I am so frustrated. I filed an I-130 for my husband with the receipt number of march 5th 2007... and according to the ucis website they are currently processing august 21, 2006 cases. I thought that i could file the k-3 and hopefully could have my husband be with me sooner. However, the national benefits processing dates depressed me so much. they are also processing august 21,2006 cases. Then what is even the point of the K-3?
it is uselesss.... or is there still hope for meeee.. i mean do k-3 cases speed up or what....

Don't be discouraged. The processing time listed is for the OLDEST case they are working on. I submitted my husband's I-30 and it was approved in 68 days. (See my timeline below.) If you case is relatively straight forward, you shouldn't have a problem and will get through the system soon enough.
Just get your papers together, triple check everything for accuracy and send it off.

so do you guys suggest I go ahead with K-3
I mean is k-3 likely to be processed before my I-130
please helped

The latest trend seems to be that the K-3 and the I-130 being approved concurrently. USCIS then ASSUMES that you wish to proceed with a K-3 and the I-130 is shelved. Then if you want to proceed with the I-130 you must pay an additional fee (I think $200) to proceed with the I-130.

I would continue the course with the I-130 if it were me. You spouse will then be work authorized upon arrival and will not need to pay to AOS. Of course I am not privy to all of your details.

The K-3 was very useful in its day. Now it seems to just be a way for USCIS to ganar additonal fees from the emotionally vulnerable. Back in the day; when INS still existed, I-130's for the Texas Service Center were often taking two years or more. The K-3 was taking five to seven months. The K-3 was created as a stop gap measure to reunite families awaiting approval of an I-130.

Currently INS cum BCIS cum USCIS has addressed the long processing times for the I-130's and it is time to bury the K-3 in my opinion. It served its purpose it the day. However, with the merging of DOS and Immigrations under edict of the Homeland Security Act our government is double dipping by charging two fees for performing one job.

They get away with it by preying on the emotional vulnerability of people in love wishing to be together at whatever cost. Don't get me wrong...I am very much an American Patriot; but this action by my government, shames me.

I would say that it is time for the K-3 to be given a decent burial; however, there are probably still some circumstances where it is useful.


T

For right now I would advise filing the I-129F (For K-3). I agree that eventually it should be done away with but not EVERYONE is getting the 129F approved at the same time as their I-130. (Like me for example!!!) And the government is milking an extra $200 out of us to file the I-824 form to transfer our approved I-130 petitions. The wait time seems to be anywhere between 2-6 months for the paperwork to actually move. In that time most people get their K-3 approvals.

It is like they are holding the I-130 hostage for the K-3 filing fee. Not nice.

t

The K-3 is still the fastest track to the visa as they are looking more closely at the k-1 visa petitions at the embassy. Particulary at some embassy's like Manila. K-1 used to be the fastest, but now more due to IMBRA.

Also, prepare yourself for at least 7-8 months, no matter what anyone says here, unless you have an extreme emergent situation that qualifies for faster processing, it is going to be about 7 months. That is of couse unless you petiton gets chosen ans part of a new processors training an in those cases the are processed in less than 30 days. That doesn't happen very ofter, so agin, prepare for a long long wait, that is just the reality of this whole process.

Rob and Melinda

Calm down and breath. USCIS in reporting times works like this. They select a timeframe or goal for how long they think it should take them to process a case. In your case they have set an intended goal for processing I-130's within six months. If they are ahead of that timeframe they will post the "goal" as the date of applications that they are processing.

All you can tell from the posted date of August 21, 2006 is that they are currently taking less than six months. It could be one day or one hundred eighty days. You just don't know. You can get an idea from one of the timeline forums of a realistic expectation.

If you want to verify this go check out AOS timeframes on the USCIS page. Most of them state August 21, 2006.

t

You say "Unless you have an extreme urgent(sic) situation that qualifies for faster processing". What kind of situations are these? I'll not see my kids until my wife can come (they're with her in Japan) and my son can't even speak english anymore. Thanks.

What most people need to do is go and check out similar timelines to theirs. This depends on the kind of visa, service center and most importantly embassy. All embassies do not work at the same pace. If you see that people who have the same criteria are getting visas faster through the K-3 route, then maybe that's what you need to file for. But if you see that K-3s and CR-1s are taking almost the same amount of time, then maybe the CR-1 route is the best fit.

Money is also an issue. If you have no problem waiting a little bit longer for a CR-1 then I would recommend filing for it since coming in with a K-3 will mean filing for AOS and EAD, as of now they're about $600 for both but after this summer they'll almost double that, so it'll be about $1200 plus who knows what other costs.

It is almost impossible to qualify for "expedited" consideration. You have to be dying. Literally. Pregnancy doesn't qualify, separation from families.. nothing.

Sorry for the bad news but its just a wait it out situation.