I am reading through so many interesting posts now about DCF in Paris, and I have some questions that I am hoping someone can help me with. I read the guides, and meauxna's fantastic guide about DCF.

We filed an I-129F, approved as noted in my signature. The file is now at the Embassy in Paris. My fiance is waiting for his police certificate from the UK because he lived there for a couple of years. So, in the meantime, I'm wandering around this board, and I see about the DCF in Paris, and if we got married in France (or here, I guess), we could complete the I-130, and I could travel to Paris to file this in person with my fiance (or, then husband, right). And then we would get an interview, and then he would have his green card? So no AOS or EAD applications? So he could work almost immediately upon entering the US?

Why on earth did I file the I-129F petition for fiance??

Can we still do the DCF??

I am so upset about this, thinking about all the time wasted, and thinking about the time that may still be wasted while waiting for EAD and AOS...

It seems that this DCF is too good to be true. Is it?

Depends on the Consulate. DCF at the U.S. consulate here in Canada is only available for U.S. citizens that have permanent residence in Canada. So you may not have even been able to do DCF in France. Depends on their residency requirements for the USC.

Don't stress, I just checked and that option was not available to you. Also, it would look a little fucked up if you got married and tried that while he's waiting for his K1 interview.

http://www.amb-usa.fr/consul/iv/categories/default.htm

STEP ONE: Filing the Immigrant Visa Petition:
If you are a U.S. citizen legally residing in France and want to file an immigrant visa petition for an immediate relative, you must file your petition at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

If you are a US citizen or permanent resident not legally residing in France, you must file the petition with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office closest to your residence. When the petition is approved by USCIS in the US, the USCIS will send you a notice of approval, a Form I-797. At the same time they will also forward the approved petition to the National Visa Center (NVC), which will contact your relative who is the intending immigrant with further information. The National Visa Center will process and forward the approved petition to the Embassy in Paris for the visa interview and adjudication.

Thank you SO much!! Christ, my head almost popped off when I started reading the DCF information. I thought I read somewhere that you could do DCF in Paris even if the USC didn't live in France.

Unless they changed their residency requirements, but that's from their website just now.

I'm in the same boat as your fiance. I'll be interviewing for a K3 so I'll also have to do EAD/SSN/AOS. You're almost there though. Your fiance has packet 3 already.

But I just looked through, and found this here http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...amp;qpid=376898

Weird. Well, it's too late now since you have a K1 pending at the embassy.

That is just f*cked. I sent my lawyer an email, asking him why this wasn't presented to me as an option, and this is the response I got from him:

Because you would have had to file a visa petition and then applied for a K-3. In my experience over the last 6 years since they were made available they take a lot longer to process than the K-1. That is why the option was not given to you.

Is there anything I can say to him to make him understand how he screwed us when he didn't present this as an option?

DCF is only for I-130 (CR/IR) I believe. Not for K3s... K3s are non-immigrant and based on their website, they don't do K3s in Paris.

K1s are faster than K3s though. But Paris doesn't do those, only CR/IR.

So he IS wrong, right? This would have been a hell of a lot faster than what I'm doing now.

If you could have done CR in Paris through DCF, then yeah, he's wrong. But if he was going by the info on the Paris website, then technically, it says you couldn't have done DCF. Though he should have known that K3 is not available through DCF, so...

God, he really didn't help me much. Got an RFE, and now this. I wish I could get my money back! There's more knowledge on VJ than in his head, that's for sure.

You're almost there though, hang tight and you'll both be reunited soon!

What was your RFE for? Something that he missed?

I know - I'm trying. Sometimes it gets so frustrating. I feel like I had to submit the I-129F so quickly because everything takes so long, so I feel like I didn't do enough research up front - like I could have done DCF instead. But, water under the bridge, right? Nothing I can do about it, so I shouldn't dwell... But of course I will! LOL

My RFE was that they wanted to see Certificates of Absolute Divorce. He should have known that they need the Absolute decrees, and not just the Judgement Nisi, which is what we sent with the packet. I am my own best advocate, and I'm realizing now that I could have done a better job, and probably gotten things done much faster without an attorney. But, I was so scared I was going to do something wrong, and I incorrectly assumed that because someone has a law degree and specializes in immigration, that they would work to my benefit. Oh well.

We had considered a lawyer because we didn't know anything about immigration until I found this site.

I hope your fiance gets his interview soon.

I wish I had found this site sooner!

Thank you!

Hi,

Not to cause any more distress, but you could have done DCF in Paris http://www.amb-usa.fr/consul/iv/filingparis.htm

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

The Immigrant Visa (IV) unit of the U.S. Embassy in Paris will receive in-person general inquiries and requests for information on Fridays ONLY. Beginning Friday, September 1st, 2006 the hours will change to a starting time of 9:00a.m. Please note that admissions end at 10:00 a.m. and interested parties should arrive well before that hour to ensure they will be admitted. We request that you appear in person, as we are unable to respond to phone, e-mail, or letter inquiries. We will accept all interested parties that arrive between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m.

The U.S. Embassy in Paris can accept immigrant petitions from U.S. citizens in France who wish to petition any Immediate Relative (IR) or Family Based qualifying relative.

U.S. citizens not resident in France, filing for beneficiaries who are French citizens or French legal permanent resident, may either file their petition at their nearest USCIS office in the U.S., or file, in person, at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Both the petitioner and the beneficiary must be present at the filing of the petition.

