Update: timeline for DCF from a non-DCF country with exceptional circumstances

[pyridine 12]

Just wanted to share the extremely fast experience I have had with doing DCF for the CR-1 visa as a US citizen living abroad from a non-DCF country (Denmark) with an exceptional circumstance, which was a short notice (~3 months) new job offer in the US for me. I was given quite a lot of misinformation here by some commentors (including that the request to file DCF would undoubtedly be refused) and hope this will be useful if anyone else is searching for the process for this in the future.

 

1. The exceptional circumstance was practically automatically approved because it's one of the official ones allowed. I sent the letter and information the embassy requested on December 11 and received an email from the embassy on December 14 inviting me to file the I-130 at the embassy on December 18. In this time, they had gotten permission from USCIS London office to allow filing of the I-130 at Copenhagen.

 

2. I-130 was approved today on January 2nd, and we have received the checklist of documents from the consulate in Stockholm that we will need for the interview (where immigrant visas from Scandinavian countries all get sent; Copenhagen only does non-immigrant). They ask us to send them a completed checklist first - when they are satisfied, I assume we will be able to select an interview date.

 

So including that this took place over the holidays, it took a grand total of 22 days to go from requesting DCF to having the I-130 approved. We could not even get all our documents together in time for the interview yet (it's proving somewhat challenging to obtain my husband's military record), but it's looking very likely that my husband will be able to accompany me back to the US in mid-March. I was afraid we would have several months of separation and could find virtually no information for this situation on this forum. Of course individual outcomes may vary but the embassy here was very efficient and I am very happy. It has been even faster than doing DCF from a country with a USCIS office.

Edited January 2, 2018 by pyridine

[Jorge V 195]

That's awesome. I don't know why others told you it would be automatically refused. A few similar cases have popped here and have been approved. I feel like we should sticky your post or something as I can imagine this question is common.

[pyridine 12]

9 hours ago, Jorge Valdivia said:

That's awesome. I don't know why others told you it would be automatically refused. A few similar cases have popped here and have been approved. I feel like we should sticky your post or something as I can imagine this question is common.

I think some people were confusing the exceptional circumstance for an expedite, which is not what this is at all. But after finding the list of exceptional circumstances written out very clearly in official memos and a State Department manual, I was feeling quite confident that this would be approved. I think if you clearly fit into one of the circumstances and can prove it, it is very unlikely you will be rejected.

 

One person tried to convince me it was not a valid exceptional circumstance and linked a memo older than the one I found, which was explicitly from before when DCF was eliminated at all embassies! After they eliminated automatic DCF from all countries without USCIS offices, they added the circumstance of a short notice job relocation or new job offer to the list. It makes sense because otherwise a lot of people would be pretty screwed over, waiting a year or more for their spouse to join them back in the US when they were married and living together abroad.  Also made more impossible by the steep financial requirements for expats to sponsor their spouse, since you can't do it with a non-US income and basically HAVE to have a job offer in the US to do this without substantial savings. While I didn't initially trust the US government to not make this completely stupid and impossible, I have to say that my faith in them is restored a bit. 

 

For some reason it seems to be a relatively rare thing but I don't frequent here enough to see all the questions. I could only find one with any information about possible timelines from a lot of searching and it wasn't very detailed.

 

 

Edited January 3, 2018 by pyridine

[Boiler 45,523]

You can use non US income btw.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Boiler

[pyridine 12]

2 hours ago, Boiler said:

You can use non US income btw.

I'm quite certain you can't, at least not if that income is not continuing when you return home to the US, which is usually isn't. The I-864 is not really written for the perspective of a US citizen returning home from working abroad. It says to provide "proof that the intending immigrant’s current employment will continue from the same source if his or her income is being used." Which is if you're using the spouse's income to qualify, but undoubtedly it would be the same story for the sponsor if their job abroad were ending as soon as they went back to the US. Then it only makes sense that they'd have to have assets or a job offer already established in the US to be able to sponsor, no?  Advice I've found about it on other forums is that while it's not explicitly stated on the form, the income reported on the I-864 will be ignored if it is obviously not continuing on return to the US. It's definitely tricky business.

Edited January 3, 2018 by pyridine

[Jorge V 195]

7 hours ago, pyridine said:

I'm quite certain you can't, at least not if that income is not continuing when you return home to the US, which is usually isn't. The I-864 is not really written for the perspective of a US citizen returning home from working abroad. It says to provide "proof that the intending immigrant’s current employment will continue from the same source if his or her income is being used." Which is if you're using the spouse's income to qualify, but undoubtedly it would be the same story for the sponsor if their job abroad were ending as soon as they went back to the US. Then it only makes sense that they'd have to have assets or a job offer already established in the US to be able to sponsor, no?  Advice I've found about it on other forums is that while it's not explicitly stated on the form, the income reported on the I-864 will be ignored if it is obviously not continuing on return to the US. It's definitely tricky business.

