Expedite criteria

[Illiria 980]

4 minutes ago, geowrian said:

Nope, no DCF in Australia (barring exceptional circumstances again).

Man that bites.

 

Sorry op, I hope that the expedite is successful for you. 

[CEE53147 559]

The US loves its disabled vets and wants to honor them for their sacrifices.

 

 

He needs to emphasize the need to return to US for VA medical/psychological services

 

 

Three more contacts to try:

 

1-Home state Senator or district Representative. Find the most military friendly of the group - seat on one of the military financing subcommittees is a plus. Contact their office; all have staff to assist constituents.

 

2-National veterans groups - like VFW - often offer help.  My sister who is also a disabled vet claims these groups can be very helpful depending on the group.

 

3-Home area veterans service centers may have suggestions. Our city has a "Vet Center".

 

 

He likely has friends (or superiors) who have other contacts they have developed when seeking services.

 

 

However, IMO, the first contact should be the Military Helpline

 

And - when he returns to the US, there are many companies and groups wanting to help returning vets. He should take advantage of every offer of help.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2018 by CEE53147

[KiwiinMaine 51]

8 hours ago, Illiria said:

https://www.uscis.gov/forms/expedite-criteria

Expedite Criteria

 

USCIS reviews all expedite requests on a case-by-case basis and requests are granted at the discretion of the office leadership. The burden is on the applicant or petitioner to demonstrate that one or more of the expedite criteria have been met.

USCIS may expedite a petition or application if it meets one or more of the following criteria:

• Severe financial loss to company or person;
• Emergency situation;
• Humanitarian reasons;
• Nonprofit organization whose request is in furtherance of the cultural and social interests of the United States;
• Department of Defense or national interest situation (These particular expedite requests must come from an official U.S. government entity and state that delay will be detrimental to the government.);
• USCIS error; or
• Compelling interest of USCIS.

Also does anyone know if Australia does direct consular filing, would it be possible for the op to move there for a while and then dcf? It wouldn’t be as fast as if NZ had it but might shave some time off if an expedite isn’t a possibility. 

 

OP does your husband have an income from the military (disability or pension) or a person who could sponsor you so that you can avoid the affidavit of support issues that sometimes come with being overseas with a spouse and sponsoring with no established income.

 

Also OP does you husband have some ties to the us still so that he can establish domicile or intent to domicile (bank account, voting registration, drivers license, car registration) some countries embassies are more on top of this than others (Canada is kind of obsessive it seems) but I am not sure about NZ. It’s something you can work on now so that when you do file you have some things sorted. 

 

Wishing you and your husband the best

Unfortunately Australia doesn’t offer DCF either and we aren’t in a position to move there before moving back to the states. Thank you for the info and suggestion though!

 

He does receive disability and some military retirement pay. It is enough to meet the affidavit of support, just but it’s over the threashold. If there were any issues with that his parents would be more than willing to help out by co-sponsoring. 

 

He has his drivers license, our joint USAA bank account, we own a home in FL that we have very little equity in and can’t sell yet but we will be able to in the next few years, we have international movers booked and our pet movers booked too. Hopefully proving domicile won’t be too tough. Thankfully we saved enough to cover the immigration costs and moving costs before he lost his job, so that’s all taken care of when the time comes.

 

Thanks Illiria

 

[KiwiinMaine 51]

5 hours ago, CEE53147 said:

The US loves its disabled vets and wants to honor them for their sacrifices.

 

 

He needs to emphasize the need to return to US for VA medical/psychological services

 

 

Three more contacts to try:

 

1-Home state Senator or district Representative. Find the most military friendly of the group - seat on one of the military financing subcommittees is a plus. Contact their office; all have staff to assist constituents.

 

2-National veterans groups - like VFW - often offer help.  My sister who is also a disabled vet claims these groups can be very helpful depending on the group.

 

3-Home area veterans service centers may have suggestions. Our city has a "Vet Center".

 

 

He likely has friends (or superiors) who have other contacts they have developed when seeking services.

 

 

However, IMO, the first contact should be the Military Helpline

 

And - when he returns to the US, there are many companies and groups wanting to help returning vets. He should take advantage of every offer of help.

 

 

Thank you so much for all of that information! We will definitely look into some of those if the expedite is denied.

 

We rung the military helpline last night (1am our time, 8am CST) and talked to 2 people about an expedite. We got put through to a tier 2 officer and she submitted the application for expedite for us and said we should hear back within 5 business days. Neither of us are very positive about it being approved, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. 

[KiwiinMaine 51]

We rung the military helpline last night (1am our time, 8am CST) and talked to 2 people about an expedite. We got put through to a tier 2 officer, due to us living overseas and she submitted the application for expedite for us and said we should hear back within 5 business days. Neither of us are very positive about it being approved, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

 

We stressed that I am his caregiver and he must go home early due to his visa expiring soon, and also having the opportunity to have a PTSD service dog again so he no longer relies on me. We will have to wait and see what they say.

 

I’ll let you all know what the outcome is once we hear.

 

Thank you for your well wishes and help!

[KiwiinMaine 51]

We received an email from USCIS this morning, our expedite was declined due to insufficient evidence. We provided a lot of evidence but the officer who submitted the request for us had questionable English, so we think maybe she didn’t understand everything that we were saying and when she placed us on hold to type up the request it only took her 2 minutes. Maybe she only put the information that she thought would be relevant, we aren’t sure. Very frustrating, but at least we tried. 

[CEE53147 559]

Have him contact his home state's senator/representative's office.

 

I also suggest you get an attorney involved.   Use this organization's search feature:

 

http://www.ailalawyer.org/

[KiwiinMaine 51]

3 hours ago, CEE53147 said:

Have him contact his home state's senator/representative's office.

 

I also suggest you get an attorney involved.   Use this organization's search feature:

 

http://www.ailalawyer.org/

We will look into contacting his home state Senator. We don’t know anything about that though, do you have an idea on the process please? 

 

Thanks for that link, but a attorney is out of our budget.

[CEE53147 559]

The senator's website will have contact phone numbers.  There are also email links but these take more time.  I'd select the office in the state (unless it is large like CA, NY, FL)  rather than the DC office. Just tell the person answering that help is needed with an immigration issue; the receptionist will put you in contact with that person.  Describe your problem and ask for help for a disabled vet.

 

Let me know what response you get from them. I may have other suggestions.

[KiwiinMaine 51]

20 minutes ago, CEE53147 said:

The senator's website will have contact phone numbers.  There are also email links but these take more time.  I'd select the office in the state (unless it is large like CA, NY, FL)  rather than the DC office. Just tell the person answering that help is needed with an immigration issue; the receptionist will put you in contact with that person.  Describe your problem and ask for help for a disabled vet.

 

Let me know what response you get from them. I may have other suggestions.

Thank you for that. 

 

We we ended up finding out who the Senator was for my husbands home state and home town, so we emailed her as we can’t afford another international phone call at the moment. The Senators assistant sent our email and info directly to the Congressman for that area as it’s to do with a Federal organization. We haven’t heard anything yet, but it is the weekend and we’re 19 hours ahead of Maine. Will let you know when/if we get a response