K1 in process + really, really old J1 visa

[MeghanK 629]

Howdy all - I've scoured every possible K1+J1 visa thread I could find and none of the advice/answers really fit our situation. 

 

So we are USC (me) and fiance (Irish citizen/Canadian PR) at the "waiting to book K1 visa interview" stage at the Montreal consulate. I still am not even clear if previous J1 visas come up at the K1 interview, or the AOS stage but I know they come up (hopefully this is the best thread to post in). We marked that he had a J1 visa on the DS-160, but we had no other information to include. I'm a bit (probably way overly) paranoid about this causing issues as we keep moving forward so here is our situation:

 

1. Fiance had a J1 visa through a private company meant for collage students, good for 3 months, in the summer of 2009. He came to the U.S. and had to immediately leave 3 days later for a family emergency and did not return to the U.S. (not sure if this even matters other than he definitely did not overstay...)

2. This visa was in his old Irish passport which expired in 2010 and is loooonnngggg gone, lost af, probably shredded in some Irish landfill as I'm guessing he probably didn't think in 2019 he'd be applying for a K1. No passport, equals no record of the J1 visa in our possession. 

3. We have no idea if he was subject to the 2 year HRR. We can't look at the visa  because we don't have the passport, and we can't get an electronic I-94 because we don't know the passport # - His memory says that he was at home in Ireland for a total of 30 months before moving to Canada where he has been since 2013 but we have no clue how to prove it. 

4. We have no copies of the DS-2019; the company he got the visa from also does not have record of it. 

 

Now here we are 10 years later heading for a K1 trying to figure out how to deal with this J1. Will the interviewing officers have access to all of this info and be able to confirm he didn't abuse the J1 and/or any 2 year HRR rules? Will they force us to produce our own proof? Would it come up at the K1 visa interview or only at AOS interview? 

 

We have FOIAed Dept of State for the DS-2019 but they responded that we needed to go to USCIS. FOIA website says J1 visa info needs to go to ICE so we have forwarded the same request originally sent to DoS to both USCIS and ICE. Maybe they will send us all we need but I still can't sleep until I'm doing every possible thing to prevent this causing issues.

 

Any advice/ideas/clarification would be very helpful, thanks in advance.

 

[C90 376]

1 hour ago, MeghanK said:

Howdy all - I've scoured every possible K1+J1 visa thread I could find and none of the advice/answers really fit our situation. 

 

So we are USC (me) and fiance (Irish citizen/Canadian PR) at the "waiting to book K1 visa interview" stage at the Montreal consulate. I still am not even clear if previous J1 visas come up at the K1 interview, or the AOS stage but I know they come up (hopefully this is the best thread to post in). We marked that he had a J1 visa on the DS-160, but we had no other information to include. I'm a bit (probably way overly) paranoid about this causing issues as we keep moving forward so here is our situation:

 

1. Fiance had a J1 visa through a private company meant for collage students, good for 3 months, in the summer of 2009. He came to the U.S. and had to immediately leave 3 days later for a family emergency and did not return to the U.S. (not sure if this even matters other than he definitely did not overstay...)

2. This visa was in his old Irish passport which expired in 2010 and is loooonnngggg gone, lost af, probably shredded in some Irish landfill as I'm guessing he probably didn't think in 2019 he'd be applying for a K1. No passport, equals no record of the J1 visa in our possession. 

3. We have no idea if he was subject to the 2 year HRR. We can't look at the visa  because we don't have the passport, and we can't get an electronic I-94 because we don't know the passport # - His memory says that he was at home in Ireland for a total of 30 months before moving to Canada where he has been since 2013 but we have no clue how to prove it. 

4. We have no copies of the DS-2019; the company he got the visa from also does not have record of it. 

 

Now here we are 10 years later heading for a K1 trying to figure out how to deal with this J1. Will the interviewing officers have access to all of this info and be able to confirm he didn't abuse the J1 and/or any 2 year HRR rules? Will they force us to produce our own proof? Would it come up at the K1 visa interview or only at AOS interview? 

