Filing I-130: Better to use international or US mailing address when living abroad?

[buckeyestud 19]

Good morning,

 

I am about to file the I-130 for my spouse and we are currently living together overseas.  She is a South African national and I am a US Citizen and we have been married for more than 5 years but are planning an eventual permanent return to the States.

 

We both live in Qatar (7+ years for me and 10+ years for her) which is not eligible for DCF.  I would like to know the pros to filing the package from here (I would use express shipping like DHL) but the normal snail mail here is not good (I have had items that were mailed to me delivered 8+ months late, and in some cases returned to sender but after a considerable delay) so I was considering using a relative's address in the States to receive the documents (I have all my US mail sent there) and just having them send back via DHL.

 

Is there any benefit in using an overseas mailing address, such as a chance at faster processing or should I just use a US mailing address and have my family member express mail documents back to me overseas?  I would imagine the trade off is I might get processed quicker but it could be offset by delays in receiving documents thus negating any potential benefit.

 

I thought before I have seen this mentioned elsewhere before in case tracking but I wanted to make sure since I live abroad and was hoping to have the process move along a bit faster given that we have been married more than 5 years and both live abroad.

 

Thanks in advance for your responses.

 

 - B

[EG&XY 144]

From what I understand you are probably better off using a us based address. It is my understanding that the notices will only be sent to us addresses, and mail forwarding (like for a change of address) will not work for the notices from uscis. On the I-130 there should be a section to fill out a mailing address along with "in care of". You should probably use that and have things sent to a friend/family member in the us who can then scan them and send them to you, or simply forward them to your address abroad.