Effective September 1st, 2006, the Consular Section of the American Embassy in Paris accepts immigrant visa petitions on Fridays only starting at 9:00 a.m. Petitioners and beneficiaries must arrive at the Consular Section (2, rue Saint-Florentin; metro: Concorde) between the hours of 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. in order to ensure entry. There will be no admissions after 10:00 a.m. Appointments are not granted and petitioners will be seen on a first-come, first-serve basis.

I just copied the link so it is up to date.

The whole process takes about 2/3 months if you have everything ready. If you arrive with all the neccessary documentation asked for in packet 3 on the day you hand in your petition, you can get your interview date right away on the spot, most of the time.

Sheigh

Hi - I don't know the answer about trying to do a DCF once you've done an I-129. I just did a DCF in Paris. We filed the first week in January and my husband has his interview for March 28 -- which is later that what we had hoped. On a French forum he consults often (MFE), he's heard that they're about to phase out DCF. I don't know if it's true, but anyway it's possible that DCF wouldn't have been much faster for you, and maybe not even an option (though that's JUST hearsay!) Good luck.

Yeah, I just received a call from the Embassy in Paris and my husbands interview for next week has been cancelled because DCF is no longer available in Paris. All pending cases are being sent to Rome for review and will be contacted at a later date for new interviews.

Dude, with one week to go, they do this. We are so upset, we planned to leave in March, but at least we got flight cancellation insurance just in case.

We thought we were almost done but no.... this is so not cool.

Sheigh

Oh, God, that sucks. I am so sorry. It seems like it is just such a smoother process - why would they take it away??

So, will you have to go to Rome for your interview now?

Yeah, I just received a call from the Embassy in Paris and my husbands interview for next week has been cancelled because DCF is no longer available in Paris. All pending cases are being sent to Rome for review and will be contacted at a later date for new interviews.

Dude, with one week to go, they do this. We are so upset, we planned to leave in March, but at least we got flight cancellation insurance just in case.

We thought we were almost done but no.... this is so not cool.

Sheigh

Hi Sheigh - I'm so sorry to hear about the interview cancellation! Do you have any more information? My husband was supposed to interview March 28. I'm back in the States and we'll be separated until he gets his visa.....

It appears that DCF is being eliminated at all of the embassies.

Since there is so much confusion, it would help to clarify that non-resident DCF is what is currently at stake with the new legislation. USCs resident abroad still have filing options abroad at the moment.

I would disagree... How I read it is all because the USC petitioner needs to have an additional check performed to see if he/she is eligble to even file a petition and only the USCIS has that ability.

Yes, and there are USCIS Field Offices abroad to serve USC residents of foreign countries.

Whether or not the Field Offices will handle the new requirement locally or return the current petition to the US is yet to be seen.

I was doing a resident DCF, I've been living in France for 11 years now. My husbands interview was cancelled by phone and I had them have an officer of the Embassy call me about the cancellation because the girl who called could not answer all my questions, and I got a little mad at her.

After their emergency meeting the officer called and said that "for all I-130 filed in Paris, the files are being put in boxes and sent to Rome to be re-reviewed, once they're done they will send them back to Paris and Paris will give us new interview dates" the delay could be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months and there was nothing we could do. He also said we could not all fly to the U.S. and restart the demand there, the only option is to wait for them to contact us here in France.

Personally, if I could do something to make it go quicker I would, my oldest son is enrolled to start preschool March 19, our tickets are for March 12, my husband was going to attend a conference at the end of the month of March to help him network to find work as an archaeologist (he already is), and now everything is on hold, fait chier.

On a lighter note I hope this is done quick enough for us to go to the Rage Against the Machine Reunion concert at the end of April, but I won't hold my breath.

Sheigh

Thanks for the update!

Best wishes for a speedy resolution.

Bad news for you, but at least they are in contact with you. I am doing resident DCF in Brazil and they are not answering the phone (IV Unit), not responding to emails, and of course no phone calls. They also have not updated their website. I just checked all of the embassy/consulate sites that do DCF in South America, (Chile, Ecuador, Brazil, Guyana, Argentina, Venezuela) and 3 of them have updated the site... they gave the normal info about how those I-130s that were approved have to be re-approved by the USCIS. Yesterday when I found out about this, I contacted my Senator immediately.... I probably should not have so early, but now I am glad. If my consulate cannot take the time to call us and let us know what is going on, I have no problem doing some pushing. I am the only person on this website that is doing DCF in Brasil, so I dont think they would have many others.

Take all action that you can. Tell your senator/congressman that you are upset how this was handled... ask them for help. I did, and I got an immediate response from his staff. It cant hurt.

Memo from Condi Rice with explanation posted here: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=421608

Thank you Meauxna. That is exactly what I wanted to know. I dont mind bad news, I just hate not knowing anything.

The same thing happened to us. I'm the USC and my husband is French. We filed the I-130 on 12/21/06 and got an interview date of 2/7/07. We were so excited. Then, my husband got a voicemail last week saying that his interview date is cancelled just with an explanation that there is a "new law." Thanks, you guys, for your posts -- I'm definitely getting more information here than anywhere else.

He's scheduled to fly here on 2/15/07. We don't know how long this is going to take -- if it's just a couple of weeks, we might as well postpone his flight. He already quit his job (last day on 2/9) and gave his notice with his landlord. If it looks like it'll take a few months, I'm leaning toward having him just come on a tourist's visa and then go back for the interview since he won't have a job nor an apartment anymore. He has his family he can stay with, but it's not the same.

Sorry to hear about all of your frustration, Sheigh. We're in the same boat. Sadly, my husband's male French friend was planning to file the DCF next month, but now they have to go the traditional USCIS route, which will probably still end up taking longer.... I feel bad for them.