J-1 Visa Waiver Processing Time and When Does it Become an Issue/Problem with NVC?

[AsturiasGuiri 0]

All,

My first question is does anyone have any idea how long it takes USCIS to make a decision on a J-1 waiver once they receive a favorable recommendation from the State Department?

The second question is when does someone (presumably at NVC) hold up the process over the waiver?

My wife and I are living in Spain and hoping to return early next year when she finishes her PhD. I am a US citizen and she is Spanish.

She was in the US this past summer on a J-1 visa that carried the two year home residency requirement and we applied for a J-1 waiver based on a no-objection statement. The State Department took the full 8 weeks to recommend approval and sent it to USCIS which has the final say. This part of the process is the mysterious part. There doesn't appear to be any way for me to check the status of it, nor does USCIS give any indication of how long this will take.

We are in process of trying to get my wife's CR-1 visa. The I-130 was approved in 30 days (don't hate me for that) and we are waiting on an NVC case number. We have everything ready to go once we are in the NVC system, but I am wondering when someone will notice there is a J-1 with the home residency requirement. If this isn't an issue until the embassy makes a decision, then it's probably not worth worrying about yet. If NVC needs it before they send our visa application to the embassy, I'm worried it will get derailed and I don't want to wind up being one of the couples who get stuck in NVC limbo for months or years.

If anybody has any idea about how this works or how long that J-1 waiver takes once it gets to USCIS I would greatly appreciate it. This site has been enormously helpful since we started this process.

Cheers!

Bryon

[L & B 12]

All,

My first question is does anyone have any idea how long it takes USCIS to make a decision on a J-1 waiver once they receive a favorable recommendation from the State Department?

The second question is when does someone (presumably at NVC) hold up the process over the waiver?

My wife and I are living in Spain and hoping to return early next year when she finishes her PhD. I am a US citizen and she is Spanish.

She was in the US this past summer on a J-1 visa that carried the two year home residency requirement and we applied for a J-1 waiver based on a no-objection statement. The State Department took the full 8 weeks to recommend approval and sent it to USCIS which has the final say. This part of the process is the mysterious part. There doesn't appear to be any way for me to check the status of it, nor does USCIS give any indication of how long this will take.

We are in process of trying to get my wife's CR-1 visa. The I-130 was approved in 30 days (don't hate me for that) and we are waiting on an NVC case number. We have everything ready to go once we are in the NVC system, but I am wondering when someone will notice there is a J-1 with the home residency requirement. If this isn't an issue until the embassy makes a decision, then it's probably not worth worrying about yet. If NVC needs it before they send our visa application to the embassy, I'm worried it will get derailed and I don't want to wind up being one of the couples who get stuck in NVC limbo for months or years.

If anybody has any idea about how this works or how long that J-1 waiver takes once it gets to USCIS I would greatly appreciate it. This site has been enormously helpful since we started this process.

Cheers!

Bryon

My fiancé's J-1 waiver was received by USCIS on January 15 and was approved on February 3. However he never received the letters from USCIS and they were returned as undeliverable. As I understand things now, the USCIS should send one letter when they receive the case with a case number which you can track online, then another letter when you are approved. We eventually had to call USCIS to find out what happened with his waiver and get a new approval notice sent to my address.

We are applying for a K1 and our case is currently at the embassy awaiting an interview. I know the K1 visa spends less time at NVC, so I'm assuming it will be something they ask about at the interview in our case. I'm not sure about how it will work for the CR-1 visa though...

Good luck!

[AsturiasGuiri 0]

Thank you L & B!!

I still haven't been able to chase down the waiver, but I spoke with an officer at USCIS and he couldn't find it in their system. He thinks they just haven't entered it, but he said it should be approved quickly once they get it in the system. I think I am just being overly anxious about it. He also didn't think it would be an issue until the visa interview at the embassy.

Now I'm back to being aggravated that we're more than a month past NOA2 and more than two weeks after NVC received the I-130 and they still haven't assigned a case number.