I hope this will answer a few questions about what is going on with DCF.
These notes only cover information I have about the Rome District USCIS offices, but it will probably be a similar story for the rest of the world.

All colsular sections got notice about a week ago that they are to accept no more I-130 petitions.
All pending petitions are being sent to the apropriate USCIS office.
This is all being done because of this new sex offenders law. This new law requires database checks that consular sections at this time are unable to do. Under these new regulations sex offenders are no longer eligible to file I-130 petitions.

Currently I know that USCIS offices are directed to accept only I-130 petitions from petitioners residing within the country that the USCIS office is located in. So the USCIS office in Moscow will only accept petions from petitioners living in Russia. If you are living in Ukraine right now the Moscow office will not currently accept your petion.

All of these directions though are still under discussion though by the district directors and USCIS headquarters in the United States.

Final guidance on how to deal with this new situation is expected sometime this week.

In the meantime applicants from countries without a USCIS office are being asked to just hold there petitions for a while longer while processing guidlines are finalized.

USCIS offices in the meantime are preparing the handle the sudden influx of pending petitions from consular offices. Hopefully the primary holdup with this new procedure will only time spent in the mail.

Hopefuly that answers a few questions. I know I'm just as anxious as many of you to hear how things are going to be handled here in the near future.

Another update.

USCIS and DOS headquarters are still in discussion about accepting I-130s for petitioners living abroad.

A message was posted on the USCIS site advising people to file their petitions with the stateside USCIS offices.

This notice was incorect and was removed.

Notice about this incorrect message has been sent out to USCIS offices.

Here is further confirmation of this...I also inquired with them about filing directly for my wife in Ukraine and received this response from the Moscow Office a couple days ago:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the Form I-130 (Petition for Alien
Relative) you have planned to submit on behalf of your alien family
member(s).
Please be advised that you have reached the Moscow office of US Citizenship
and
Immigration Services (USCIS). We have received notice that US consulates
will
no longer be able to approve I-130 petitions, as these petitions must now be
reviewed and approved by a USCIS office. Presently, the Moscow office of
USCIS
is only able to accept I-130 petitions from American citizens residing in
the
Russian Federation. However, we are awaiting further directions from USCIS
headquarters concerning the change in the procedure for filing the Form
I-130
for American citizens residing in other parts of the former Soviet Union.
We
expect to receive these instructions shortly. Please be advised that you
still
may file the Form I-130 at a USCIS service center in the US. If you have
not
submitted your I-130 yet, we request that you NOT submit it to USCIS-Moscow
until we have received operational guidelines from headquarters.

We understand your frustration with the change of policy. We appreciate
your
understanding in the matter and request your patience until we have received
further instructions from headquarters. We advise you to contact us or your
local US consulate or embassy in two week's time to inquire about the new
procedure.

We hope that we have been of assistance in this matter.

Sincerely,

Public Liaison Unit
DHS/U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
United States Embassy - Moscow, Russia
+7 495 255-9551

For those who have applied to embassies with USCIS sub-offices e.g. London.
I finally got confirmation of what was suspected that there will be no detrimental effect on visa interviews

Hope that helps some people

James

As your I-130 has already been approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sub-office in London, this ruling will have no effect on the processing of your visa application.

Thank you for your e-mail correspondence.

Consular Information Unit
U.S. Embassy, London
CONS/CIU/SF

This informal method of responding enables us to respond to you within a shorter time. No record is being made of this correspondence. If you need to e-mail us again, please return this e-mail.

-----Original Message-----
From: james anstead (RRes-Roth) [mailto:james.anstead@bbsrc.ac.uk]
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:45 PM
To: London, Consular
Subject:

Hi there,
I've been reading about the Adam Walsh child protection act and its effect on I-130 immigration petitions. It seems some embassies have been cancelling visa appointments and cases are being transferred to other offices. I rang the helpline and they said I should e-mail.

I am currently waiting for my interview on the 26th February in London and was wondering if this was having any effect in London and whether any interviews are being cancelled and whether it will mean a delay in being granted my visa (if the interview is succesful of course).

Thanks for you help

I checked again with USCIS in Moscow there still is no official word as to what people should do that live in countries without a USCIS office.

The directions being offered still is just to wait.

I did post this in another thread but I thought it deserved to go here too.

Here's some truely good news.

Consular sections will once again be accepting I-130 petitions.
USCIS offices will still be doing the required checks, but with how things are being arranged it's expected to only add a 5 day delay.

Petitions that were pending and sent to a USCIS office will have the checks performed and then be mailed back to the various consular sections.

Please wait until you have permission/direction from your specific Consulate before submitting any petitions, or until instructions have been posted at www.uscis.gov or travel.state.gov

Fingers crossed for this!

