leviiathan

Read the first page very carefully.. > send us the following documents by e-mail: It goes on to list 1. Ds-160 confirmation page, 2. Scanned copy of the checklist below, 3. Colour-Scanned copy of the beneficiaries valid passport bio page. That's what you send them. The three things it lists for you to send. Many recommend filling out the checklist, a check mark for what you have/will have, and an N/A for things that dont apply. You do NOT need to send everything on the checklist nor would that benefit you at all, just send what it asks you to send on the first page! Make sure you have a long form birth certificate and the right police report. Those are very specific and one of the MAIN 221g's ive seen at the consulates are due to not having the right ones.

I also do want to mention, that 3-4 months is a very generous estimate you're giving. First 90 days, you'll likely still be settling. You may PLAN to file adjustment of status and marry right away, but natural delays may set you back. I intended to file for AOS within the first month, the second at LATEST. Ended up not marrying until the second month, and filing for AOS on the third. I got really lucky with my work authorization wait times, but for many people it can be many months, or over a year. It means that you have to plan for what could be sure 3 months off work, or what could be over a year because that's the unfortunate reality with the wait times of work authorization on a K-1. Never plan to get lucky, I actually frequently suggest to plan for the absolute worst timelines or luck because you never know if it could be you. And when better luck happens, you'd be overjoyed But if you dont plan for the worst of the timelines when you are making your selection, you might end up putting yourself in a bad spot. meaning it could potentially be over a year, unable to work, drive (this depends on the state), or leave the country on K-1, so gotta be prepared for that if you do end up choosing K-1

Take all dates with a grain of salt. When I applied for I-129f, the wait for petition approval was 6-9 months, when I was approved it was 12 months. I had no idea when I was going to be approved, each day I was looking at what cases they were processing trying to figure out even a rough idea, and there just was no possible way to estimate it. I didn't know things could change so fast, you never know with USCIS. I have a friend who applied for I-129f months ago when the speeds weren't exactly getting better, and their wait was an estimated 14-16 months. Now it's looking like it 12 or under, and they're not quite feeling ready for that speed. USCIS will throw countless curveballs at you, that will have you so confused. Hope for the best, expect the worst, and expect your expectations of the worst to be blown out of the water because somehow, they have the ability to always disappoint you. USCIS timelines are simply a display of "How long have the current approvals been waiting?" not, "How will approvals look 12+ months down the line". In reality, you wont have a good idea on when you can/will move until you have the visa in your hand. There are even occasionally issues at the interview that lengthens your wait, Montreal for example gives out a lot of DS-3025 that ends up taking people like 6+ months to get through. Still uncommon, but point is; you don't know what will delay you. Don't rely on a timeline.

The thing that I think you're missing, is there are multiple steps to the K-1 process. First you file your I-129f petition, you wait for your case to be adjudicated either with an RFE, approval, or in rare cases a denial. Once approved, your case is sent to the national visa center which is essentially just a mailing center for K-1 (but they do a lot more for I-130 CR1/IR1) which sends it off to the consulate. Montreal then sends you P3, which is a pre-interview checklist to ensure you have everything you need. Once you reply to them with the information requested in the P3, they send you P4. That can be same day, or it can be a few weeks. P4 allows you to book the interview. My wait was about 5 months for the interview, and it would've been 4 but I had an issue with the consulate. They ghosted me, despite having only sent 2 emails. Weird. But we resent it on my Husbands end and got our P4. As you can view from my timeline My I-129f was approved in 367 days from my NOA1 date. My interview took 521 days from my I-129F NOA1 date. There wasn't a huge extra wait for my interview, and I still am a regular chatter with a bunch of other Montreal peeps whos timelines are very similar to mine, and more recent. I-130 is similar, but has a different NVC > Interview process which is longer than K-1's NVC > interview. For the I-130, they actually ask stuff for you at NVC and whatnot I couldnt do I-130 because of covid, I couldn't leave Canada because there was a mandatory hotel quarantine that was costing people around $2000 at minimum in my area. I can't afford that, we had enough money for all visa expenses and the while of time I cannot work, but what we didn't have is "just because" money. We had no idea when Canada was going to lift those restrictions, so we filed K-1. The restrictions didn't lift until months later, so I am still confident in that choice but I do wish I-130 had been possible. K-1 has sucked. If I leave out the part where they processed me as a b2 on entry, then it's still been a heap of trouble. Trying to get on my husbands bank as a joint sponsor, they kept trying to input me as a citizen. I kept telling them the importance of them NOT doing that, I'm not a citizen and I don't want false claims that I am literally being on my bank account, that sounds really dangerous. But time and time again they kept calling to check if citizenship was the right box, and said that they didn't have any other options because I don't have an ITIN. Eventually, they called some supervisor and was able to resolve that. When my husband and I were quoted health insurance, we searched all around. The cheapest we could find was like $250, with a 9k deductible and doctor visits not covered. I'm pretty young, so unless something absolutely devastating happens I am not frequenting hospital visits, nothing I do would even reach that 9k. We don't have that kind of money for a possibility. The only viable option, or the one I thought would be fine, was $500 and it had doctor visits, prescriptions, and I forget how much the deductible was but it was significantly less. The issue is, we don't have an extra $500/month to put towards health insurance! On a k-1 you can't work for awhile, so that's Rent/mortgage, health insurance, car insurance, food, and care products all on one persons pay. Many can afford that, some can't. It hasn't been an issue in my marriage, even now i'm not working to further my career despite being able to, but it is an additional stress for something that could feel very preventable if you were simply able to work! Not all jobs in america provides good health insurance either, my husbands work covers something so little that im surprised they can even call it health insurance. $150/year towards wellness checks, like.. $100 per overnight hospital visits... Another big issue, is no travel permission. I have seen many cases of people who entered on a k-1, realize one of their close family members is dying. Even with an expedited I-131, they didn't get it in time to say goodbye. That's a real possibility, you never know what could happen and how fast USCIS will deal with it. There's something really hard about being the beneficiary, unable to travel knowing each day something could happen to your childhood dog, or your parent, or sibling, or friend, and not be certain that you'd be able to be there! I feel so happy each day that I got my GC before anything bad happened, but not everyone is as lucky as I to be able to say that. Hope this helps, K-1 is a nightmare and I hope that whatever path you choose, that it turns out great.

K-1 doesn't currently have any longer of a wait at the Canada Montreal Consulate. It used to be pretty bad, now it's just a normal wait of a few months with the P3 and P4 process. Spousal though is overall better for all the options above stated by Crazy Cat. I doubt your lawyer said that to skew your options or screw your over, at least the incorrect wait part, as not very long ago it was taking 8 months for an interview. It cleared up around the time I had my interview actually, and has remained steady. Its pretty common for lawyers to be behind on their information, as they are basing their information typically off recent clients, and not always current experiences. Means they miss out on a lot of information This is not to discredit the advice of going the I-130 spousal route, as I would opt for that if it had been an option for me due to all the benefits it has.

If you are filing AOS within one year of your medical, you do not need to do the I-693 as per the instructions. You should've received the DS-3025 from your medical doctor you can throw in, and if you want to be extra sure to not have any issues you can throw in the instructions page of the I-693 (iirc its page 7) that says that you do not need it. If they end up asking for it though, you can do it at that point