Hello,

My husband and I have been married almost 2 years and have been living in London (i'm the us citizen) Our long term plan is to move back to the states so we decided to start the visa process. We mailed in our I-130's and were notified that our filing date was February 4th, 2008 (we are doing DCF through the London embassy). We've started collecting all of the necessary documents, police checks etc so we will technically be ready to go when we hear from them.
The problem is now for various reasons we are thinking we might need to delay the move a bit. We were initially hoping to move this fall but now we aren't sure.

My question is... does anyone know how long you can take to send in the checklist once you get the notice of approval? I understand that the checklist simply let's them know that you are ready for the interview and next steps. Are there any sort of time constrictions on this? Now that we have our filing date could we hold on to the checklist and not mail it in for say, 6 months or even 1 year or longer?

I know this may seem like a strange question as most people on here are in a huge rush to get through the process.... but if anyone knows anything about this we would appreciate hearing from you!

Thanks!!!

I believe the I-130 is good for one year after approval. After that you have to refile with all the fees.

So that would be from the Notice of Approval date and not from the filing date? That would be great- say we get the NOA2 sometime in April or May and had a year from then to send in the checklist that would give us plenty of time. Figuring we won't get the actual visa for a couple of months after we send in the checklist and then once we get it we have 6 months to enter the USA...
That would definitely work for us!

Thank you!

There is no NOA 1 or 2 per se. You will get a letter stating that your petition was approved with other instructions for the Embassy portion called Packet 3. Remember that you have to have your interview scheduled before the year is up, so don't wait till the last minute to schedule an interview date because things happen. After you get Packet 3, contact the embassy and tell them that you would like to schedule a date for an interview X time in the future. They should give you a date based on it. Well, Frankfurt did anyway. Dunno about London.

Most people going through London have found the embassy to be quite helpful, and certainly when your request is that you would like to delay your interview, i'm sure they will do as much as they can to accomodate you.

I would agree with Wacken however, I think it's a good idea to contact the embassy after you get packet 3 to let them know the situation. Otherwise it may appear as if you have abandoned the application.

Don't forget also that once you are approved and have your visa you have 6 months to enter the US also.

We were originally going to delay ours a bit before doing anything more after getting the I-130 approval as we weren't planning to go until this autumn, but our plans had to change and then we were in a huge rush to get done!

yes, today over the phone
our embassy told us
we had 1 year from |I30 approval