appleblossom

There's a whole section of the forum for info on waivers, I'd have a look there, but my understanding is that if you're going to claim a waiver for vaccines you don't have a great case if she's been given others. You've said fiancé so what stage is your application at? Do you have time to get your stepdaughter a waiver?

There's a waiver, adds about a year to the process I believe. Has she had other childhood vaccines though? https://www.uscis.gov/tools/designated-civil-surgeons/vaccination-requirements

Yes, he can petition for you, sounds like you may need a joint sponsor. I still wouldn't try to visit too soon regardless, so if I are you I'd still stay out for longer rather than risking being refused entry. When you do go, make sure you have plenty of proof that you'll return (job to go back to, lease on property, etc). Not sure what 180 days you mean?

It’s NVC that has that rule, not the consulate. And it makes sense really, there must be lots of people who no longer wish to get a visa when their time finally comes, so by giving them a year (which would be plenty of time for most), it frees up other resources if they’ve decided to no longer pursue the visa.

When does her B visa expire? Just be aware that (assuming it’s not cap exempt) the earliest she’s likely to get the visa would be May/June. So you may find she has to return to wait that out too, if she’s lucky enough to get one in the lottery (roughly 1 in 10 chance). And with a 20+ year ahead of her for the F3, that won’t allow her to stay in the US to wait the whole time out. H1-B is for max 6 years. You might want to look at other alternatives. If she’s qualified and has an interested employer that’s prepared to sponsor her visa, maybe an employment based green card instead? What does she do and what is her highest level qualification?

Sorry, can't help with that, they were existing contacts. If you're arguing that you being given an immigration visa is in the interests of the US, that your endeavour is of national importance, and that your knowledge/skills will 'substantially benefit' the US economy etc, I wonder how you'll do that if you don't already have relationships there? Maybe contact people who've asked you to speak at conferences there, or who've headhunted you for jobs? That kind of thing. I'd ask your lawyer what to do, if they've done lots of EB2's before then they'll know what to suggest and it's a question for them really if you can't think of anybody off the top of your head. Good luck.

You'll be sent a checklist for the medical, and for the interview you need to look here - https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/the-immigrant-visa-process/step-10-prepare-for-the-interview/step-11-applicant-interview.html. No photos were required for the medical (they do take their own photos though, when you first arrive and check in for your appointment). 2 were required for the consulate. And on the letter from Visa Medicals it says payment can be made by card or cash. Not sure what you'd need to pay for at the consulate though? We didn't have to pay anything there. But if you are expecting to pay something then I'd check with them directly. HTH.

I didn’t - we didn’t need to reschedule ours so just went with the appointment we were given which was for all 4 of us.

Consultant or lawyer? I very much hope the latter, a ‘visa consultant’ for an EB2 isn’t a good idea! You need a really good lawyer with lots of experience of EB cases to put the best possible case forward. And yes, you do need letters of recommendation and they need to be from people who are very senior/well respected in your industry. You can’t get somebody at the same level as you (or lower) to write them. I applied EB1 (also business rather than academic). My lawyer said 3 letters, and crucially that at least 2 should be from people in the US, as the whole point of the application is to show that the US needs your skills. I put forward about 10 names of people in each country I’d be happy to ask to do the letters and gave their backgrounds, then the lawyers picked who they should be from. They knew who would be best received in the US. For example, for the UK I had several that are very well regarded in my field but maybe their reputation and qualifications wouldn’t be well known in the US - so they picked the guy that worked in the government, as they knew that a letter on headed paper from there would carry much more weight! So I had 2 letters from people who knew me in the US and 1 from the UK. Each letter was 6 or 7 pages long and very detailed. HTH.

You need to pay the fee per person - I paid x 4 for myself, spouse and children. Having separate interviews is very odd, never heard of that before!

But the RFE seems to be for another type of application, it says no visa is currently available for his category. Hence my confusion!

What visa are you actually applying for? You’ve posted this in the K1 AOS section but the RFE doesn’t seem to match that. Please provide more info (and complete your timeline). Thx.

In another thread I gave you the link to the VJ guide to sponsoring parents. HTH.

He was asking Dolibash, whose profile says SA. HTH.

His name is still in it - might want to edit that out.

That's fine if you're in the US, but lots of us apply from overseas where checks are obsolete (I couldn't get a personal check from my bank account in the UK even if I wanted one). As @mam521 said, the US banking system is really behind the times, and unfortunately so are USCIS's payment methods.

Credit card for ours, although we did phone our CC company just to warn them about the upcoming charge and tell them it was authorised. Even though they don't normally reject things for security reasons, I didn't want to risk it! I do the same for any big or unusual transaction. We don't have checks (haven't had a check book in about 15 years, they're just not used in Europe any longer), so it was our only option anyway.

Not sure how it will help, as said above you’re likely to be put in AP for the L visa too. As for green card/citizenship you’d just carry on with your original plan and get the GC via your spouse.

You can look at the monthly visa issuance stats on the USCIS website to see how many Montreal are issuing each month. Probably not many though as they have to prioritise other visa types and Montreal has a huge backlog for all categories. What’s your PD? If you could fill in your Timeline that would be fab. Good luck, I hope you hear soon.

Good luck.

Please read through the thread - if you're an EB2 applicant you have to mail your docs, there's no option to upload.

Am I going completely mad (always a possibility), I thought it still required I-130 even if AOS?

No problem. Just saw your other thread, and yes, her smoking marijuana is potentially a big problem. She needs to stop, and you need to be prepared for a longer process - she may be required to test clear for a year before being approved.

It won't impact her ability, she can continue to work on her H1-B - and she can apply for EAD too if needed, that's quicker but still around 6-8 months so factor that in.

It's still the same visas, even if inside the US. So CR1 if you're married, K-1 if you're not. Both take about 18 months as a rough guide.