DCF Helsinki?

[rakkaus 0]

Hi everyone!

My Finnish fiancee and I had been assuming we would marry in USA after getting her a K-1 visa -- however with the wait for a K-1 now quoted at 4-5 months, I was exploring to see if any other option exists... and it looks like DCF used to be a quicker way, albeit before this Adam Walsh business. I was planning to call the Helsinki consulate in the morning, but just in case, does anyone have recent (i.e., after Adam Walsh) experience with DCF in Helsinki? Is it even possible? Long wait? Not so long wait?

Boy, would I love a way to skip some of the paperwork and just be with the woman I love! (... I'm sure that's the first time anyone here has said that )

[MargotDarko 0]

Hi everyone!

My Finnish fiancee and I had been assuming we would marry in USA after getting her a K-1 visa -- however with the wait for a K-1 now quoted at 4-5 months, I was exploring to see if any other option exists... and it looks like DCF used to be a quicker way, albeit before this Adam Walsh business. I was planning to call the Helsinki consulate in the morning, but just in case, does anyone have recent (i.e., after Adam Walsh) experience with DCF in Helsinki? Is it even possible? Long wait? Not so long wait?

Boy, would I love a way to skip some of the paperwork and just be with the woman I love! (... I'm sure that's the first time anyone here has said that )

Hello... Are you currently resident in Finland then? If you are, and you're able to marry quickly, then yes, DCF at the US embassy will be the best option for you. It is the much faster and cheaper way to a green card. Call the embassy to make sure you're eligble to file the I-130 and see if they have specific instructions on how to do it at that embassy.

EDIT - I see in another post of yours that you are in America. DCF is only for USCs who are resident in a foreign country.

Edited August 2, 2007 by MargotDarko

[rakkaus 0]

Hi everyone!

My Finnish fiancee and I had been assuming we would marry in USA after getting her a K-1 visa -- however with the wait for a K-1 now quoted at 4-5 months, I was exploring to see if any other option exists... and it looks like DCF used to be a quicker way, albeit before this Adam Walsh business. I was planning to call the Helsinki consulate in the morning, but just in case, does anyone have recent (i.e., after Adam Walsh) experience with DCF in Helsinki? Is it even possible? Long wait? Not so long wait?

Boy, would I love a way to skip some of the paperwork and just be with the woman I love! (... I'm sure that's the first time anyone here has said that )

Hello... Are you currently resident in Finland then? If you are, and you're able to marry quickly, then yes, DCF at the US embassy will be the best option for you. It is the much faster and cheaper way to a green card. Call the embassy to make sure you're eligble to file the I-130 and see if they have specific instructions on how to do it at that embassy.

EDIT - I see in another post of yours that you are in America. DCF is only for USCs who are resident in a foreign country.

I'm not currently a resident in Finland. However, my work schedule will be much more flexible than average for the remainder of this year -- basically, I have one huge project but a lot of leeway on when I do it. It's due at the end of the year, so if I were to finish early, I could go to Finland, marry my fiancee, and then live with her until the visa were approved. But this does depend on the embassy in Helsinki; I realize that simply being in Finland doesn't make me a "resident" in the formal sense.

I had seen a lot of postings from January about "DCF is dead" (because of the Adam Walsh law) and subsequently a bunch from February about "DCF is coming back -- maybe." Is DCF, in fact, back? Not just as a way to file papers that then go to USCIS, but as a way to bypass some of the wait by having everything except the background check done locally?

Answered my own question a moment after I posted this -- just posting the answer in case anyone else has the same question. From the Helsinki US Embassy's web page:

"To demonstrate residency in a consular district, the American Citizen petitioners must be able to show that they have permission to reside in the consular district and that they have been doing so continuously for at least six months before filing the petition. Individuals who are in the country on a temporary status, such as student or tourist, would not be considered to meet the residency standard."

Oh well, at least I have my answer and can go back to working on the I-129F. Thanks!

Edited August 2, 2007 by rakkaus

[MargotDarko 0]

Hi everyone!

