joe.b

Thanks for the responses, everyone! This information is very helpful. Again, while I would note that my husband's cousin really would have every intention of returning to India after a visit on a B2, beyond that, I'm not clear on if/when they plan to apply for a green card for her, so I'm not able to provide info on that. (They've said they may both be trying to move to a third country, so maybe that's why they haven't applied for the green card? I'm really not sure.) The main question my husband's cousin asked me was about a B2, so that was my focus with this question.

My husband's cousin in India is (also) married to a U.S. citizen. She and her USC husband have not yet applied for a green card for her through the IR1/CR1 process (honestly not sure what they're waiting for, but that's not my issue here). The cousin wants to come to the U.S. to visit her husband. I've read online there's not any strict rule against granting a B2 tourist visa to a foreign citizen who is married to a U.S. citizen. I had planned to tell this cousin that she could apply for the B2 to visit the U.S., but should be fully upfront about her marriage and plan to provide as much evidence as possible that she won't overstay the visa (and to be clear, she is fully intending to return to India at the end of her visit). FWIW, she has a long-term stable job with a well-known multinational company, as well as a lease of her own in India, so I think she has some good objective evidence that she will return to India after a visit on a B2. But as I search online, I'm not finding many instances of people in similar situations (still living abroad but married to a USC and applying for a B2 visa) successfully being granted a B2 visa. I don't want to tell my husband's cousin that it could be possible to get a B2 if, perhaps, in practice the odds are extremely low. Do others know of examples of people successfully getting a B2 in a situation like this? Thanks for any input.

Yes, there will be definitely some delay between the NOA2 and the interview, just by virtue of the case getting sent to NVC and then to the consulate. But for our timeline, keep in mind this was still during the height of the pandemic when things were moving slowly. And in that 4 months between NOA2 and the interview, the consulate in Mumbai shut down for a month due to the massive COVID surge in late-Spring 2021. Plus, we purposely chose an interview time a month out, because my husband (then-fiance) needed time to get the medical exam, his police clearance certificate, and some other documents. But more generally, the thing that I didn't realize beforehand is that the interview time isn't assigned by the consulate, but rather, applicants choose the time slot themselves, based on what's available. IIRC, after our application got to the consulate, and once we had submitted all the necessary online forms to the consulate and paid the fee, we were eligible to choose an interview time. As I mentioned, at the time my fiance became eligible for this, the Mumbai consulate was completely closed due to the COVID wave at the time. But once they reopened, they would periodically post interview slots, which any eligible applicant could select, whether they had been waiting 3 days or 3 years to schedule their interview. For better or worse, there was no element of "first come, first served" for scheduling the K1 interview. (For us, this was actually better. Back when I thought the consulate assigned the interview time, I thought it would be "first come, first served," and given the huge K1 backlog at the time due to the first year of the pandemic, I thought my fiance would be waiting at least a year for his interview.) I should also clarify that the interview times are posted on some Dept of State or maybe consulate-specific website (it's been a couple years, and I haven't had to use that website since then, so I've kind of forgotten what it was, but I'm guessing you might be familiar with it?). I think there's also a phone number one can call to try to schedule the interview, but I found that less convenient than the website. I found it was best to check the website around the time the consulate in Mumbai opens each day. Sometimes only interview slots a week later would be posted ; my fiance's case, this wasn't enough time to gather everything he needed. At the time we actually selected an interview slot, the interview would be a month later, but there was nothing on the consulate's end stopping us from choosing an earlier interview date. Hopefully this information is helpful, and not too redundant for what you might have read elsewhere. If it would be helpful for me to explain anything else, let me know! Like I said, it's been about 2 years since we were at that stage, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I can try to look up any details that could be helpful.

Looks like your original post was from last summer, so I'm not sure if you're still looking for an answer on this. But if you are, I'd be happy to tell you about my husband's experience getting a K1 interview in Mumbai in 2021. The main point is that it didn't take as long as we worried it would. I don't want to unnecessarily give a long explanation, but happy to share more if it's helpful!

Our most recent RFE (in January) was actually our second RFE. We got our first RFE in November 2021 and responded the next day. We then heard nothing and received no updates through all of 2022. In January 2023, one day the case status changed to actively being reviewed. Then, a few days later, we got the second RFE. We submitted the evidence the next day. Still no update since then, 2.5 months later. I went on Ask Emma today and got confirmation that the official response to our service request about the USCIS's overdue RFE response is simply "there's no update--keep waiting." It would be nice if, say, for every month over 12 months that it takes USCIS to provide a decision on your I-485, you get refunded $100 of the filing fee. Of course, that will never happen, but at least it could ease some frustration.

I appreciate that, but I truly hope we don’t get an approval until late August! No plans yet to apply for citizenship, so not having to deal with USCIS again until 2033 would be wonderful!

Well, I hope it doesn’t! I hope it gets approved August 25 at the soonest!

My husband got an email from USCIS to the service request we submitted last week, since it had been over 60 days since we submitted our RFE response. The email from USCIS said, in so many words, “F--- off, keep waiting.” More specifically, it said they’re still working on the case and we’ll get a response once they’ve made a decision. On my husband’s MyUSCIS account, it looks like still no one has even looked at the RFE response since we submitted it in January. It basically feels like USCIS has abandoned us! But FWIW, we recently decided that we’re not going to do anything to follow up on the I-485 until August. In late August, it’ll be our two year anniversary, and at this point, we feel it’s preferable to just wait ~4 more months to get a 10-year green card. Considering we’ve been going through immigration processes for almost 3 years, it would be a relief not to have to deal with USCIS for another 10 years.

My Congressmember's website says they can only submit an inquiry to USCIS if a case is outside regular processing time. For our field office, it will be about another year until it's outside regular processing time (31 months after applying). I guess I could try to see if the lack of response to an RFE response within 60 days could count as being outside regular processing time. I appreciate your sympathy.

We submitted a response to an RFE over two months ago, in January. Nothing since then. Called USCIS this morning and they submitted an inquiry about it, saying it could take up to 30 days to get a response. Honestly, feeling pretty demoralized.

Are you able to see the second RFE letter on your online USCIS account? It should be available under “Documents” (or at least it was for us) even before you receive it in the mail. We have a somewhat similar situation to you. Got an RFE about a month after first applying, then 14 months later got another RFE asking for our marriage certificate, even though I’m certain we had already submitted it. FWIW, if the second RFE was issued by your local USCIS field office, rather then the NBC, hopefully you won’t have to wait another year for a decision, though of course I can’t say for sure. For our second RFE, issued in January of this year, it came from our field office and it said we should expect a response within 60 days of submitting our evidence. It’s been almost 60 days, and still no response, but at least we have a basis for inquiring about an update after the 60 days. Perhaps your second RFE will say something similar? Not sure if this was helpful, but since your situation sounds similar to ours, just wanted to chime in. Hope you get good news soon, regardless!

It's only been about 45 days, but thank you for mentioning that. I guess we didn't read the RFE letter closely enough, because I hadn't noticed the thing about 60 days. 😬 Thanks for pointing that out! I haven't called for an update yet, but tomorrow I'm going to use Ask Emma to try to get an update. And once it's been 60 days, we'll definitely be calling!

We had the same thing happen in January (2023): an RFE for our marriage certificate, which I'm 100% certain we included in our original AOS packet. Like you, we uploaded a copy the day after the RFE was issued. Still waiting for an update since then! The one tiny bit of helpful news we got from the RFE, though, is that our case now seems to be at the local field office, rather than NBC. Hope we all get good news soon!