Effective immediately, U.S. Embassy Sofia is no longer able to accept or process any family-based immigrant petitions.

ANYBODY ELSE AFFECTED?


hello all of you married coples waiting for God (in the name of USICIS) say you can finally live together

We filed our I-130 in Bulgaria and after approval , they turned it back to us saying we have to start all over again -now through the USCIS office!Somebody have any information what happens next?

I am in the same situation as you, except my I-130 was approved in December 2006 at the US Consulate Naha, JAPAN, they have sent my approved I-130 to be re-approved/re-adjuicated by the USCIS...i was quoted a timeline of maybe 12-18 months...they really didnt know what the hell was goin on...im waiting for God as well...

Hi, Aneta - I'm in Bulgaria, too! We were planning to file at the Sofia consulate in April, but now we aren't sure, either. But our local USCIS office, which is in Vienna, seems to feel that we'll be able to file at the Sofia consulate again soon. It may be best to just hold onto your application for a week or so (and be happy they didn't mail it off to Vermont!). If you have any questions, the staff at the USCIS in Vienna are VERY knowledgable about all of this and can give you the latest news. Their number is 43 1 313397581, and they answer calls from about 2:30 - 4pm Vienna time (I think). Good luck!

Hey Guys Im in Romania near the border with Bulgaria! yeah I agree with Malka wait 1 or 2 more weeks and it may end up saving you several months. Please note this topic has been thoroughly discussed under Direct Consular Filing.

Things seem optimistic so it will probably be worth your wait to see if they will allow us to fle our petitions at the embassies again.
Fofire

God has had his application sent back as well and is temporarily staying in a small apartment in Kazakhstan - how does it work anyway? does prayer get god to change the priority date in the USCIS computer ? divine hacking ? I think Lease-a-condo Rice is batting for the other side and is in the ascendancy - so don't expect it to improve until the second coming....

Aneta,
There is a lot of discussion on this in the DCF Forum of visajourney.

Thank you all guys for answering me that fast!
The thing is that on jan 24th we went to the embassy in Sofia(not knowing anything) and when they told us they gave us back our I-130-so it stays now with us.I don't know if I can send it back to them again.It all seems so complicated!At the same time we were told we have to file I-130 through the USCIS and start it all over again,so we did that-a few days ago we filed it to the VSC,sending them also a copy of our approved application.I am so confused now!

Oh, that's tricky. I believe that if I were in your situation I would just wait to see what kind of changes come around before doing anything else. Your petition is where it's supposed to be, according to the official line at the moment. And I think it was smart of you to send a copy of the approved application. It may give your petition some special consideration. If and when DCF comes back, you can talk to the embassy and to USCIS about what will happen. At that point they may even have specific instructions or information for you.

As a side note: If DCF does NOT come back, and your I-130 gets stuck in a processing backlog, you might look into a K-3 visa, which would let your spouse work and travel while waiting for the immigrant petition to process in the USA. But when I spoke with people at the Sofia embassy about K-3's they told me they were highly unusual (probably because everyone in Bulgaria was sensibly and rapidly getting their I-130's done through DCF before!).

Good luck!

saywhat:

I read your timeline... now that's some REALLY messed up immigration stuff... I feel for you and your spouse...

But I love your sarcastic sense of humor about things! We have to laugh to stop from crying... Anytime you want to vent about immigration crap, I'm all ears

Aneta, can you please clarify this?

You went for your visa interview, and the officer returned your I-130 petition to you? It was marked 'approved' in some way, and YOU had to send it to the US?
tsk.. that was a bit naughty of them, IMO.

wouldnt it be better to just cancel the i130 and then start a new one ?
12-18 months to get your case reapproved is longer than starting a new one by mail.

yes,you got my thoughts!we hope that when they see our approved application it's gonna be faster,but that's just what we are hoping
we are also going to file for a K3 visa,but it's not gonna happen sooner than 6 mounths from now do u think it's worse that we don't have a USCIS office in bulgaria?and how did you think of ringing the Vienna office?
i am curious to know what is your situation?are you bulgarian and where do u live?

thanks a lot about the useful and hopeful inforamtion!
good luck to you too!

I'm a USC, living with my Bulgarian fiance in Sofia - we're planning to get married in April. I need to go back by mid-July, and I really don't think I can bear another awful airport goodbye. I do think that if we had USCIS office here life would be easier - it seems that countries with one are currently letting residents file there instead of sending all the way to the States. I was at the Sofia embassy, getting some marriage paperwork done, when the consular officer suggested that I contact the Vienna USCIS office about the I-130's.
Two possible tips for you:
If you haven't yet registered with the embassy/Department of State, you may want to do so; they email out "Warden Messages" so that you'll get some advance notice of things like this new I-130 situation (way sooner than the embassy updates their website!).
If you have to go back to the States and you have enough money to travel back and forth and your spouse doesn't have to work when you get to the States (i.e: you have some extra $ ), you could try getting a B-2 tourist visa, as one poster here did - it doesn't allow work and your spouse would have to convince all officers that he's DEFINITELY planning to come back to Bulgaria to finish the immigrant visa processing, but it is a possible way you could stay together. If it sounds like a good idea, try looking through this topic: B-2 Tourist VISA while awaiting DCF - APPROVED!!!

Vsichko nai-hubavo (all the best)!

By the way if you look it up on on USCIS ( www.uscis.gov ) and look up overseas offices you will see that Vienna is responsible for our area (SE Europe).

In case you havent read it elsewhere countries with USCIS offices are not having these probs since they can do the background check there. The last time I talked to the US embassy here in Buch they were pretty confident that DCF will come back but I need to wait till next week to find out.

Fofire

That's some good news!! Thanks!

Malka,although you didn't ask me I will try to give you some advise,have you thought what to do if DCF does not come back?you will have to file from the US anyway.If you file now,and not after you get married in April,you will save 2 mounths .you can have your legal marriage earlier,e.g. next week(the wedding day does not have to be on the same day,this is very common in Bulgaria) ,get your marriage certificate,get it translated and then send all the papers to the US.if DCF comes back you can always withrew your application,i think so.
By the way,I see you have registered as a member from Maryland -are you originally from there?I spent 2 summers-2003 and2004,working in Ocean City,MD and actually that's how we met with my husband.
I really hope everything gets the way it used to be!I've lost hope in getting an immigrant visa through the american USCIS office,I think they are so slow,it seems we'll have to wait forever

Thanks, Aneta, although since we only plan a marriage hall wedding and not a church wedding, it seems that that the marriage and wedding will be on the same day. If DCF doesn't come back, we'll probably go for a K3, but there are a lot of posts in the Direct Consular Filing forum that lead me to think that DCF will be coming back, in some form or another. We'll just have to wait a bit and see! Good luck...