it's not over until it's over.

Will post an update if we hear anything or recieve anything from Bangkok or if Sydney updates their website again.

Goodluck to everyone.

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

Not DCF related but still the same law...

Does anyone think this will result in recalls for I-129F (K1 & K3)? I'm wondering if there will be RFEs or not. I'm thinking probably not <snip>

The Condi cable clearly allows for recall or RFE of K non-immigrant petitions (and more!) pending information from CIS:

We are requesting clarification from USCIS regarding the validity, for Adam Walsh Act criminal record check purposes, of the fingerprint clearance procedures at the time of I-600 processing that are specified in Reftel (SOP-21) and 9 FAM 42.21 N13.3(d), as well as the applicability of section 402 of the Adam Walsh Act to petitions for family-based immigrant status or K nonimmigrant status that were approved prior to the act's effective date. Further guidance will follow our receipt of the USCIS clarification.

Holy #######.

[marcycat 0]

Forgot to add... that once my I-130 is approved, they will not be contacting my wife by phone or email, they will just send the visa to my wife's address in Australia. My wife left a 3kg prepaid priority envelope.

The only way to find out the status of pending approvals is to keep checking the Sydney website, or you can email the Sydney Consulate.

First I want to say wonderful news for you!!! Appears Sydney may of handled this whole mess properly, I wished they kept the interview with my wife on the 23rd, then let the adjudication occur afterwards and just send the VISA in the mail when ready. My hats off to Sydney.

Now the question is how come they were able to do this and no other embassy could of thought of this instead of sending people home after long trips to the embassy's around the world?? I hope your wait is not long, keep in touch so we can get an idea the time frame to get adjudicated, then we can add the time to whenever they even decide to send out our applications to the appropiate USCIS center.

John

Yes, David's experience appears to be unique. I wonder how long it will take till the visa shows up? And I wonder how/why Sydney decided they could go ahead with the interview..... David, did they give you an idea of when to expect the visa? (Paris had told us it would be a maximum of 10 days after the interview, back before DCF got yanked) Please keep up posted!!!

[David A. 0]

Marycat,

They really didn't give us any indication of when it would be finished. They said that after today, they will forward my I-130 over to Bangkok. I'm hoping they would have included some sort of statement saying that my wife had already completed her interview and that they are just waiting for my background check.

[David A. 0]

Wow, woke up this morning to see if there were any news added to this thread but instead I found 10+ new threads with 2 or 3 of them actually being news.

I can see how this can be even more confusing for people who are just popping in.

Anyway... If I hear anything new, I'll post it on this ORIGINAL thread, and in the Regional Discussion Asia: East and Pacific under "Land Downunder" for all the Aussies.

[JazzeroKi 0]

This was very irresponsible handeling. Tomorrow, embassy's around the world will again suprise the people who are coming in for their VISA interviews, as well as people who thought they had an appointment to file a I-130 petition. Please understand if the US Embassy has a Consulate, it does not effect you, such as Rome, Moscow, and London. They all have local USCIS and can process the DCF's and I-130 petitions.

I called my senator, the State Department,USCIS, and even went to Chicago with an appointment to talk to the Immigration Officer. NONE of them new of this and were all surprised and had to goto their supervisors who also did not know of anything. Word finally got out of what was going on late in the afternoon and now websites are now posting.

Advice, first check to see if your embassy is a USCIS office, if not, start filing inthe US quickly!!!!! Call your embassy!!! CALL YOUR REP!!! Its a good law, just implemented incorrectly.

Okay... just so I can get some rest without crying anymore (I spent my lunch hour on the phone with my husband trying to sort out how we are going to manage the DCF process and about tore my hair out!)

This pertains to EMBASSYs only?? Will CONSULATES (such as Sydney Australia) continue to accept the I-130 petitions?

My head is awash with too many thoughts.

And I was going to begin getting my papers and proof of relationship for 2 years started tonight...

This law affects all consular sections. So yes it does affect both Embassies and Consulates. The only exception is if the Embassy or Consulate has a USCIS office. And then USCIS will accept your I-130 petition rather than consular section.

[JazzeroKi 0]

Forgot to add... that once my I-130 is approved, they will not be contacting my wife by phone or email, they will just send the visa to my wife's address in Australia. My wife left a 3kg prepaid priority envelope.

The only way to find out the status of pending approvals is to keep checking the Sydney website, or you can email the Sydney Consulate.

First I want to say wonderful news for you!!! Appears Sydney may of handled this whole mess properly, I wished they kept the interview with my wife on the 23rd, then let the adjudication occur afterwards and just send the VISA in the mail when ready. My hats off to Sydney.

Now the question is how come they were able to do this and no other embassy could of thought of this instead of sending people home after long trips to the embassy's around the world?? I hope your wait is not long, keep in touch so we can get an idea the time frame to get adjudicated, then we can add the time to whenever they even decide to send out our applications to the appropiate USCIS center.

John

My wife was on the FINAL interview. My I-130 was already filed back in November when I flew to Sydney. When DCF stopped, last week, they called my wife and told her if she would like to keep her appointment. Of course my wife said yes since her plane ticket was non-refundable. So I'm assuming that people who already had the final interview had the option of keeping it, those who haven't submitted the I-130 got denied.

