Hello, I stumbled on Visa Journey in my search for answers in this crazy quest of getting my adopted son immigrated. I can't find a specific forum related to the IR2 category, so any assistance would be great.
A little backstory:
My wife and I moved to Cambodia in 2010 and have been here since. We ended up completing a local adoption (full and final, granted by the court) in Cambodia and it was completed in October 2015. However, we secured local Foster Care in September 2014.
About a year ago, we submitted our I-130 at the U.S. Embassy here in Phnom Penh. They petitioned to the USCIS in Bangkok so that we could file here since this is where we currently reside. Once we began to prepare documents and evidence for the I-130 submission, we felt confident we had met all the criteria including the 2 year legal custody requirement. However, the documents we had didn't meet the mark. The U.S. Embassy offered to hold our I-130 and file it once we met the 2 year legal custody mark in September 2016 based on our approved foster care status in September 2014. Hope this makes sense so far.
Come September, 2016, we received a call from the U.S. Embassy and they received word from USCIS in Bangkok and there was some disagreement about whether or no foster care is considered "legal custody" from a Cambodian perspective. This came as a surprise to us, as we had been under the assumption that our I-130 was going to be filed/approved come September 2016 based on our Immigration Visa Interview had been scheduled for the end of this month. It's odd the embassy would schedule our interview before actually filing our I-130. I don't understand why it just came up as an issue. The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh seems to be on our side and it trying to persuade USCIS since they are the ones who have experience here. We have been working for the last several years to completed the adoption in Cambodia and we finally did it. It was a such a journey for my wife and I. We had been hoping to travel home next month and fully celebrate our son's immigration status. We just don't know if it's going to happen now. Worst case is that we have to wait another year as they will use our adoption decree which was finalized October 2015 as the two year requirement.
Steps we've taken so far:
-Continue to be in contact with the embassy asking for updates.
-Contacted my local congressman in Colorado. As of last week, they made an official inquiry on our behalf. Any experience with this? Has this been helpful for anyone?
Other Options:
-Tourist visa so we can travel home for the holidays. Thoughts on this? Since we've somewhat entered the immigration process, can we still get approved?
Thanks everyone -- VisaJourney seems to be a wonderful resource!
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