sonnyboy0323

#1- Ensure you've read the I864 instructions FIRST.
 
1. Return Transcript
OR not And
2. Copies of your full FEDERAL tax Return (all pages and schedules) AND earnings statement(s) (Earnings statements are W2s or 1099s).
No. The 1040 is not a full tax return.
Yes if that's how many pages your Complete Federal return is.
If those are FEDERAL, yes.
It will say Schedule as the title.
 
*BUT you can avoid ALL of your confusion and simply submit a Return Transcript.
The instructions will be helpful to you to eliminate your confusion.

Tax return transcript from IRS website is preferred. In this case, no 1040 or W2 is needed.

Our case was sent to the NVC on June 17th, I did an inquiry on July 7th and got my case number July 9th!
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/ask-nvc.html
That's the inquiry link 🙂

Yes, it's an approved I 129f that was approved August 13th.  Received one RFE and replied to it, one week later we were approved.  Our approved petition won't get sent to the NVC though.  I noticed they moved the California location the day before on August 12th.  I know it's it's just not fair and I can't do anything

Received NOA2 on August 13th and its October 21st and our application is still not sent to the NVC unfortunately.  After a PI they pointed fingers at each other and no progress after two additional weeks. 
 
The government acts as if they fixed the backlog problem by focusing all the attention on the California Center, meanwhile the NVC in New Hampshire now has a backlog of 385,000 applications and can only schedule ~55,000 interviews a month.  
 
The merely moved the problem to another facility and now charge us more money for the Vaseline they use on us.  Good ol America for you.

it's very difficult to be patient and stay positive when there's those like myself and others like me who's cases have been very obviously skipped over, waiting for just about 150 days at this point, while others get their NOA2 in barely over a month. 
but congrats to you, all the best.
if i may ask, how was the CFO process? did they ask for a certificate of no marriage and police/fbi clearance for the petitioner? 

Man, they're sure knocking those cases out right? 
How's that "rapid clip" going there buddy? 

Still waiting for my case (march 4) to get approved, but there were several approvals from Feb 23 (the first of the skipped days) on friday of last week. Waiting to see what happens this week; they also started approving the first day of June (3rd). 
 
Also seriously this thread in general is just so comical - complaining the process is "so" fast and you want to slow it down, where's the consideration lol, some of us are STILL waiting and have had to continuously watch people who filed months after us get approved whilst we wait and have no movement for our entire week. talk abut complaining about having it good 

Don't get hung up on just the visa processing time. While getting a CR-1 visa may take a few more months, it will allow you to start working, driving, etc, immediately after arrival in the US. With the K-1, you will basically be stuck at home for many months after arrival.
 
And to get back to your original question: the chance of winning the DV lottery is very small, so don't count on it. Your marriage-based immigration option has a much higher chance of success, so don't wait to find out the DV lottery results.

The timing difference may have been true many years ago.  Right now, K-1 and CR-1 are both taking 1-2 years.  CR-1 is the far superior way to go.

LMAO where are you pulling that from? thin air? there's still TONS of late feb-early march cases that are just sitting there skipped. 
 
"rapid clip" LMAO what a joke. still at a screeching halt. and the best part is those of us with PH beneficiaries are SOL because the medical exam cost is going up in August, and we have no choice but to pay because we were unlucky enough to file in this HYPER SPECIFIC set of dates that just got skipped for no good reason, with no communication or explanation. but yeah, we should just be all smiles and give USCIS all the kudos and backpats while a we wait, and a decent number of filers AFTER us, get approved before us, and in barely over a month at that. yeah, good. 👍

it's very difficult to be patient and stay positive when there's those like myself and others like me who's cases have been very obviously skipped over, waiting for just about 150 days at this point, while others get their NOA2 in barely over a month. 
but congrats to you, all the best.
if i may ask, how was the CFO process? did they ask for a certificate of no marriage and police/fbi clearance for the petitioner? 

it's very difficult to be patient and stay positive when there's those like myself and others like me who's cases have been very obviously skipped over, waiting for just about 150 days at this point, while others get their NOA2 in barely over a month. 
but congrats to you, all the best.
if i may ask, how was the CFO process? did they ask for a certificate of no marriage and police/fbi clearance for the petitioner? 

Feel exactly the same. March 4 filer here, part of the skipped period, and there is still no movement from our week, only expedite approval cases. The approvals from march and Feb are just dates that are already mostly approved already, not the untouched days. & USCIS doesn't want to acknowledge that at all and just pretends like nothings going on with it. Meanwhile there has been mass approvals in May and a lot of them under 50 days.

LMAO where are you pulling that from? thin air? there's still TONS of late feb-early march cases that are just sitting there skipped. 
 
"rapid clip" LMAO what a joke. still at a screeching halt. and the best part is those of us with PH beneficiaries are SOL because the medical exam cost is going up in August, and we have no choice but to pay because we were unlucky enough to file in this HYPER SPECIFIC set of dates that just got skipped for no good reason, with no communication or explanation. but yeah, we should just be all smiles and give USCIS all the kudos and backpats while a we wait, and a decent number of filers AFTER us, get approved before us, and in barely over a month at that. yeah, good. 👍

My observation is that if the counselor somehow decides to make things difficult for a particular applicant then they can totally do that.  They CAN make up rules as they go along. Your guess is as good as anyone's about what ticked them off.  The best course of action to put on a big smile and just play along with whatever the ask for and get it over with.  It's no use trying to second guess them.