Hmmm, my fingers are crossed tightly! I hope it works out. However should this be the case with the Sydney Consulate, I wonder how the Bankgok USCIS office will handle cases since many of us are not USCs living abroad. I am very close to filing my I-130 and wonder if I should wait a little longer to find out what happens with cases like David A. I pretty much followed the same steps.

That's awesome! My wife and I are freaking out (a little). I filed for her in late Dec. in Santiago de Chile and everything was smooth sailing until this maddness occured. I've called the USCIS office for Chile which is in Lima, Perú. And it just seems like no one knows what the hell is going on. I was told just to wait because the office's abroad are still waiting for instructions from the State Dept. and the office of Homeland Security.

I agree with Meaunx, everyone needs to hold on till USCIS posts. You can talk to one person then get another answer from the next. I am not sure at all where people are getting the info that it is coming back? Not saying that it is not, just I talked to two embassy's, USCIS, and immigration officer, and DOS and all say nothing. Just that if you qualify for residency in a country that has a USCIS office at the US Embassy, then nothing has changed and you continue to file DCF as well as no appointments cancelled. If your petition was approved prior to Jan 23rd, then your petition was boxed up, sent to nearest USCIS office having juridiction over the embassy you filed to await back ground check AND possible adjudication. Afterwards, it will be sent to the US Embassy were you filed for final interview. I have read or heard nothing, except statements by VJ members that it may come back and most of it is misinterpetation of what they read off web sites.

But hopefully it does come back, the handle background checks properly and quickly. We were told by US Embassy in Ukraine when Sonya went for her B-2 Tourist visa that Moscow has her application and we will probably have an appointment in <2 months and they told her to make sure she comes back from US to Ukraine because the appointment is coming sooner than we think. WHO KNOWS????????

I HOPE this is awesome -- but for those of us who already filed, I'm not sure if the 5-day thing will apply. How are the regional USCIS offices going to process all the petitions that suddenly come in for their whole region? The Paris consulate told me that they cannot really estimate the waiting period but that "it might take at least 3 months." Who knows how to interpret "might take at least"? Anyway, it sounds to me like in the future people will still be able to use DCF as a way to apply for a visa, which is good -- but those of us in the process might be looking at a really long wait.

Maybe I need to be educated? Where does it say that DCF is still around????? The only place their is DCF IS AT EMBASSY'S THAT HAVE A USCIS OFFICE!!! And you HAVE TO BE A RESIDENT OF THAT COUNTRY. All the rest is gossip. I hope it returns, but until I READ IT on USCIS or DOS, I would not put my money on anyones comments. I do think its wise to hold off for a couple weeks just in case.

I think most of us have high hopes of it's return but aren't making any moves until it's in writing from the USCIS. I have the I-130 package almost fully assembled and am waiting a few more weeks before making the decision to file stateside.

Thats what my family is doing as well, hoping and waiting before doing anything else. There is alot of panicking naturally going on including myself and wife. But, there is just no instructions put out as of yet, and this is like the IMBRA all over again. People need to stop putting bad or unsupported info out there and we all need to wait till USCIS or DOS puts the instructions out there. I would believe an embassy first if they said that they have no instructions versus individuals at embassy's stating that "they hear". Hopefully true of course, but I would not put much stock into it. Law was passed in July of 2006, I myself vented that this was sloppy introduction of a wonderful law. But its law and it takes congress to change it. However, maybe they will be smarter about correcting now. Hope so.

And in that case, it's not really DCF.

If I were a USC NOT resident in my spouse/STB spouse's country, I would not plan on filing an I-130 overseas in the near future. If you are in that situation, you could start researching your other filing options (as most folk seem to have).

If you are a USC who is resident abroad, see if you can't wait another couple of weeks before filing--it really won't make much difference in the long run, but it could benefit your greatly in the short run.

For the rest of you who HAVE filed, all you can do is sit tight and trust that you're not going to have to start over from scratch. They WILL find a way to complete your case in short order.

Thanks for correction, you are right, not DCF I have been reading alot of threads and there is so much bad info and false hope being put out there. I called a few embassy's and USCIS, and DOS and none have the same answer. The only real answer, I feel I got, was from the Ukraine embassy that told my wife that our approved petition was sent to Moscow, and now sits in a box till they decide how to process AFTER THEY GET INSTRUCTIONS. I would say that was an honest answer.

That's exactly what I was told by the office in Perú. It's a waiting game folks. I'm praying that they'll get the fixed soon.

Everyone should contact their nearest embassy/consulate/USCIS office and ask about their policy directly

I agree that there is too much "hearsay" and not enough concrete information. I'm surprised at how many VJers are able to comb the forums for any kind of information, but unable to contact the embassy/consulate/USCIS office for accurate details

stop posting and start calling/emailing !