This is my understanding as well. You cannot use any income that will not continue from the same source after moving to the US.

 

My wife and I were actually able to use both of our incomes on the I-864 as I was working remotely for a US company while living in Mexico and she continued to work the same position at a multinational company. However, we decided to use assets as we figured that was simpler.

 

I'm pretty sure a job offer qualifies as long as the start date is soon after you move back to the US, if not before. If you can't get job offer before then you'll definitely need a cosponsor. The good news is that you should not need to present the I-864 until the interview, which is the final stage. This might give you enough time to find a job. This also might vary by embassy but this was the case for us in Mexico.

[Boiler 45,523]

8 hours ago, pyridine said:

I'm quite certain you can't, at least not if that income is not continuing when you return home to the US, which is usually isn't. The I-864 is not really written for the perspective of a US citizen returning home from working abroad. It says to provide "proof that the intending immigrant’s current employment will continue from the same source if his or her income is being used." Which is if you're using the spouse's income to qualify, but undoubtedly it would be the same story for the sponsor if their job abroad were ending as soon as they went back to the US. Then it only makes sense that they'd have to have assets or a job offer already established in the US to be able to sponsor, no?  Advice I've found about it on other forums is that while it's not explicitly stated on the form, the income reported on the I-864 will be ignored if it is obviously not continuing on return to the US. It's definitely tricky business.

I used income to self sponsor my K1 and would have used that income for the I 864 but did not need to.

[skyzee 182]

Omfg. I wish I had known about this because my wife is in the exact position you were - she got a job offer from the US that couldn't be refused and had to leave within a month even though we spent every last day together tormented about whether or not she should take it. We decided to go the even more masochistic way of the CR-1 visa to avoid any denial of an AOS situation on the basis of an intent to immigrate. Had I known they made exceptions to the DCF exempt countries.... GAH! Going to get my wife to try sending a letter to the embassy here in Vancouver / Montreal anyways and see what they say. If approved, it would probably still be faster than waiting out the rest of the CR-1 visa at this point, and I'd gladly pay a small fortune to be together again faster.

 

Also, thank you SO much for sharing the details of your experience so thoroughly. I'm happy that it worked out wonderfully for you and your husband. It really does suck to be in a long distance relationship for any period of time really - me and my wife also started out as such so I can definitely appreciate how awful it really is.

[pyridine 12]

7 hours ago, Jorge V said:

I'm pretty sure a job offer qualifies as long as the start date is soon after you move back to the US, if not before. If you can't get job offer before then you'll definitely need a cosponsor. The good news is that you should not need to present the I-864 until the interview, which is the final stage. This might give you enough time to find a job. This also might vary by embassy but this was the case for us in Mexico.

I'm pretty sure I won't personally have a problem being the sponsor since I have a job offer starting probably a week or two after I arrive in the US (have to get set up there first and it's not possible for the start date to be before I get there), and also have sufficient assets as a back-up. But I can imagine this could be a huge hassle for others. 

 

Now I'm rereading the document list and finding all kinds of other gems that we need in there...he now has a total of 5 that he needs to obtain from 3 countries and it might not be at all fast (hate dealing with the country my husband lived in before here, very slow bureaucracy). And of course my husband's home country now has a huge back-up on getting military records because they very very recently started requiring it for people claiming pensions, and they have to pull them out of frickin books in some museum that is not prepared to deal with the onslaught of requests. We finally figured out yesterday what the hold-up was with that and have absolutely no idea how long it will take them to get through the 10000 requests they probably have right now. Not sure if he'll be able to accompany me now blah. If it ain't the US government, it'll be another government right...

Edited January 4, 2018 by pyridine

[pyridine 12]

7 hours ago, Boiler said:

I used income to self sponsor my K1 and would have used that income for the I 864 but did not need to.

K-1 is different - if you are in the US, then it's usually not a problem to have a job and be the sponsor (at least I'm assuming not too many expats do a K-1 visa). I'm referring to US expats returning to the US, who have no US-based income and whose local job abroad will be ending when they move back to the US. This can create an inherent problem with being able to sponsor your spouse to go back with you.