The original article is here: 
https://www.ueunion.org/ue-news/2024/service-contract-act-locals-fight-for-jobs-effective-immigration-process?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2Q3vx_D0ESEzAJMgbanb-AQLMKWJ2UVCZVi25QwaXqz-htrOhozxOtvW4_aem_GC8BOOlfRY5Oqo6bNRPG9w
 
But this article is EXTREMELY incorrect and spreading misinformation.
UE Local 1008 means contract workers for USCIS not permanent jobs..
 
 
Those were not federal case workers.
There's a USCIS employee who responded to that original article and said 
 
"This article is misleading at best. The workers who were "laid off" are NOT federal employees. They do not adjudicate cases. They are federal contractors. USCIS just opted to not renew the contract and instead hire more officers.
 
Also, officers are not non-union workers. We have our own union." 
 
"They were contractors. Not Federal employees. USCIS did not lay off any employees the contracting company did." 
USCIS didn't fire those employees, they decided not to renew a contract for federal contractors.
 
And that 
 
"CSC is moving but it isn't moving to Texas, it is moving to a different office in California"
 
 
Also for some context USCIS is not a government funded organisation / agency. It is ran entirely off of the fees that people pay to submit their applications. 
 
& also those employees that were "laid off" that happened even before USCIS slowed down.

Thanks for the reference.   It sounds like this is not a permanent reduction in cases.  I am sure there will be a temporary disruption but once things settle down; everything will be good.  It is just a pain because those of us that are affected feel cheated.  However, in the big picture, what is a few months delay?  Nothing really.

Yeah exactly how you said! Everyone else thinks the same, it won't make a difference in the long run. It's just a small temp disruption. naturally still not nice for them to lose their jobs though, but it isn't USCIS' fault.

Yea, tmvn put out a YT video on this.  They are just as confused as the rest of us.  They claim this is the first time the USCIS has "skipped over" a full week of cases.  Actually it happened twice, a week's worth of FEB cases and a week's worth of MAR cases.  I see they are now working on those "skipped" cases so you will hear back soon.  As I mentioned, tmvn says they will start working on June filers next week, so they are knocking out FEB-MAY cases at a rapid clip.  I suggest you watch that video.
 
The real question is how did this happen?  Did someone pitch the files and went fishing, or to the bar?  Now that things are electronic, I doubt they tossed the I-129f forms in the trash, never to be seen again.  I believe (not certain) that the NOA1 is generated after the forms are scanned into the system.  So it seems logical to me that once an NOA1 has been sent, it will get adjudicated at some point.  It is not like they have a system Hack.   Well on second thought, we are talking about he Biden Administration here.  They cannot do anything right.

I am hoping someone out there can answer my question. I will state it succinctly and then provide some details after.
 
DO LAWYERS AND CONSULTANTS USE THE SAME PROCESS AS INDIVIDUALS TO SECURE AN APPOINTMENT FOR AN INTERVIEW?
 
Let me explain... 
My Filipina fiance and I are trying to obtain a K1 visa for her. Due to cost, we decided to go the route of doing it all ourselves and not use a lawyer or consulting service. We are at the point where we have been prompted to schedule an interview for an appointment.  For many days now, there are no appointments available. The process for getting an interview appointment apparently is to refresh your browser 12 times a day, every 2 hours until it shows an appointment available. I have read a lot of forums and this seems to be the way you have to do it.   
So, that leads to my question... Are the lawyers and consultants seriously sitting at their computers going through this asinine process to get their clients an appointment? Do they have a back door they use to get the appointment slots? 
 
To say I am frustrated is an understatement. You can walk across the southern border and get a free cell phone, accommodations, paychecks, etc., but it takes buku months if you want to do it legally.  Government bureaucracy is maddening.
 
Thanks.     

We've been waiting since 4 March. They've skipped cases between Feb 23 and March 6th. They've stalled / slowed down on approving cases around end of May for some reason, many of us thought it was to go back and approved the skipped period (over 2.3k cases) but in the last few weeks there has still been barely any movement (around 5 case approvals across the 2 week skipped period in total, 3 of them expedites).
 
It's been a 143 days for us. Our friend filed Feb 27 and still waiting.. tmvn and none of the other visa sites were helpful or accurate with any of us during that 2 week period. They just skipped us.

I can be patient if they could just say
1. We have your case
2. We are working on it
3. It takes an average of x months for these visas
4. The next step is Y
5. We will notify you through z when ready.
 
If they just said that, I would sleep like a baby and have all the patience in the world. But I have no such assurances or even clarification that they have our stuff, as it clearly status on the NVC side. I think Yoga and meditation were invented for these very situations but somehow they forgot to tell include a part that actually calms be down when.I have zero information:)

The above answer is correct for USCIS's purposes.
 
More crucial is the consulate at which the beneficiary will be interviewing.
"Tough" consulates prefer as much in-person "face time" as you can show evidence of.
Manila is not a tough consulate; they hand out K-1 visas like candy in comparison with others.
Visit for the sake of your relationship.

^^This ^^^.  Best practice would have been to get the Social Security number before marriage.  The I-765 package and I-131 package can be sent along with the I-485 package. 
You can read this guide: