We applied for I-130 in April, 2006 and the case is still pending with the USCIS. Because it has been so long, we have been considering alternate plans. If nothing comes up for us till May, 2007, we have decided (hoping against hope, still) that my husband, the petitioner in this case, will leave his job in the US and return to Pakistan... wait till I-130 gets approved, I get the visa and then, we'll move to the US together.

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Our questions are:

• 1. Has anyone tried this before?
• 2. Can a petitioner leave US like this and still have the I-130 processing continue ?
• 3. If yes, would the application process suffer because of this temporary relocation of the petitioner?

A few questions....

Are you the US citizen or is he? Is either of you a US citizen? If neither of you is a citizen and one of you is an LPR, it will take years for the spousal visa to come through.

Have you contacted the USCIS to see why your petition, filed a year ago, has not been approved? That sounds like way too long.

He is a US citizen.

Of course, USCIS, a congressman and a senator have all been contacted. The case is with some "other department". No one defines is further.

Hmmm, doesn't sound quite right to me. Our I-130 was approved in around 60 days. You need to do some serious digging, something is wrong here.

dhobee,

The visa application process is going to suffer when it comes time to demonstrate that the visa applicant (you) meets the public charge provisions of the law unless either the visa applicant or their petitioner has a fair amount of money that they can live off of for quite some time, or the visa applicant has someone other than the petitioner to sponsor them.

Yodrak

how you can do some digging, and uscis processing it

Thanks Yodrak,

It should not be a problem for us to find a co-sponsor at the time of the interview. What we are worried about is that whether the embassy would create a fuss about him having left the US to live in Pakistan for the time being; and, if his moving to Pakistan will cause an outrageous delay in visa approval from the USCIS.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Plenty of people do this dhobee; I was one USC living abroad when I petitioned my spouse. I was careful to maintain my ties to the US (domicile) and prepared for the I-864 (requires US domicile and certain income/asset/sponsorship requirements). I was questioned about my employment prospects in the US when I returned.

meauxna , did you have a cosponsor , or you just had assest during interview

I did have a Joint Sponsor, but did not need to use their documents. We qualified on assets and my husband's ongoing UK-based income was allowed to be added as a bonus.

thank you for replying meauxna
can you please explain to me more , what you mean by ongoing income in UK
what you guys used for assest (money at the bank, properity, ....)
did you guys used household
thank you

My husband has income from the UK that is paid to him regardless of where he lives.
Our assets at the time included equity in real estate, various investments (mutual funds etc), cash on deposit.. um, I think that was it at the time.

I don't have the official link to hand, but the form instructions cover it fairly well too. Assets must be something of value that could be converted to cash within 12 months, and you must subtract the debt owning against any of it (ie in real estate).

The qulaifications for being a household member were different when I filed than they are now; we were/are a household of only 2 and we had been living together long enough for my husband's income to be included. Tho not required to put us over the PG limits, it was useful to show that we actually had some cash coming in the door as well (we were both not working at the time).

London's domicile standards are pretty loose. You don't actually have to have domicile in the USA anymore; all that is necessary is intent to re-establish it, according to the US Embassy in London's website and the forms I filled out in 2006. Nobody asked either of us about our employment prospects.

thank you alot for responding me , i appreciate it

Annecdotal evidence from posters indicates that petitioners from London, Sydney and Montreal are given less grief about domicile and often, employment.
Maybe filing through Athens made the difference for me? Could've been my unemployed status, too.

I dunno, maybe the rules were different back then. According to your timeline it has been several years since you guys went through this process. The US embassy in London's website makes their rules pretty clear.

Yeah, I must not have been paying attention.

The OP is from Pakistan.

Yes, I'm aware of that.

Is that going to make things harder?

homesick_american,

That's great for people who are applying for visas in London. Unfortunately, dhobee is not applying in London, they are applying in Pakistan. I suspect that the consulate there is a bit stricter in its' consideration of the domicile requirement.

Yodrak



dhobee,

He will have to demonstrate that in leaving the USA to live in Pakistan he has not abandoned his US domicile.

Visa approval does not come from the USCIS, it comes from the consulate.

Yodrak

Have you considered FMLA or Leave of Absence from work, instead of quitting.

My husbands rents an apartment so there aren't any mortgage payments, property, etc. There are no items that are on lease, or we are really confused on how he can go about demonstrating domicile in the US. Are there specific things that he can do to demonstrate that?

Thanks for all your help everyone.

He cannot take FMLA or other long-term leaves, as the employer wouldn't allow that.

I beleive if your husband is an "eligible" employee, he cannot be denied FMLA. FMLA is a federal mandate and cannot be denied or the person fired from the job for taking it. Check this site out for more info on FMLA http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/fmla/faq.asp.

In and of itself, your USC husband moving to Pakistan for an extended period of time, presents no obstacle to visa approval. It will extend the NVC portion of the process because all correspondence will delayed as it must be mailed to and from Pakistan. I say, "in and of itself", because as has been mentioned there are domicile and public charge considerations to be overcome regardless. Your husband leaving his job and domicile behind, to live in Pakistan is dealt with differently than if it were the UK, for instance. I suspect your case is stuck in name check hell. During this black hole, information is almost possible to obtain and a prediction of time frame would be a fantasy.

hey dhobee:)
first of all-since he applied for a female, it weird they are taking so long to get back to you...
I am a US citizen and applied for my husband. To prove i had domicile i went to the US-worked for a bit and stayed without him for about 9 months...it was really hard living alone there as i had no one else there with me...and i just said forget it and came back...i thought that if they bring up any problem, then i can go back to the US-i came back to paki in mid oct...have been there ever since...we are still waiting for security clearance..he already had his interview in sept..and i went back to pakistan a few weeks later.he asked someone at the ISB embassy and one person said its ok for her to come back-and one person said she shldnt stay past 6 months..i even called USCIS and they said its okay to go..its really confusing since no one really has one answer..
why dont u call the ISB embassy and find out...call and find out why ur I-130 is still not approved..even in pakistan it takes a MAXIMUM of 6 months to get approved...
can he get his name on a lease with someone else? maybe that can show he has a place..and bills etc can show...keep a bank statement and all..

take care!
regards
saeedeh

Well i applied my husband and went to pakistan in july 2006... im a u.s. citizen and stayed in pakistan until april and it didnt affect his case at all... and i came back because i wanted not because i was forced.. i can stay as long as i want, and the case still processes.

Salam Saeedeh,

Calling the ISB embassy at this point would be useless, they dont know anything about our case yet, since it's with the USCIS... it has not been approved yet. And I know what you mean about everything being so "hard" about the whole process. What starts as a chant of "oh-it'll-take-a-few-months" rolls into an year before you even know it, and still counting. At least you guys have had the interview and are just waiting for the visa itself. Our journey, regardless of how old it is, has not even begun yet, in terms of processing.



Missing my life,

I can see the case still continues processing but we're just worried about it hampering the process...

Anyway, we are back on the hope drug these days and hoping we won't have to resort to him leaving the US... God willing.