Edited January 4, 2018 by pyridine

[pyridine 12]

4 hours ago, skyzee said:

Omfg. I wish I had known about this because my wife is in the exact position you were - she got a job offer from the US that couldn't be refused and had to leave within a month even though we spent every last day together tormented about whether or not she should take it. We decided to go the even more masochistic way of the CR-1 visa to avoid any denial of an AOS situation on the basis of an intent to immigrate. Had I known they made exceptions to the DCF exempt countries.... GAH! Going to get my wife to try sending a letter to the embassy here in Vancouver / Montreal anyways and see what they say. If approved, it would probably still be faster than waiting out the rest of the CR-1 visa at this point, and I'd gladly pay a small fortune to be together again faster.

 

Also, thank you SO much for sharing the details of your experience so thoroughly. I'm happy that it worked out wonderfully for you and your husband. It really does suck to be in a long distance relationship for any period of time really - me and my wife also started out as such so I can definitely appreciate how awful it really is.

Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that you didn't now about the DCF exceptions. Since we didn't want to stay in Denmark forever and long term plan was to go to the US, the only reason I knew about it was obsessing over it in advance because I couldn't believe that there was absolutely no way around the elimination of DCF in most countries. Wish you luck with dealing with the Canadian embassy. I think you will likely find that you now have a problem though, in that she's already back in the US and I think you can only file the I-130 abroad (which has to be done by the US petitioner) while the petitioner is still an official resident in that foreign country. At least that's the only circumstance that DCF is allowed - even in countries with USCIS offices. 

 

My husband and I also started out as long distance and it's the reason I moved to Denmark in the first place. Definitely didn't want to do that again, plus I'm pregnant which would have made this especially ridiculous now considering I have to be the breadwinner in the US at first and will also not be eligible for virtually any leave. Well, if the DCF wasn't possible and the timeline looked too slow, I had already decided to not even take this job offer or renege on the offer later. I think I have enough good excuses for that! The company assigned us an immigration attorney but she has been minimally helpful so far, as she did not even know that the I-130 would be filed in Copenhagen and not London, but she knew some timelines for London. Hopefully US/Canada is a bit more manageable and good luck! Actually we're not out of the water yet, because in addition to a document we need to get from my husband's home country that has been slow and we found out a bad reason for the hold-up yesterday that may take months to resolve, we also need two documents from the country he was living in before Denmark, and their bureaucracy is also slow as sh*t. So I'm really really unsure now how long it will take to procure these. 

[Boiler 45,523]

4 hours ago, pyridine said:

K-1 is different - if you are in the US, then it's usually not a problem to have a job and be the sponsor (at least I'm assuming not too many expats do a K-1 visa). I'm referring to US expats returning to the US, who have no US-based income and whose local job abroad will be ending when they move back to the US. This can create an inherent problem with being able to sponsor your spouse to go back with you.

I was talking in the round, you are talking about someone giving up a job and having obviously no income from that job in the future, which is an issue in the US or Overseas.

[skyzee 182]

7 hours ago, pyridine said:

Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that you didn't now about the DCF exceptions. Since we didn't want to stay in Denmark forever and long term plan was to go to the US, the only reason I knew about it was obsessing over it in advance because I couldn't believe that there was absolutely no way around the elimination of DCF in most countries. Wish you luck with dealing with the Canadian embassy. I think you will likely find that you now have a problem though, in that she's already back in the US and I think you can only file the I-130 abroad (which has to be done by the US petitioner) while the petitioner is still an official resident in that foreign country. At least that's the only circumstance that DCF is allowed - even in countries with USCIS offices. 

 

My husband and I also started out as long distance and it's the reason I moved to Denmark in the first place. Definitely didn't want to do that again, plus I'm pregnant which would have made this especially ridiculous now considering I have to be the breadwinner in the US at first and will also not be eligible for virtually any leave. Well, if the DCF wasn't possible and the timeline looked too slow, I had already decided to not even take this job offer or renege on the offer later. I think I have enough good excuses for that! The company assigned us an immigration attorney but she has been minimally helpful so far, as she did not even know that the I-130 would be filed in Copenhagen and not London, but she knew some timelines for London. Hopefully US/Canada is a bit more manageable and good luck! Actually we're not out of the water yet, because in addition to a document we need to get from my husband's home country that has been slow and we found out a bad reason for the hold-up yesterday that may take months to resolve, we also need two documents from the country he was living in before Denmark, and their bureaucracy is also slow as sh*t. So I'm really really unsure now how long it will take to procure these. 