 

We have FOIAed Dept of State for the DS-2019 but they responded that we needed to go to USCIS. FOIA website says J1 visa info needs to go to ICE so we have forwarded the same request originally sent to DoS to both USCIS and ICE. Maybe they will send us all we need but I still can't sleep until I'm doing every possible thing to prevent this causing issues.

 

Any advice/ideas/clarification would be very helpful, thanks in advance.

 

I was here on a J1 visa from 2012-2014. My passport with J1 visa in it was destroyed by a Dutch municipality when I renewed it. You don't have to provide proof of J1 for the K1. At the interview they didn't really ask about J1, more if I lived anywhere else and then I mentioned I was on J1 in the USA before, that's it.

 

However, you do have to provide proof of former J1 for AOS. Since I didn't have the visa anymore, I included a letter from the organization that stated from when to when I was in the States, that they were the company who I was with in the states etc (I was an au pair) and a few documents I found from the J1 procedure (NOA1 from back then etc) So maybe his company can provide a letter of that kind to him. I think if you include anything with an explanation why you don't have the J1 anymore they won't give you a hard time at the interview. I mean, it's 10 years ago.

[MeghanK 629]

1 hour ago, C90 said:

I was here on a J1 visa from 2012-2014. My passport with J1 visa in it was destroyed by a Dutch municipality when I renewed it. You don't have to provide proof of J1 for the K1. At the interview they didn't really ask about J1, more if I lived anywhere else and then I mentioned I was on J1 in the USA before, that's it.

 

However, you do have to provide proof of former J1 for AOS. Since I didn't have the visa anymore, I included a letter from the organization that stated from when to when I was in the States, that they were the company who I was with in the states etc (I was an au pair) and a few documents I found from the J1 procedure (NOA1 from back then etc) So maybe his company can provide a letter of that kind to him. I think if you include anything with an explanation why you don't have the J1 anymore they won't give you a hard time at the interview. I mean, it's 10 years ago.

Thank you! This is really helpful. Definitely will check with the organization. 

[MLR14 37]

I was also here in on J-1 in the past. There were parts in the AOS/AP/EAD application that mentioned proving that the 2 year residency requirement had been met if it applied (I don't remember which of the applications or parts this was actually for, though). I wasn't subject to the requirement myself, but with your fiance's J-1 being so long ago, if this did come up I imagine you'd easily be able to prove that he lived elsewhere to satisfy the requirement. That's the only mention of the J-1 that I can recall from AOS so far! 

[MeghanK 629]

21 hours ago, MLR14 said:

I was also here in on J-1 in the past. There were parts in the AOS/AP/EAD application that mentioned proving that the 2 year residency requirement had been met if it applied (I don't remember which of the applications or parts this was actually for, though). I wasn't subject to the requirement myself, but with your fiance's J-1 being so long ago, if this did come up I imagine you'd easily be able to prove that he lived elsewhere to satisfy the requirement. That's the only mention of the J-1 that I can recall from AOS so far! 

Thank you! I'm hoping his current passport (from 2010) will provide evidence of time at home, as well as the I-94 showing first visit back into the U.S. not until 2013, if needed. 

[C90 376]

1 hour ago, MeghanK said:

Thank you! I'm hoping his current passport (from 2010) will provide evidence of time at home, as well as the I-94 showing first visit back into the U.S. not until 2013, if needed. 

Does his home country have something to proof that he lived there? In the Netherlands you can request a transcript that shows every address you've ever lived. I sent that, including a full translation (3 or 4 pages lol) so that USCIS can see I lived in the Netherlands for more then 2 years before arriving on K1

[MeghanK 629]

3 minutes ago, C90 said:

Does his home country have something to proof that he lived there? In the Netherlands you can request a transcript that shows every address you've ever lived. I sent that, including a full translation (3 or 4 pages lol) so that USCIS can see I lived in the Netherlands for more then 2 years before arriving on K1

Great idea! Will look into this, thanks so much for your continued advice!!

[Crazy Cat 41,984]

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