TiffAndMike

Come on everyone, can we ease up on the OP and be a little supportive ? He's entitled to feel the way he feels. I think every single one of us has been in for something unxepected here and there during our own journey's. I don't think he is trying to act entitled, I think he is just in shock to how the legal immigration system actually works. To the OP: I get it and I sympathize with you, I really do. When my husband and I first realized that we wanted to be each other's "forevers" I did extensive research over the course of 6 months on Legal immigration, what our options were and spoke with numerous attorneys before we decided which path we wanted to pursue in order for us to be in the states permanently together. At the time, USCIS was processing I-129s in the same amount of time as I-130s. We decided that we wanted to go with the IR-1 visa as it was just as fast, less expensive and less red tape. 6 months later, we were married and starting our immigration process. At the time when we filed, USCIS was taking 11 months to process the I-130. Our petition was given a priority date of 12/07/2023..... 11 months meant that it would either be approved or denied by November 2024. Fast forward 1 year later.... Yesterday marked the 1 year mark of USCIS having our petition and yet here we are sitting here still waiting for their decision. What was supposed to be 11 months til a decision has grown into 16 months. Myself and everyone else currently going through the process have seen our expected processing times grow month after month in what seems like a never ending cycle. The part of the whole process that shocked and royally pissed me off is finding out that USCIS can just continuously increase your processing time whenever they see fit. Going into this, I thought that when they said "11 months" it meant "11 months" and that future petitions may take longer than that, not ones that were currently pending. I also did not know that every time Biden announced a new "TPS" or "parole in place/advanced parole" scheme, that it would affect the time it took petitions like mine to be processed. It is heartbreaking, frustrating, agonizing and infuriating. Every single one of us has had to make sacrifices and put our lives on hold while we go through what seems like a neverending process. Is it fair to us that we did everything the way we are supposed to it only to watch those that broke the law get priority? Absolutely not. I particularly am not enjoying spending the holidays once again without my husband but unfortunately, it is what it is and it's out of my control. I've had to learn how to accept it for what it is and not dwell on the fact that my government is failing me. If you dwell on it, it will do nothing but consume you and make you beyond bitter. Believe me, I know. The range of emotions I have felt going through the LEGAL immigrantion system has truly been a roller-coaster ride. I am a realistic person. I knew what I was getting into but it didn't prepare me for how I would feel. I really don't think anyone could really be prepared for the emotional part of the journey. my thoughts to you is to just go through the process of getting your wife to the states. While you are doing this, don't focus on how long it takes. Instead put all your energy and time into creating the best life you can for your family once they here in the states. Get your future home ready for them. Paint the bedroom your wife's favorite color and decorate it to her taste. Go shopping for things that you know your daughter would love to have in her room, etc. My husband is going to be leaving pretty much everything he owns behind when he moves to the states so I am constantly looking for things I know he likes to make the apartment I live in feel like home to him. I also shop for clothes for him. We use Skype and Whatsapp to go shopping together. You are lucky like I am that your spouse is in a visa waiver country so the two of you can visit each other during the process without a lot of red tape. She will have to apply for an ESTA to visit you but it's pretty affordable (about $20 every 2 years) and easy to obtain even with a pending I-130. She can stay for up to 3 months at a time. Once you get your recipt notice from USCIS, go ahead and file for a K3. It will be denied but could help your I-130 speed up by a couple of months. Even if it don't, it's free to file and there is nothing to lose other than the cost of postage. If you ever need advice or just someone to vent to, feel free to pm me. Sometimes it helps just to talk to someone who understands what you are going through.

My advice is to go ahead and get your vaccines right away. My husband had to get all of his and his Hep B vaccine was in 3 dosages that had to be spread out over a couple of months. He's in Germany. I believe he had to get the MMR as well. His vaccine records were all lost so had to take all of them again. We haven't even had the I-130 approved yet but we wanted to be ahead of everything so we'd be ready when our time comes. He just has to take a covid booster and possibly the flu vaccine. The covid booster is if you haven't had the vaccine in over a year. I am hoping that the requirement of this one just goes away as it isn't even required for Americans. Kinda a double standard if you ask me.

He will definitely try to. He's challenging the 14th amendment due to the wording of it. It will be up to the courts at that point. Another option which he has already talked about doing is ending "chain migration". He has specifically mentioned ending IR-1s for parents of USC's and LPR's. Making IR-1's only available to spouses and minor children of USC's and LPR's would would drastically cut down on "anchor babies" as it would eliminate the opportunity for them to ever sponser their illegal parents. For the life of me, I can not figure out why we allow women to come into this country when you can obviously tell that they are going to give birth at any moment.