Yeah, I figured as much about residency. The only thing we have going for us is that technically, she is still officially a resident of Canada under our tax laws. Had this been 6 months ago when she signed the offer letter that we submitted the DCF request, it sounds like it would have been a slam dunk, which makes it all the more upsetting. Even the DCF memo that's linked from one of the main USCIS sites points to that old 2011 memo that doesn't have the job clause in it, which is what I had seen when I first started researching our options available. I'm convinced that this was done on purpose since only a select few on these forums seems to know anything about it, which is absolutely infuriating. Looked at almost every angle, including going back to school full-time and getting a student visa to stay with her in the US and even seeing if joining the US army could expedite the petition to no avail. Being stuck in limbo sucks, and I'm not even guaranteed entry into the US to even visit nowadays given the I-130 is pending and they scrutinize entry much more closely.

 

Anyways, we'll see, the emails have been sent out to the respective consulates here in Canada and will wait to hear back. I have very little faith that anything will happen, but at least you've offered some ray of hope for us, so thank you very much for that.

 

Sorry to hear about the complications with getting the documents together on your end. I hope that it gets sorted out soon for you. One thing I've realized over the past couple years is that dealing with any government agency is just an exercise in futility. Feeling pretty anti-government nowadays  

[festin 2]

We have a similar case too, our exceptional circumstances fall under Job Offer and Pregnancy .

Dec. 19, 2017 ~ we emailed US Embassy in Ankara.

Dec. 21, 2017 ~ Embassy emailed us that USCIS in Athens approved our request. Booked December 28 for filing of I-130.

Dec. 28, 2017 ~ We filed I-130 at the Embassy in Ankara.

Jan.  2, 2017 ~ I-130 was approved! Consulate in Ankara emailed us case number, checklist of documents and instruction about IR-1 visa interview. 

Now we are waiting for appointment date for IR-1 Visa Interview.

[pyridine 12]

15 hours ago, skyzee said:

Yeah, I figured as much about residency. The only thing we have going for us is that technically, she is still officially a resident of Canada under our tax laws. Had this been 6 months ago when she signed the offer letter that we submitted the DCF request, it sounds like it would have been a slam dunk, which makes it all the more upsetting. Even the DCF memo that's linked from one of the main USCIS sites points to that old 2011 memo that doesn't have the job clause in it, which is what I had seen when I first started researching our options available. I'm convinced that this was done on purpose since only a select few on these forums seems to know anything about it, which is absolutely infuriating. Looked at almost every angle, including going back to school full-time and getting a student visa to stay with her in the US and even seeing if joining the US army could expedite the petition to no avail. Being stuck in limbo sucks, and I'm not even guaranteed entry into the US to even visit nowadays given the I-130 is pending and they scrutinize entry much more closely.

 

Anyways, we'll see, the emails have been sent out to the respective consulates here in Canada and will wait to hear back. I have very little faith that anything will happen, but at least you've offered some ray of hope for us, so thank you very much for that.

 

Sorry to hear about the complications with getting the documents together on your end. I hope that it gets sorted out soon for you. One thing I've realized over the past couple years is that dealing with any government agency is just an exercise in futility. Feeling pretty anti-government nowadays  

It definitely doesn't hurt to give it a try. Worst that can happen is they say no. How long ago have you filed your I-130 with Chicago Lockbox? That 2011 memo was what someone linked me too, and the State Dept website still links that old memo, but I managed to find a version of it that was from 2012 for the London USCIS office (I can't figure out how to find it anymore, have it bookmarked on my computer at home and I think you can find it if you find my last thread) and it explicitly added the short notice job relocation to the list. The immigration attorney also knew that it qualified for that and I wasn't crazy, and it was the route she recommended (just not super helpful since I kinda already figured that out).

 

By the way - I've read that it's totally absolutely fine to visit while your I-130 is pending! I mean OK, there's always some small risk, but the authorities know it takes a long time. I guess just be honest if questioned. If the DCF route took more like 6 months, I was actually planning on having my husband visit me in the US on his ESTA before he had his visa. The immigration attorney also told me it's totally fine for traveling on tourist visa waiver while the I-130 is being processed. I was surprised that she even suggested another route to me - which I didn't like because it sounded a little risky - that he get a long-term B1 tourist visa (he couldn't work of course), then once he was at least 3 months in the US, she said that's the time beyond which legally your intent to immigrate can change. I forget the exact legal wording, but somehow everything you intended when you applied for the visa legally vanishes after 3 months or 90 days. Then I think it would be an adjustment of status or something within the US. I can try to find my notes from her if this is of interest to you, since saying you're considering student visas and joining the military just to get into the US sounds a lot more extreme!

 

 

Edited January 5, 2018 by pyridine