jan22

There will be no Adjustment of Status approved until either A waiver of the two year home residency requirement (HHR) is approved, or Your wife returns home for two years to fulfill the HHR. What was the funding source for the J-1? That can make a difference. If it was US government funding, for example, it is unlikely that a waiver will be approved.

Unless something has changed in the past few years, most (all?) Embassies/Consulates allow parents to apply for the CRBA and passport at the same time. Assuming the parents want to do so, they adjudicate the CRBA application and, if it's approved, the parent then pays the passport application fee and the application is processed. This saves time for the parents and the Embassy, as all can be done on the same day, at the same interview. This process doesn't work as well, of course, if it's a country with a lot of fraud where most CRBAs are not approved on the day of application/interview. The second paragraph is excellent advice. All of the evidence of physical presence in the US needs to be for ti mm e before t b e baby us birn, so -- start gathering it now.

But if you are aleady 20, you will be 21 before DV 2025 even begins (i.e., October 1, 2024), so you would no longer qualify for a derivative visa. That doesn't matter, however, since you cannot receive a derivative visa if there is no principal applicant (your mother) from whom you derive your status. The Principal Applicant must enter before or at the same time as any derivative. Simply put -- mother doesn't immigrate, it's imposdible for son to go along with her or follow after her.

Classes for Fall 2023 have already started at most (all?) schools. What is the start date on your I-20?

There are a few details that makes what you "already know" you can do into something that you can't actually do. You need to do a lot more research. For example, here are a couple of points to be considered: As an LPR, your spouse will be in a visa category that is numerically limited -- only so many can be approved each year. You would not be able to adjust status until a visa number is available for your Priority Date (PD) -- the date that you will file the petition after you are married. Unless you can go back in time and be in the US, get married (or have married prior to US entry), and file the petition no later than 01 September 2023 (i.e., almost a month ago) you cannot file to adjust status. That is the PD that is "current" for filing for an adjustment of status as the spouse of an LPR. If you try to enter the US as an LPR with your spouse with a visitor visa, the immigration officer will question your/her intentions. When she answers truthfully -- as she must -- that she plans to stay and adjust her status, she will most likely be denied entry, as she should be. If you had an approved petition with a Priority Date that was current, and your spouse had entered the US to visit but had a sudden change of plans that required her to stay in the US, she would then qualify to apply to adjust status.

I believe the OP is referring to an F1 student visa, not an immigrant visa. OP: Did you (or the applicant) pay the MRV fee and schedule the interview appointment?

NVC has no authority to revoke the approval. Since the case is at the Embassy, any notice/ letter should be sent there, with a copy to USCIS, as others have already said.

These shouldn't cause any additional delays if the shutdown occurs. Hopefully, you will hear good news soon!

212 (a)(1) is not the refusal code for inadequate documentation....

Might depend a bit on what the 221(g) documents were. The administrative processing might slow down a bit overall, but with your documents already submitted, I dont think it should affect you much, if at all.

Oops -- just saw the update (glad to see it!) and the date of the original thread. Glad it worked out. I'm leaving my response, though, for future readers. There is no indication that the ConOff did not do their job. Actually, the fact that the visa was issued would indicate just the opposite - that the ConOff did precisely their job, which was to interview a visa applicant and evaluate their current situation to detemine they have overcome the previous ineligibility and now qualify for a visa. If Congress had intended an overstay to be a permanent ineligibility, they would have written the law that way. They did not do so, so the visa applicant who can show how things have changed during their 10-year ban so they can now demonstrate strong ties to their home country is qualified to be issued a visa. OP: I would go for the cheaper ticket or the most convenient flight schedule. All CBP officers have access to the same database, with the same access to information about the prior overstay and the ConOff's notes from the visa interview when the visa was issued. It is likely that she will get "a look" or two from any CBP officer and a little extra scrutiny -- especially on the first entry with the new visa -- regardless of the POE. But, ultimately (unIess there is something else we are not aware of), she will get admitted and the scrutiny will be reduced once she shows continued proper use of the visa.

Yes, the officer should have marked the case as a 221(g) refusal in their system. Any case an officer adjudicate must be either issued or refused in some form -- even if that adjudication ends in a decision that more information is needed, in your case via an interview.

While the operation of the physical Embassy building is included in the Congressionally-approved budget, the buildings do not suspend all operations during a government shut-down and, therefore, remain open and operational during a government shutdown. More importantly, Consular Affairs — like USCIS — is a fee-funded operation. Therefore, consular services continue during the government shut down. Some of the procedures that require information from other sources, however, may slow down.

What is the Priority Date (PD) of the petition, i.e., when was the petition first filed?

