Frankfort DCF Questions (Merged)

[D-R-J 192]

55 minutes ago, Boiler said:

What is your status in Germany?

Yes, this, did you have a residence permit and how long had you been in Germany?

 

I also wonder if they don’t treat school the same way as jobs.

 

Will you be working for the school in conjunction with your studies? If so, maybe you should have lead with that. It is frustrating, but with government bureaucracy it’s probably best to color within the lines.

[Pat2014 2]

@Boiler  I am a US Citizen living in Germany on a German work visa and I have legally established residency in Augsburg with the German authorities.

Is that what you mean by status?

[Pat2014 2]

@D-R-J I have been in Germany for five years.  Four with the Army, one as a private citizen.  I have been legally in Germany the entire time (4 years under the US-German Status of Forces Agreement, 1 year with a German work visa/residency).

I have a required summer internship as part of my studies (Summer 2025) and the tuition is paid for by the GI Bill, which also provides a small living stipend, so I tried to explain those as employment opportunities.

I do not believe the Embassy considers Graduate School as an Exceptional Circumstance or employment opportunity, which is interesting because I did see a blog post where a woman got her DCF approved for a PhD program (which likely involved some teaching in addition to studying) last year. Perhaps they weight the level of programs differently?

 

If this is anything like the Army, I imagine these decisions are entirely up to whoever is running the IV department at the time.  There is a catch-all phrase at the end of Chapter 3 that leaves the definition of "exceptional circumstances" up to the IV chief of that embassy.  My guess is that the German embassy IV Chief probably sees the examples for "Exceptional Circumstances" listed in Chapter 3 of the USCIS policy as restrictive.

[Boiler 45,462]

WHen are you moving back and why?

[Pat2014 2]

@Boiler I am moving back on July 12th to begin Graduate School on August 12th.  I was notified of a pending admission on March 21st and had to decide by April 24th, but did not hear back from Frankfurt by then.  My wife and I discussed and I accepted.

 

My school is being paid for due to my military service via the US Post 9/11 GI Bill, and I will receive a small stipend to pay for housing/incidentals while at school.  I will also be required to hold a paid internship during the summer of 2025, and the University places over 90% of it's graduates in jobs within 3 months of graduation.

 

I had to quit my job to attend this opportunity, however I believe the consulate does not consider Graduate School an Exceptional Circumstance as it is not explicitly listed in Chapter 3.  While they do have discretion to define an Exceptional Circumstance as whatever they want, I believe they are erring on the side of caution and only using the examples explicitly provided by USCIS Chapter 3.

[Boiler 45,462]

OK the way your prior post read I thought it was starting next year.

 

You are right it is at their discretion, on the face of it this is the sort of situation it is usually exercised in.

 

All I can think of is the regular I 130 and try for an expedite?

[Pat2014 2]

@Boiler thanks for your feedback. 

I agree on the situation - it definitely seemed cut and dry (especially because I saw so many posts here regarding similar situations) so we were pretty shocked it got denied both via email and after we had sent in a completed packet with payment via the post.  My Congressional Representative said they were reaching out to the Frankfurt Consulate to try and understand why exactly they said no - if they get an answer, I'll post it here for everyone's situational awareness.

 

We will wait until the Congressional office gives us a response, or July 11th, whichever happens first, before submitting via USCIS.  When that happens, I'll for sure request an expedite to the process and maybe my Congress person can help.

[Pat2014 2]

Hello everyone, bad news again for us unfortunately. 

 

My congressional representative got a reply from the Consulate and they doubled down on not supporting our request.

 

The Frankfurt Consulate provided the Congress person a more detailed answer on why they denied our I-130 request.  They even went a step further and told my Congressional representative that we do not fall under any of the criteria for a local filing.  That seems excessive, but I'm sure they weren't happy getting contacted by a Congress person so they wanted to be clear.  These are the reasons they provided my Congress rep:

 

1.) Relocation for any reason except work is not "entirely" covered by the regulation and therefore they do not support them.  This supports my theory that they view the listed examples as restrictive.

 

2.) I have not lived in Germany long enough.  The 4 years stationed in Germany with in the US Military do not count towards residency, and since my residency card did not officially come until November, they claim the 6 months I have officially had residency in Germany is not enough to use this service.

 

The 2nd reason seems a little fabricated to me, because I could not find a minimum time limit in any regulation.  The only stipulation is "established residency," which I did.  I even sent them copies of the residency paperwork as evidence.

 

I'm going to reply with this in mind to the Congresssional Rep, but given the hard stance the Consulate has consistently taken on the first point, I am confident saying that the Frankfurt Consulate does not consider educational opportunities as exceptional circumstances.

 

Hopefully our situation can serve as a warning for future German DCF hopefuls: get a job offer instead of going back to school if you want to use DCF in Germany.

 

That, or maybe we just got unlucky and had the wrong person handling our case.

Edited July 3 by Pat2014

[D-R-J 192]

8 hours ago, Pat2014 said:

Hello everyone, bad news again for us unfortunately. 

 

My congressional representative got a reply from the Consulate and they doubled down on not supporting our request.

 

The Frankfurt Consulate provided the Congress person a more detailed answer on why they denied our I-130 request.  They even went a step further and told my Congressional representative that we do not fall under any of the criteria for a local filing.  That seems excessive, but I'm sure they weren't happy getting contacted by a Congress person so they wanted to be clear.  These are the reasons they provided my Congress rep:

 

1.) Relocation for any reason except work is not "entirely" covered by the regulation and therefore they do not support them.  This supports my theory that they view the listed examples as restrictive.

 

2.) I have not lived in Germany long enough.  The 4 years stationed in Germany with in the US Military do not count towards residency, and since my residency card did not officially come until November, they claim the 6 months I have officially had residency in Germany is not enough to use this service.

 

The 2nd reason seems a little fabricated to me, because I could not find a minimum time limit in any regulation.  The only stipulation is "established residency," which I did.  I even sent them copies of the residency paperwork as evidence.

 

I'm going to reply with this in mind to the Congresssional Rep, but given the hard stance the Consulate has consistently taken on the first point, I am confident saying that the Frankfurt Consulate does not consider educational opportunities as exceptional circumstances.

 

Hopefully our situation can serve as a warning for future German DCF hopefuls: get a job offer instead of going back to school if you want to use DCF in Germany.

 

That, or maybe we just got unlucky and had the wrong person handling our case.

I’m sorry DCF didn’t work out for you. It’s frustrating that examples of acceptable circumstances have somehow morphed into hard and fast rules. I wish the embassy would use their discretion more broadly.

I was required to have at least 6 months of residency when I did DCF in Ghana.

[powerpuff 6,697]

Following the final update of a different case above and that the original poster of this thread has not logged in a few months, this thread is now closed.

 

VJ Moderation