Zika Virus threat - Wife is Pregnant, Subject to J-1 Two-year Rule

[TravelingHome 0]

Hi everyone, my wife and I have been going through the process of applying for her IR-1/CR-1 visa over the past year. We've been approved at the USCIS I-130 stage, and are now at the NVC stage. We also found out this past fall that she's pregnant! This is great, except it was right around the time the Brazilian government warned women to not get pregnant because of the emerging threat with the Zika virus, which at that time was isolated in the Northeast of the country.

Since that time, if you've followed the news, you will know that the virus, and risk it poses to pregnant women, has expanded dramatically. We have applied, and been granted the expedition of our case with the NVC due to this situation. However, my wife is still subject to the J-1 two-year residency requirement rule until March 31st. We stated this in our NVC expedition request letter, however no comment was made when our expedition request was granted regarding her J-1 situation.

We have contacted both the NVC and the Rio Consulate asking for counsel on how to respond to the J-1 question, and both have declined to comment. We are very concerned that due to her J-1 requirements, her application will either be denied, or there will be some other issue related to that which delays our case for 60 days or more. I've looked through all of the J-1 waiver and exception rules to see if there are any exceptions for health emergencies in the intending immigrant's home country, but I haven't been able to find anything. It seems like the rules for J-1 visas are pretty clear cut.

I'm worried if we choose to submit the DS-260 and the NVC paperwork packet before March 31st, we will be denied her visa and she will have to reapply, but if we wait for March 31st to apply, it exposes her and our baby under an unnecessary, and significant health risk that can impact us for years to come. We want to do everything right, but this technicality seems absurd for the risk we have to bear. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed? Thanks

[grad_student 11]

Just a quick question. Your wife's 2 year home residency requirement isnt over until March 31st 2016 or March 31st 2017?

Submitting DS-260 does not formally execute visa application. Visa application is not formally made until the applicant is interviewed at US Embassy. And currently, NVC is taking about 40 - 45 days to give you a case complete, and then inteview date is few weeks (depending on embassy work load) from the case complete date. So if your wife's 2 year home residency requirement is over on March 31st 2016, you would wanna proceed with submittine DS-260 and AOS and IV packages.

Hope this helps.

https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/immigrate/immigrant-process/documents/Submit_Visa_Application.html

Edited February 5, 2016 by grad_student

[TravelingHome 0]

Thanks for clarifying. It's 2016. We were hoping that because the case has been expedited, we could get everything completed ASAP, as this is not a risk we want to continue to expose ourselves to. We ended up submitting everything the other day, so it's all in the NVC's hands now anyways.