The paralegal at my attorneys office told me that typically the service center closest to your residence typically handles your petition 😳

I honestly think that his primary focus upon entering office is going to be on closing the border and getting all these violent criminals, cartels and gang members out of this country. He will implement the "Remain in Mexico" policy again. All of Biden's "Parole in Place" policies will cease to exists. He will either try to get countries that refuse to let us deport their citizens to take them back or he will just flat out deny their visas. He eventually will attempt to end family chain migration, abolish certain types of visas and change the law on "birthright citizenship" by requiring at least one parent to be either a USC or LPR. Most countries actually do require at least one parent to be a naturalized citizen in order for their child to be granted citizenship of that country. I don't believe that those of us who have immediate family or fiance cases will be affected negatively. They just raised the fees on those this year so I doubt they will raise them again. I think if anything, our cases will actually speed up drastically since they won't be in a rush to issue work permits to everyone under the sun with false asylum claims. USCIS is primarily fee funded by those of us who go through the legal channels. There are currently quite a few "fee waivers" right now. I'm pretty sure that most of them will go away as they should. The current backlog that we have is due to a lot of the immigration policies Biden put into place and not requiring fees for them. Think about it, if USCIS isn't getting money from certain petitions, then they have no money to hire more staff to process those petitions. As a result, USCIS has to allocate the bulk of their staff to process those petitions while the backlog of paid petitions keeps growing longer and longer. When I first applied for my husband to come to the states in December 2023, the current wait time was 11 months. If the wait time would of stayed consistent, I'd be getting my approval any day now if I didn't already have it. Evey single time Biden created a new parole in place scheme, I saw my wait time continue to climb up. It is now sitting at 15.5 months! 6 1/2 extra months than it was when I filed. I actually voted for Trump as I saw him as my only hope to get my husband here with me sometime in the next year. With Kamala, I'd probably be waiting another 4 or 5 years.

I'd talk to an immigration attorney about it. There are plenty of them out there that give free consultations. My attorney only specializes in fiance and spouse visas and he gives free consultations. I could give you his name if you want. If an attorney says it will be an issue, then it would probably be smart to hire one in the event that you have to apply for a waiver. Most attorneys will not touch an immigration case unless they are the one who filed it in the first place. If I remember correctly, if you only have one CIMT and it wasn't super serious then you should be okay. I'd double check that though as it has been over a year since I looked into it. Also, I'd go ahead and have them get a copy of their court and police records ahead of time so they know exactly what appears on it. I had my husband do this as we were worried about stuff he did when he was a minor coming back to haunt us.

Potomac...the slowest service center there is. Idk why it was sent there considering I live in Texas and less than an hour away from the Texas Service Center. Have you been on USCIS site recently? If so, how long does it say on yours? Mine said 9 months. 🤬

We can definitely do that! Which service center has your petition?

Congratulations! What processing center had your case?

It's not 2 months longer. It is 5 to 6 months longer. According to when I applied, my case was supposed to of been adjudicated next month and now the estimate is the end of February. I even have an email from USCIS that states it is now taking 15.5 months. And you can go look for yourself on the USCIS website, it clearly shows how some petitions have speed up while others had drastically slowed down. https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/historic-pt

Go to USCIS's website and you will see it for yourself. You will see how certain petitions have drastically speed up while others have drastically slowed down. Sign up for emails from USCIS and you will recieve all kinds of emails about what they are now implementing. And look on government websites pertaining to Homeland Security. You will see where it clearly states that USCIS decides where to allocate it's own staff. It isn't because of the application fee going up. They have been giving priority to cranking out new voters, granting work permits and dealing with all of Biden's immigration executive orders. Have you not noticed that every single time there is a new executive order by Biden pertaining to immigration that our wait times go further up? Those are the absolute reasons why they are taking so long. They don't care about us.

For those who might benefit from this: My husband has a pending I-130 and his ESTA expires this month. When he came to visit me last month, we applied to renew his ESTA and it was approved within 4 hours. Yes, you can renew a ESTA with a pending I-130.

Make sure to fill out the page number, item number and part number on the last page

If you've been waiting for 10 months now, I'd assume that you are a November or December filer then? I'm a December filer myself (priority date Dec 7) and I too have been waiting 10 months. So trust me, I'm just as flusterated as you are. I hate being separated from my husband who happens to be German. I know when we both filed, it was only taking 11 months at the time. Unfortunately, USCIS has decided to prioritize other petition types over I-130's. It sucks but there is nothing we can do about it. I can tell you from personal experience that even if you put in an expidited request, USCIS will not look at it anytime soon nor will they approve it. I tried for an expidited request for medical reasons back in March and they denied it MONTHS later. And I BARELY did not qualify for it. Your situation will definitely not qualify for it. You and I are getting closer to our approvals and eventually they will happen. Believe me, I know this waiting is awful.