I-130 decision for green card holder

[Mike E 11,741]

31 minutes ago, devid456 said:

What did you mean by delaying the kids' US citizenship?

Your proposal is to not file for U.S. citizenship and instead make babies.

 

If you are not a U.S. citizen before they are born, they will not be born U.S. citizens.

 

If you are not a U.S. citizen when they enter the U.S. on their immigration visas, they will not automatically become U.S. citizens.

 

 

[JeanneAdil 6,583]

1 hour ago, devid456 said:

Everyone, please do not be offended if it looks like I am not serious with my questions. I am trying to gather as much information as possible. I appreciate your candid responses to the topic. There is not a lot of places where I can get the actual experiences of those who have gone to through the process I am about to take. So summarizing,

(a) my fiance can come to the US on an F1 visa., file the I-130 (maybe after 5 months) but has to leave the country once the I-130 petition is approved and it has reached the NVC stage, correct?
(b) @JeanneAdil when you talked about derivatives, did you mean that my fiance can bring any kid we have (unlikely) to the US on an F-2 visa if she gets granted an F1 visa?
(c) Based on the above, I am trying to timebox my attempts. That is, apply for the F1 visa for next year January 2024 and wait to see if it gets approved or denied? If it gets denied, then apply for I-130 in December 2024. Is this timeline even doable?
(d) @Mike E What did you mean by delaying the kids' US citizenship? Based on the replies above, I cannot depend on an expedited I-130 application. So if I want to have my kids be US citizens using a CBRA, then I and my fiance would have to wait until August 2027 before we can start trying to have kids. Is my understanding incorrect?

Thanks.
 

F1 student????

[devid456 0]

@Boiler@Mike E@JeanneAdil@appleblossom

Good morning, I waited a bit on this decision, but i had some questions. I have discarded the plan of a F1 visa looking at the approval rate for an F1 visa and the increased cost of attending college here in the US.

I wanted to proceed on with this plan:
(a) File for I-130 in Apr 2025
(b) Wait until I am a citizen so I could upgrade the petition to a CR1/IR1. That way I would not be bothered about the visa numbers for F2A being available
(c) No kids until I become a citizen

This plan is about 4 years as I plan to file for my citizenship in Feb 2027 (I got my green card in December 2021).

After compulsively checking out the stories on this forum of filing for the K1 visa and the excellent @Crazy Cat comparison about CR1/IR1 and K1, I was thinking that it might be better to go for K1 visa based on the processing times.

Pros:
(a) I am waiting for my citizenship anyway so K1 might be faster
(b) My fiance would not be working when she comes into the US, so the K1 might be a better fit
(c) I could take the time to visit her in Nigeria more to gather more evidence
(d) K1 looks more bounded, that is. it will take at most 1 year for approval (Service Center + NVC).

Cons:
(a) She might not be able to travel immediately to Nigeria after receiving the K1 visa

My question is that , would it be safer for me to just file I-130 and wait or to get my citizenship and then file the K-1 visa?

Thank you all for your continued clarification about this process.

[appleblossom 2,816]

8 minutes ago, devid456 said:

@Boiler@Mike E@JeanneAdil@appleblossom

Good morning, I waited a bit on this decision, but i had some questions. I have discarded the plan of a F1 visa looking at the approval rate for an F1 visa and the increased cost of attending college here in the US.

I wanted to proceed on with this plan:
(a) File for I-130 in Apr 2025
(b) Wait until I am a citizen so I could upgrade the petition to a CR1/IR1. That way I would not be bothered about the visa numbers for F2A being available
(c) No kids until I become a citizen

This plan is about 4 years as I plan to file for my citizenship in Feb 2027 (I got my green card in December 2021).

After compulsively checking out the stories on this forum of filing for the K1 visa and the excellent @Crazy Cat comparison about CR1/IR1 and K1, I was thinking that it might be better to go for K1 visa based on the processing times.

Pros:
(a) I am waiting for my citizenship anyway so K1 might be faster
(b) My fiance would not be working when she comes into the US, so the K1 might be a better fit
(c) I could take the time to visit her in Nigeria more to gather more evidence
(d) K1 looks more bounded, that is. it will take at most 1 year for approval (Service Center + NVC).

Cons:
(a) She might not be able to travel immediately to Nigeria after receiving the K1 visa

My question is that , would it be safer for me to just file I-130 and wait or to get my citizenship and then file the K-1 visa?

Thank you all for your continued clarification about this process.

 

Personally I wouldn't make any plans based on current processing times for the K1. By the time you're a citizen and then can apply for that, they'll have changed anyway and could be much longer than the CR1. 

 

Why are you waiting until Feb 2027 to apply for citizenship if you got your GC in December 2021? You can apply 90 days before the 5 year anniversary, so September 2026. 

 

You can visit your fiancee in the interim either way. Just make sure you keep up your time in the US for your citizenship application. 

 

Good luck. 

[JeanneAdil 6,583]

Questions are personal judgement call 

My thinking

I would make the trip to Nigeria and marry,  then apply CR1   ASAP as all other options u mention add time to the process

Get it started now 

when u become a citizen,  send copy of naturalization to NVC as they will more than likely have the case at that time.   then wait and wait as Nigeria is backlogged for all visa interviews

Best to u both