Request to Change Consulate

[Auonmily 0]

My husband and I lived together in Canada for four years on work permits - and he was in Canada much longer for school before that. I am a US Citizen and my husband is a Thai national. We filed an I-130 in November 2016 and, at the time, we both had temporary resident status in Canada with work permits and I had a job starting in Hawaii in January. Unfortunately, my husband's status in Canada will expire before we get to the interview. We were hoping everything would finish before his Canadian residency ends in December, but it's really looking like he will have to move back to Thailand to wait out the rest of our I-130 processing.  

 

It's a headache added onto a headache to apply for a visa to enter Canada just for the interview not knowing exactly when it will be scheduled and not knowing how long he will have to stay in Canada after the interview to wait for the visa - not to mention the strain of buying several trans-pacific flights on my grad-student budget. 

 

Ideally, we would swap the US Consulate in Toronto (which we denoted in our I-130 application) with that in Bangkok so he could receive his visa and move right from Thailand to the US with no pesky maple leaves in between. 

 

Questions:

Has anyone ever requested to change the consulate for visa processing?

If it's possible, should we wait for NVC to receive our case to request a change? We're still waiting for approval of the I-130 from USCIS. 

Corollary: Do we have to be processed in Canada if our marriage certificate is from Canada? 

 

Any help (or even just commiserations) are most appreciated.

 

All the best,

Emily

[Ryan H 3,790]

For the record, the US Consulate in Toronto doesn't conduct immigrant visa interviews so your file never would've been sent there, it would've gone to the Consulate in Montreal which is the only location that conducts immigrant visa interviews for applicants in Canada.

 

Wait until your file reaches the NVC, once it does inform them that your husband is now back in Thailand and the file needs to be routed to Bangkok.  You may not be able to make that change until the case is officially in the system and assigned a case number (said number will initially start with MTL for Montreal, you will need to get that changed to BKK for Bangkok).

[Auonmily 0]

Wow, thank you so much for the quick response! This is extremely helpful. Again, thanks!

 

-Emily