I've been searching through the forums on this site and it seems like if I send an I-130 petiton to the US Service Center it could take up to 6 months to be approved. But if I do a DCF and the consulate / embassy abroad sends the
I-130 petition to the US Service Center, it only takes a couple of weeks to be approved. Am I understanding this correctly? If so, why does the I-130 get approved faster if the consular abroad sends it to the US Service Center rather than if I send it in myself?

Thanks in advance,
Mika

Hi Mika,

DCF (direct consular processing) is only available when the US spouse is residing legally in the foreign country. For example, to direct file in the UK, my USC husband would have had to have been a legal resident in the UK for 6 months (note: tourist does not count) before he could submit the petition to the London embassy.

If the USC is residing in the States, or only visiting the spouses country, the only option is to file through the service centres.

The reason it is quicker is that the embassy have a much smaller workload to work through than the service centres. They also have the benefit that both partners are living together in the same country.. not separated while waiting for this process to be completed.

Hoep this is helpful.

This is not the case in Barbados. In Barbados, resident means the same thing as physically present. So as long as I'm present in the country of Barbados I can file the I-130, it doesn't matter that I really live in the US.

Anyway, thanks for the info about the workload.

Mika