i129F Expedite for Active Duty?

[potatingpotato 0]

Hello I am currently serving CONUS and I'm trying to bring my fiance in the US. i129 NOA1 late 2019, NOA2 mid 2020. I tried several times contacting NVC and local embassy with no success. I will be PCSing soon but no hard copy orders yet. Anyone in the same situation?

[SS&AM 22]

Only way you can expedite is if you are PCSing OCONUS from CONUS.CONUS to CONUS PCS does not qualify.  I had mine expedited for my wife due to PCSing to Japan.

Edited October 30, 2020 by SS&AM

[potatingpotato 0]

6 minutes ago, SS&AM said:

Only way you can expedite is if you are PCSing OCONUS from CONUS.CONUS to CONUS PCS does not qualify.  I had mine expedited for my wife due to PCSing to Japan.

Any source on this? You are probably right but I'm hoping otherwise. 90% chance I will be going CONUS to CONUS. 

 

We briefly planned on having her go the US with her tourist visa to get married, go back to her country, then file for CR1 I130. Unfortunately, they just canceled her tourist visa. Frustrating as we are running out of options and time as I'm nearing the end of my current orders. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[SS&AM 22]

1 hour ago, potatingpotato said:

Any source on this? You are probably right but I'm hoping otherwise. 90% chance I will be going CONUS to CONUS. 

 

We briefly planned on having her go the US with her tourist visa to get married, go back to her country, then file for CR1 I130. Unfortunately, they just canceled her tourist visa. Frustrating as we are running out of options and time as I'm nearing the end of my current orders. Any suggestions are appreciated.

What branch are you? That’s cool to know you will be PCSing soon before getting selected for an assignment. You want to make sure the I129F is fully approved before she would come to America. 
 

as far as a source, I do not have a complete source that states exactly conus to oconus expedite but I know several people that have had disapproval for conus to conus which makes sense because their is no real rush on a need to expedite. If going oconus their is a rush to ensure they have a green card to go Oconus.  

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• Compelling U.S. Government interests (such as urgent cases for the Department of Defense or DHS, or other public safety or national security interests). 

 

Edited October 31, 2020 by SS&AM

[ZKT 118]

USCIS will always say its a case to case basis whenever  you talk about expedite.

 

But i know that they always expedite i129f if you are pcsing from CONUS to OCONUS (because then you'd have to get married in the us before you pcs, and so that you can include her in your orders to go with you). All you have to do is call the uscis military hotline and request an expedite for your case and then explain why you need an expedite. Be ready with orders and then a note from your commander that you will be pcsing abroad.

 

OCONUS - CONUS they usually don't expedite those, they feel like you'll be in the US anyway, so you can wait like the rest of the people. 

 

CONUS - CONUS they usually also don't expedite those, they feel like you'll be in the US anyway, just in another state/location (which doesn't affect much of your i129f case), so yiu can wait like the rest of the people. 

 

Anyway, i129f's are usually long. Their website says 2-3 months. And that used to be the case 2015 and before that. But 2016 onwards things started to get slow. Took me nov 2017 till finally getting to the us in sept 2018. Almost a year. From my noa 2 in end of june 2018 i was thinking i'd be done by august and i could have my 8/8/18 wedding date. But that didn't pan out that way. I left 3 days after i got my k1 fiance visa and that was sept 5. 

It takes awhile from uscis to nvc. And then nvc to the us embassy to whatever country. Some embassies are faster too because they are already electronic while most are still manual slow snail mail sending and they send files/cases by batches. So even if they approved you say monday.. if they only send out every friday per week then they send it only on that friday of that week if you get what i mean. Then your fiance still has to do the medical and schedule an appointment in the embassy and depends on their schedule. I had one lady finish her medical and get nvc and us embassy letter for interview 2 months ahead of me, and i got to the us faster because all the appointments for interview at her local us embassy was always full and they only did a few days of the week for the k1 visa interviews. My country had lots opened so literally 40-60 interviews a day.

 

With COVID19 pandemic now, a lot of the us embassies in other countries stopped processing k1 fiance visas for this year and will resume in march 2021. You'll be lucky if your fiance's us embassy is still open and processing those. So i would suggest you check on that. 

 

So following up with the nvc and us embassy is the only thing i guess you can do for now. Sorry. 

Edited October 31, 2020 by ZKT

[Ed&Midori1031 330]

If you're going OCONUS, even with the K-1 visa I'm not sure if you will be expedited since obviously you're fisnce is not your dependent yet.  When ai got selected for orders to Japan, we requested expedite for my wife's green card and were immediately approved.