Maybe in Sydney. My wife was on her final interview on the 23rd, all paper work was completed, medical done, paid the $380 for her and her daughter. And was sitting there till they called her for interview. Then handed her money back, and told her to go home. Now when its time to go back for her final interview, she will have to travel again. So Sydney did it right!! And I am happy for the two of you and all others who were fortunate. It would be nice to hear from anyone else who had the same experience with still keeping their interviews at a NON-USCIS facility.

Aw man, I'm sorry John! I didn't realize we were in the same boat! Oh my goodness... how awful. They should have taken your wife's stuff!

Yes awful along with many other families. You are the first story I heard that allowed the interview anyway. We are still waiting for Ukraine to mail out approved I-130 petitions to Moscow. They keep saying waiting for instructions, but the instructions are posted. They are to mark "not clearly approvable" and send to Moscow. I have a B-2 visa appointment for Sonya on 2/6, we are going to try for a visitor visa till all this is take care of. I donot put much confidence she will get it because she is intending on immigrating, even though we have no plans on the B-2 to do this. This would be fraud anyway.

But if we donot get B-2, I am going to take advantage of the time to have a little face to face to get some info, the staff is wonderful at Kyiv, but they need a fire under them to get this process going But very happy for you, now hopefully they do your background check quickly for you so you can get her to the states!!!

The instructions that Kiev is mentioning waiting for is hopefully comming this week.

I can tell you that the Moscow office of USCIS is typicaly very fast about process I-130 applications. The main holdup ever being having to wait for an afile to arrive from the USA. Assuming that you spouse has never applied for any kind of imigrant status in the USA she wouldn't very likely have an afile. This hold up of your petition will only take about as long as it does for the application to travel through the mail. There will be a little holdup also due to the sudden influx of pending petions. The Moscow USCIS office though is the largest of the Rome District sub offices so even the petion processing que will probably be quickly processed.

[redtape777 0]

Hi, Like many of you, I'm in a similar situation. Our I-130 was approved by the tokyo embassy on dec 26,2006 and her final interview on Feb 5th was cancelled. Most of my questions were answered by reviewing this thread,however Id like to ask the posters an additional question.

My wife has an OPT visa that is valid from Feb 1 to Dec 15 of this year. Should she come back to NY on the OPT visa and wait for the embassy to call her for the new appointment or is she better off waiting in Japan for more clarification as to the extent of the delay? Are we jeopardizing her chances in any way if she leaves Japan on anything other than a family based visa? She has put this question to other forums and there is no definitive opinion either way.

Thanks in advance for any and all help

[The Robinsons 0]

Ok I swear I almost had a heart attack last night. We had been to the embassy in Copenhagen where they had approved our I-130. So we were getting all of things ready to send the DS-230 I & II, I-864 and OP-169, just waiting for my husband's niece to send her birth certificate. BUT then last night I receive an e-mail from the embassy saying that the I-130 has to be RE-APPROVED!!!!!! Which requires us to fill out the G-325A form and send it to Copenhagen so they can send my case file to London for approvel. Only when that has been done can they give me a date for my interview. The mail also said that all scheduled interviews had been cancelled. This is a delay we JUST DON'T NEED!!

[JazzeroKi 0]

Ok I swear I almost had a heart attack last night. We had been to the embassy in Copenhagen where they had approved our I-130. So we were getting all of things ready to send the DS-230 I & II, I-864 and OP-169, just waiting for my husband's niece to send her birth certificate. BUT then last night I receive an e-mail from the embassy saying that the I-130 has to be RE-APPROVED!!!!!! Which requires us to fill out the G-325A form and send it to Copenhagen so they can send my case file to London for approvel. Only when that has been done can they give me a date for my interview. The mail also said that all scheduled interviews had been cancelled. This is a delay we JUST DON'T NEED!!

The only weird thing I see with that is that you should have had to file the G-325a's when you submitted your I-130 in the first place.

[Yodrak 7]

JazzeroKi,

Maybe not. See my post about USCIS Bangkok.

Yodrak

This law affects all consular sections. So yes it does affect both Embassies and Consulates. The only exception is if the Embassy or Consulate has a USCIS office. And then USCIS will accept your I-130 petition rather than consular section.

[meauxna 15]

The only weird thing I see with that is that you should have had to file the G-325a's when you submitted your I-130 in the first place.

Not all Consulates require them (the form is quickly becoming obsolete?). CIS will require it thos, that's why she needs to add it in so they can forward her submission to London.

[marcycat 0]

The only weird thing I see with that is that you should have had to file the G-325a's when you submitted your I-130 in the first place.

Not all Consulates require them (the form is quickly becoming obsolete?). CIS will require it thos, that's why she needs to add it in so they can forward her submission to London.

A staffer from my congressional rep's office was told by the Consulate in Paris that there was a "target date" set to get all the petitions back from Rome by March 3.

Don't really know what this means (I still don't even know if my paperwork is going to Rome, since I reside in the US.) Plus "target date" doesn't sound real solid. But that's the news I have for now.....

[aznsamiam 0]

I contacted the CIS office in Seoul, Korea to see whether or not they are still accepting I-130's. According to the CIS office in Korea, they are STILL accepting I-130's.

Made a separate thread since this one seemed very long =P

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52887