MalloryCat

no, submitting the DS-160 does not count towards extending the petition only an officer at the embassy can do that

the approval from USCIS is valid for 4 months. an officer at the embassy can extend a I-129f petition 4 months at a time for up to one year. but it is expected that you will schedule the interview and everything else within or close to that time frame. the beneficiary (the foreign fiance) would have gotten notice from the NVC stating that they received the petition and were forwarding it to the embassy that was listed on the I-129f the foreign fiance would have then received notice from the embassy a few weeks later regarding next steps for scheduling the interview. are you the foreign fiance? you say you submitted your ds-160 but you also submitted the I-129f? the US citizen is the one that files the I-129f and the foreign fiance is the one that submits the DS-160. at this point you need to contact the NVC to see if they have forwarded your petition to the embassy you can do that here https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/ask-nvc.html or you need to contact the embassy to see if they have your petition and what steps you need to take next to continue pursuing it.

oh absolutely, i get it. I told my fiance to bring stuff that he ending up not needing, just in case lol "better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it"

yes the in person meeting is a requirement for the spousal visa. USCIS needs to see the marriage has been "consummated", literally just meaning being together in person either during the wedding ceremony or by visiting after getting married. from my understanding a waiver for the spousal visa is even more rare and hard to obtain. and you're reasoning still would be unlikely to be approved

i believe the summary of our relationship we submitted with our I-129f was about 2 pages? the way I did it was a paragraph about how we met, a paragraph for each visit detailing what we did during each visit, and then a final paragraph basically saying the same thing as the letter of intent, that we are both wanting to get married. but that was only submitted with the original I-129f, they didn't ask for it during the interview at all, as they would have had a copy of it already. it varies with embassies obviously but for proof of relationship I think they ask for pictures more often than not and then ask questions about the pictures. But during my fiances interview they didn't ask to see any pictures.

from my understanding getting the extreme hardship waiver for the I-129f is extremely difficult, almost impossible unless you meet very specific requirements. almost always related to physical health (disability that prevents travel, extreme phobias of flying, tight spaces, home bound, etc.) I believe the chances of you getting a waiver for this reason are extremely unlikely . Cause you technically could hire someone to watch your kids while you travel, or have other family watch them, or you have the ability to take them with you. I understand this would be hard on you and your kids to travel for that long, but it is not impossible. Key word being impossible. your other option would be to go the spousal visa route. this does still require an in person meeting, but only after getting married, which can be done online through Utah Online Marriage. the spousal visa has far more advantages than the K-1 visa. the foreign spouse will be a LPR upon arrival to the US and can work immediately. which isn't the case with the K-1 visa where they have apply for adjustment of status and work authorization. which is more costly and can take 6-12 months to receive.

i believe they cash the check before processing anything you will more than likely get the NOA1 soon the wait is agonizing but don't worry, you'll get it soon 😄

an RFE can be triggered by forgetting ANY required document that are many different ways an RFE can be triggered, it would be impossible to list them all

K-1 visas technically don't have a priority date. i believe we used the NOA2 approval date case ID should be the NVC case number

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/designated-civil-surgeons/vaccination-requirements here are the vaccine requirements she will need to have had at least one of each age appropriate series

you can start filling out the forms and gathering the documents but nothing can be submitted until after she is in the US and you have gotten married. the only thing you can apply for before getting married, but after she has arrived in the US, is the social security number. it is highly recommended that you do this before getting married see here but adjustment of status (green card) and the work authorization have to come after you've gotten married

it sounds like you could easily DIY the I-129f petition yourself. as someone who used boundless (and regrets it) I would 100% say DO NOT go with them. they are not experts and not worth the money. and even though my experience with them wasn't awful, I've had to block 2 of their phones numbers because of the insane amount of calls I have received from them. I'm talking like.. 3 calls from the same person in the span of 15 minutes. each time leaving a voicemail saying the same exact thing. I didn't know this site existed at the time when we filed our I-129f, if I had I would have just filed everything myself and not gone with a company. if you do plan to do it yourself, this site will be incredibly helpful, heres a good place to start https://www.visajourney.com/k1-fiance-visa-overview/

theres no way to know for sure but USCIS jumps around a lot when processing petitions whatever site your using for estimated wait times based on other petitions isn't always going to be 100% accurate. but if your petition was filed in June (like your timeline says) then May petitions would come before yours anyway. i know the waiting is frustrating, but this whole process is a ton of waiting and unfortunately just doesn't always go quick