I made an assumption about where you were in the process. To clarify whether that assumption is correct — did you get the instructions on how to submit your Dropbox application when you were registering for an interview appointment? Or, did you just send in your application without those instructions? If the former (got instructions), then your application was reviewed by the consular officer who determined you needed to go for an interview. The officer would have then 221(g)-ed your application. If the latter (no instructions, you just sent it in somehow — very unlikely in most places), it may/may not have made it to an officer, so may or may not have been 221(g)-ed. A 221(g) is a temporary refusal, until you supply whatever is missing from the application — in this case, the interview. But, it still is recorded as a refusal as a matter of recordkeeping to track what has happened and where your case stands.

Just to clarify -- it was the visa application that was denied, not your I-130, right? The same case you posted about in early April? Given the discussion in that post, and that the refusal was almost six months ago, I believe it would be better to wait a few more months to get the NOID paperwork so you can directly refute the issues listed and have the petition reaffirmed and returned to the Consulate for processing. This not only gives you a means to directly address the issues raised by the Consulate, but also may be as fast as or faster than filing a new petition at this point. Hopefully, you have already -- or will soon -- visited your wife since the denial and continued to collect documentation of your relatioship.

There is no way to withdraw the B visa application at this point. It has already been reviewed by a consular officer and refused under Section 221(g) -- the additional information required to overcome the refusal is to schedule and attend the interview. I would recommend scheduling the B visa interview while also pursuing your Canadian citizenship. If the visa interview date comes before your citizenship is granted, you can attend it and, hopefully, get the B visa. That will resolve any issues you might have after you are a Canadian citizen. If the interview date comes after you're a Canadian citizen, or if you don't attend an interview before that, you have a clear explanation at the POE -- you applied for a vIsa but didn't attend the interview as it was so close to your citizenship acquisItion you decided it wasn't necessary. Either way, a 221(g) refusal should have limited to no impact once you are a Canadian citizen. There are several reasons why you might have been asked to attend a visa intervIew instead of being issued without intervIew -- including that some applications are chosen by random as part of the program standard. Of course, the previous paragraph is based on you not having any known possible serious ineligibilities (e.g., arrests and/or convictions, drug involvement, previous overstay in the US, etc). If you do, IMO, it would be best to attend the B interview whenever it comes (before or after your citizenship), so the determination of whether you are ineligible to enter the US can actually be made and, if so, whether there is a waiver available for that ineligibility.

It will be more paperwork, but you can marry and apply for an Adjustment of Status without Ieaving the US. Unless your home country objects (or you no longer wish to work there), you don't even have to resign your job. Along with the required I-130 (Petition for Alien Relative) and the I-485 (Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status), you must submit an I-508 (Waiver of Certain Rights, Privileges, Exemptions, and Immunities) to waive the diplomatic protections -- including non-payment of taxes -- accorded to you by your A-2 status. You must also include two originals (i.e., two forms with original signatures) of the I-566 (Interagency Record of Request). If you resign your position after marriage, you will also want to include the I-765 (Employment Authorization Document) and the I-131 (Application for Travel Document).

Just filling out t b e DS-160 should not have mattered -- unless you've also paid the MRV fee and scheduled the appointment.

You need to follow the procedures outlined on the Embassy's website (https://www.ustraveldocs.com/pk/pk-niv-visarenew.asp). The "How to Apply" section has a step-by-step description of the process. You have to have Arrived in Pakistan, Filled out and submitted your DS-160 form, Paid the MRV fee, Met all of the other requirements outlined for an interview waiver, and Scheduled your interview appointment before a determination that you are eligible for an interview waver is made and you receive a letter authorizing it.

Assuming you are referring to an "Accelerated Rehabilitative Dismissal", an ARD is -- for visa purposes -- not the same as a dismissal of charges at all, whether there was an expungement or not, as it requires an admission/acceptance of the underlying criminal issues. Whether it will result in a visa eligibility or not depends on what those issues were.

This is not the case at many of the higher volume visa posts. For those, there is an off-site visa application center where biometrics are collected prior to going to the Embassy/Consulate for the visa interview. At the interview they will then confirm at Ieast one of the fingerprints to ensure it is the same person. The rescheduling message is about the interview appointment, although it may also have an affect on the biometrics appointment.

It counts. She should answer "yes" to any question asking about a visa refusal/denial.

Adopting a child in Pakistan is very complicated, especially when it needs to also meet US immigration laws. The best starting point would be to thoroughly read the State Department's country-specific information on Pakistan: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/Intercountry-Adoption/Intercountry-Adoption-Country-Information/Pakistan.html. It will not be easy or fast.

Assuming the filing date was sometime in 2021 -- which would be the Priority Date (PD) for your petition -- the approved petition will be held at NVC for at least the next 15-or-so years. A year or so before your PD of (some date) 2021 is expected to become current, NVC will contact you to begin the document submission process. Until then, you will not hear anything else. Not completely sure what you meant "...and priority date 2008". The Current PD for F4 visa applications is 22 Apr 2007 -- cases with petitions filed on or before that date are now being processed for visas. The 01 Mar 2008 in Chart B of the Visa Bulletin is for those who are in the US and applying to adjust status; they can start submitting documents to USCIS now.