DCF or continue with K1 visa petition???

[taylor&ilies 5]

Hello all!

I am worried that I may have done things the least fastest and least cheapest way! I am currently living in France with my fiance on a student visa which expires at the end of September 2016. I just recently filed the k1 packet and received my NOA1 on June 29, 2016. Unfortunately I found the visa journey site after submitting my application and therefore have only now discovered much more information about immigration...

The original hope was to be in the U.S. by early December and get married as soon as we arrived to start the AOS/EAD process. However, I know the AOS/EAD process can take up to 3 months after arrival and is quite costly, therefore my fiance will be doing nothing really in the U.S. for 3 months, while I will be also jobless as a recent college graduate. Therefore I'm wondering if it's better to cancel the k1 petition, get married here in France ASAp and start the DCF? Am I allowed to do this without any repercutions on my fiance's eventual immigration to the U.S.?

Help and advice much appreciated! Thank you!

[p-ana 933]

France doesn't have an uscis office, so I don't think it's possible to do a dcf.

If you cancel your k1 now, you'd have to marry as soon as possible to stet your marriage certificate, translations, documents, etc, to file for your i130. It takes around a year from filing to visa in hand, although this way your now fiancé can enter the USA and start working right away.

[Penguin_ie 5,995]

Previous answer is correct; France doesn't have a in-house USCIS office, so you cannot file DCF (list of office, just FYI, here; https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-uscis-office/international-immigration-offices ).

You CAN get married in France and file for a CR-1 spousal visa, and it is cheaper and has the advantage of him being able to work and travel right away once he arrives in the USA. But it takes about a year, normally; there is some anectodal evidence on this site that when a CR-1 is filed from abroad, even if not DCF, it gets expedited, but there is no guarantee of that and even so, as the K1 often only takes 6 months, a CR-1 would take a similar amount of time.

[taylor&ilies 5]

France doesn't have an uscis office, so I don't think it's possible to do a dcf.

If you cancel your k1 now, you'd have to marry as soon as possible to stet your marriage certificate, translations, documents, etc, to file for your i130. It takes around a year from filing to visa in hand, although this way your now fiancé can enter the USA and start working right away.

Previous answer is correct; France doesn't have a in-house USCIS office, so you cannot file DCF (list of office, just FYI, here; https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-uscis-office/international-immigration-offices ).

You CAN get married in France and file for a CR-1 spousal visa, and it is cheaper and has the advantage of him being able to work and travel right away once he arrives in the USA. But it takes about a year, normally; there is some anectodal evidence on this site that when a CR-1 is filed from abroad, even if not DCF, it gets expedited, but there is no guarantee of that and even so, as the K1 often only takes 6 months, a CR-1 would take a similar amount of time.

I believe you're both wrong. DCF is not filing at a USCIS office abroad, it's filing directly at the consulate in the country of residence, so in my case since we both reside in France, we would file directly to the Paris consulate. Hence the name Direct Consular Filing (DCF).

Now my question is would it be more time saving and money saving to cancel the k1, get married now here in France, and start the process for a DCF filing in France?

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I believe you're both wrong. DCF is not filing at a USCIS office abroad, it's filing directly at the consulate in the country of residence, so in my case since we both reside in France, we would file directly to the Paris consulate. Hence the name Direct Consular Filing (DCF).

Now my question is would it be more time saving and money saving to cancel the k1, get married now here in France, and start the process for a DCF filing in France?

No, they're both correct. Only those field offices listed on the USCIS list provided by Penguin will accept DCF filings. Paris is not on the list and it does not accept filing of the I-130 directly at the consulate. I believe it has not accepted DCF filing since 2012.

Your choices remain continuing on the K-1 route, or getting married, filing the I-130 and going the CR-1 route. Both will require stateside processing.

[taylor&ilies 5]

Ok thanks. I will call the embassy today to be sure.

Would it look bad if I cancelled the k1 visa, got married, and decided to go the cr1 route instead?

[supermacho 1]

I'm actually curious about the answer as well. We cancelled our k1 petition this past spring due to some families emergencies. We postponed the wedding indefinitely but decided to go with the cr1 anyway. Will it look bad? In the withdrawal letter we stated we were still engaged and we would go with cr1 once ready to get married. But then we discovered my country does dcf. Can we switch to dcf or will we be on the hook of misrepresentation.. Kind of? Is cr1 and dcf the same thing? And can they deny it because we cancelled a k1? I didn't start a new topic cause my questions are similar to the op's. I apologize in advance if I made a mistake.

[Penguin_ie 5,995]

DCF is just a "different from normal" way of getting the CR-1 visa. The visa you get is the same, so no worries there, you were definitely not lying or anything.

Cancelling the K1 in the past may cause a few questions at interview,k but should not be a major issue.