have you checked the status of your case through USCIS to see if they have sent it to the NVC? based on what others have said they have been much slower sending cases to the NVC. you can either check through your USCIS account or here with your case number - https://egov.uscis.gov/ if it has been sent to the NVC, you can check their processing times here - https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/nvc-timeframes.html if it is passed the processing time for when your case would have been received (if it has already been sent) you can submit a public inquiry to the NVC to get your case number here - https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/ask-nvc.html?wcmmode=disabled if you can get your case number that way, you can track its status for the embassy here (when searching, the visa application type needs to be under "immigrant visa" not "nonimmigrant", even though the K-1 visa is technically nonimmigrant) - https://ceac.state.gov/CEACStatTracker/Status.aspx?App=NIV if it has just been sent to the embassy, the tracker will show as "in transit" and will eventually update to "ready". "ready" just means that the embassy has received it and they will be contacting your fiance with the next steps (no exact time frame on that as it is embassy specific) you can read information about the consulate in Lima here - https://www.visajourney.com/consulates/index.php?ctry=Peru&cty=Lima it also lists what documents your fiance should bring to her interview. any communication now will go directly to the foreign fiance. Once it does leave the NVC and the embassy has received it, the embassy will send what is typically called packet 3 to your fiance. this packet will contain the information for the next steps of the process. including how to schedule the interview, how and when to schedule the medical exam, and what documents your fiance will need to bring to the interview. for your side though, you will need to fill out and gather the evidence for the I-134 Affidavit of Support and send this to your fiance for her to bring to the interview. the I-134 evidence needs to show current income, so tax return transcripts, employment authorization letter, pay stubs.

she cannot receive or apply for a SSN until she is in the US on her K-1 Visa here is a guide for applying for a SSN while on a K-1 Visa

That is correct

if your case is still at the NVC, you can submit an inquiry to them about transferring your case, you can do that here. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/ask-nvc.html Calling the NVC usually doesn't get you anywhere if your case has already left the NVC and is at the embassy, you need to contact the embassy you want to transfer it to and they will initiate the transfer from the original embassy.

any communication now goes to the beneficiary (foreign fiance) the US citizen doesn't receive any mail from the NVC, only the foreign fiance will. But in my fiances case, he didn't get a letter from the NVC until well after we already knew it had been at the embassy. As the person above said, it would be better to just submit an inquiry to the NVC to get your case number, that is what we did. The DS-160 is valid for 1 year after submitting it. so it technically can be submitted at any point, but I also agree reading through the regional forms to get more clear answers on the process for your country's embassy

you should check your case status on USCIS before contacting the NVC again you can do that here https://egov.uscis.gov/ sending your I-797 won't achieve anything

when we submitted our I-129f none of the pictures we included had us with either of our families. the only pictures we had were just of us two. I believe we only included between 5-10 photos and they were all just selfies of us together. we never received any kind of RFE or anything. I believe the 2 or 3 pages explaining our relationship (how we met, how our relationship is, recounts of the visits we had, etc.) helped significantly in our case. Since we had so few pictures(I hate taking pictures of myself, always have, so providing pictures was a struggle lol) i don't believe it would cause an out right rejection. at the very least you could get an RFE to provide more proof of relationship. But USCIS mostly wants to see that you've met in person within the last 2 years before filing (i.e. met sometime in person between October 2022 and October 2024). Which is best shown through passport stamps, I-94 records, flight itineraries, etc. Pictures are secondary evidence to those things.

the interview won't be able to be scheduled until after your fiance (the beneficiary) has received instructions from the embassy on how to next proceed. same goes for the medical, you will have to wait until the embassy contacts your fiance. a DS-160 that hasn't been completed or submitted is saved as a draft for 30 days. once the DS-160 is submitted, it stays valid for 1 year.

you get your case ID from the NVC but if it was only just sent yesterday, it will take at the very least 30 days for NVC to process it and assign it a case number see the processing times here https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/nvc-timeframes.html they are working on cases they received on september 12th. they more than likely won't receive your case for at least a few more days, as I am pretty sure I-129f cases are still sent by physical mail. you will probably get a generic "we don't have your case" response to the inquiry you already submitted. you will probably have to wait another month or so and try again. or the foreign fiance will receive a letter from the NVC with the case number. but that is usually pretty slow.

the letter my fiance (the non-USC) received from the NVC was addressed to him. I (the USC) never received any letters from the NVC other than the email reply to the inquiry I had made. any communication from now on will go directly to you, the non-USC the wording is a little odd, but there isn't anything to correct on it i don't believe this letter is used for anything in the immigration process, as it is just to keep you updated on where your petition is

we went through boundless for our I-129f in hindsight we could have and should have just done it ourselves but the people who actually put together the packet and that you talk to for the most part aren't immigration attorneys or anything of the sort. just call themselves "experts", of which the majority are not. i guess i would say we had someone with more experience work on ours and we weren't given any incorrect information. honestly, they probably get some kind of kickback from the translation service that they advertise. wouldn't be surprised if that is why they are insisting you get the BC translated because of the one sentence. i wouldn't say "difficult" but they are very annoying i've had to block 2 different phone numbers from them because they just don't stop calling, even though we are well past the point of needing them.

i (the petitioner) never received communication from the NVC. my fiance in Germany did get a letter from them saying they had our petition. but this was over a month after it had already been at the embassy. so well past the NVC stage. you can check the NVC processing timelines here, this is usually pretty accurate and should give you a good idea about when NVC will process your petition https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/nvc-timeframes.html on your NOA2 it should say something like "after 4 weeks/30 days you can submit an inquiry to the NVC about the status of your petition". That would be what I would recommend you do next. you can do that here https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/ask-nvc.html