My Finnish fiancee and I had been assuming we would marry in USA after getting her a K-1 visa -- however with the wait for a K-1 now quoted at 4-5 months, I was exploring to see if any other option exists... and it looks like DCF used to be a quicker way, albeit before this Adam Walsh business. I was planning to call the Helsinki consulate in the morning, but just in case, does anyone have recent (i.e., after Adam Walsh) experience with DCF in Helsinki? Is it even possible? Long wait? Not so long wait?

Boy, would I love a way to skip some of the paperwork and just be with the woman I love! (... I'm sure that's the first time anyone here has said that )

Hello... Are you currently resident in Finland then? If you are, and you're able to marry quickly, then yes, DCF at the US embassy will be the best option for you. It is the much faster and cheaper way to a green card. Call the embassy to make sure you're eligble to file the I-130 and see if they have specific instructions on how to do it at that embassy.

EDIT - I see in another post of yours that you are in America. DCF is only for USCs who are resident in a foreign country.

I'm not currently a resident in Finland. However, my work schedule will be much more flexible than average for the remainder of this year -- basically, I have one huge project but a lot of leeway on when I do it. It's due at the end of the year, so if I were to finish early, I could go to Finland, marry my fiancee, and then live with her until the visa were approved. But this does depend on the embassy in Helsinki; I realize that simply being in Finland doesn't make me a "resident" in the formal sense.

I had seen a lot of postings from January about "DCF is dead" (because of the Adam Walsh law) and subsequently a bunch from February about "DCF is coming back -- maybe." Is DCF, in fact, back? Not just as a way to file papers that then go to USCIS, but as a way to bypass some of the wait by having everything except the background check done locally?

Answered my own question a moment after I posted this -- just posting the answer in case anyone else has the same question. From the Helsinki US Embassy's web page:

"To demonstrate residency in a consular district, the American Citizen petitioners must be able to show that they have permission to reside in the consular district and that they have been doing so continuously for at least six months before filing the petition. Individuals who are in the country on a temporary status, such as student or tourist, would not be considered to meet the residency standard."

Oh well, at least I have my answer and can go back to working on the I-129F. Thanks!

Yep, there's your answer. DCF came back in the spring, March or April I believe. And the thing about six months' residency is pretty new too - for some embassies, it's made DCF harder and for others it's easier now than before. For example, in London it used to be that you had to have Indefinite Leave to Remain (which took at least two years of living in the UK).

[Geist 0]

You can file DCF, but only if you have had residency in Finland for 6 months. With how long it takes stateside, that still might be quicker! It's fairly easy to get residency in Finland if you're married to a Finn. Just go down to the local police station and fill out some paperwork

We considered doing this, but as our end goal was to be in he US and I would have had an extremely hard time getting work in Finland, we decided to just stick it out stateside

Good luck! I'm happy to see another Finnish-American couple joining our very small club!

[Stabu 0]

Just filling some info to the previous (that my wife added).

We had an Adam Walsh experience, sadly an unpleasent one. We couldn't file in Helsinki. In order to file in Helsinki the American petitioner needs to OFFICIALLY recide in Finland for six months prior to filing a DCF. As a tourist visa from the US to EU is only good for 3 months you can't do the recidency with this option. You need to apply for a longer visa to Finland first, e.g. an extended tourist visa, a working visa, a spouce visa etc. This may or may not be easy. According to the Finnish magistrates and the Finnish embassy in the US it may take over a year to get a spouce visa to Finland. An extended tourist visa or equal will be easier.

After you've obtained this visa, you need to register your recidency in the police station or the magistrates (or both) and then the six month counter starts. After six months have passed you can do a DCF to your wife. Prior to the Adam Walsh Act it took around two months to do. After Adam Walsh it seems to take around three months. The DCF will give you an CR-1/IR-1 visa which are both better than a K1 or K3 visa. A K1/K3 visa takes on average around 6-7 months. A CR-1/IR-1 visa filed from the US takes approx 11-12 months. The DCF is likely the quickest but only if you succeed to meet it's requirements first.

[rakkaus 0]

You can file DCF, but only if you have had residency in Finland for 6 months. With how long it takes stateside, that still might be quicker! It's fairly easy to get residency in Finland if you're married to a Finn. Just go down to the local police station and fill out some paperwork

We considered doing this, but as our end goal was to be in he US and I would have had an extremely hard time getting work in Finland, we decided to just stick it out stateside

Good luck! I'm happy to see another Finnish-American couple joining our very small club!

Geist: Hey, thanks for the kind words! Yeah, same situation here. For me to live there without being chronically unemployed, I have to learn Finnish (I'm learning anyway, though my future wife's English is excellent, just to respect the culture -- but I'm not very good yet!) and finish my professional training. The latter happens in 11 months, God willing, and the former... well, I don't think it will happen before then! By that time I'm certainly hoping all the drama with the K-1 will have reached a happy ending anyway...

I'm so thankful that I learned DCF wouldn't work for us, before I could tell her about it. Hate to think how disappointed she'd be if I had gotten her hopes up for a wedding in Finland and (almost) immediately moving to US together.

[rakkaus 0]

Hei! I just realized something, going through your timeline: I met my fiancee online at almost the same time as you two met! We actually learned about each other's existence eight days earlier, but were slower meeting IRL and hence you reached the finish line way before us.

[j.hevonen 0]

Hi guys. I'm actually in the same group. I am a male USC (SO is Finnish) that actually has had residence permits in Finland for several years, and we are now thinking of doing a 129F vs a 130. There are two time constraints on us here:

1) She has a couple of part-time job offers in the US, to start in/around January 08. (These are legitimate jobs, but they're just too small in terms of organizations to offer work visas)

2) I need to be in the US for a month, starting in just a week from now, for family reasons.

We don't have enough time to do a marriage at this point before I leave. So I am thinking of submitting 129F as soon I get to the US, then when I return to Finland I will wait out the other side of it with her here. Otherwise marry in Finland when I return in one month.

My questions: is the DCF significantly faster that a 130 would beat a 129F even after a 1-month delay? What would you guys recommend?

Edited August 6, 2007 by j.hevonen

[Geist 0]

My questions: is the DCF significantly faster that a 130 would beat a 129F even after a 1-month delay? What would you guys recommend?

Absolutely.

The fastest someone has gotten a visa from the Embassy in Helsinki (IR-1/CR-1, the immigrant visa) is 33 days, from filing to visa in hand. Take a look at our timeline and ask us if we think DCF would have been faster!

Not only is it faster, but it's also less expensive.

If you file for a fiance visa, you'll have to adjust your spouse's status, which I've heard extremely bad things about. If I were you, and if you guys could make the timing work, I'd get married in Finland and file in Helsinki. All you have to do is go to the embassy and get an affidavit that says you're not married in order to get married in Filnand. Then make an appointment (via email) to file an I-130. Fill out the I-130, with all necessary documents (start gathering them now!!) and start gathering all the documents for the Affidavit of Support, DS-230, etc, that way you have them on hand when the embassy asks for them.

[j.hevonen 0]

Thanks for the help. Honestly, until I stumbled on this forum, I had no idea that the DCF that everyone had talked about for years was still available. A look at the Helsinki Embassy website is VERY confusing on this point. It states that the Walsh act prevents I-130s, then below that it reiterates it, but then takes a softer line on it while not being clear about the requirements. It's very strange, almost as if they're actively discouraging it.

I will have to establish how residency is being judged -- as I said I have lived here several years, have the UVI permits and rental agreements in our names, etc, but just realized recently when we looking into our legal status recently that I never registered with Maistratti. I was completely unaware that I was expected to register there. So I just hope that all the other evidence is enough to establish the fact that I am within the embassy's jurisdiction.

[Stabu 0]

The general problem is that the DCF today is even more confusing than it used to be. I don't think that there exist any accurate rule of what needs to be provided. You just need to show that you've lived for at least a half a year in Finland in advance.

In your case it won't be a problem. The fact that you have a reantal agreement means that you also have an addres, which means that you are already registered by the magistrates (even if you don't know it). If you've stayd a shorter period of time in Finland it takes more proof. Your case is so obvious that I don't think you will have any issues doing a DCF.

[cartaverde 12]

What? Suddenly there are a loooot of finns here..