Hello all!

I am an italian citizen, my wife is a US citizen. We are currently living in Italy and we plan to move back to the US where I had an important job offer form a company in Chicago.

We already applied for an immigrant visa. Our I-130 petition was approved by Rome on Aug 20, 2007 and sent to Naples Consulate.

I tried several times to contact Naples but I was not able to speak with anybody! I would like to receive information about the next steps. In fact the company in Chicago needs to know when I will be available for moving and start working!

In particular I have some questions:

1) After the I-130 petition, which is exactly the list of documents that we should start preparing for the next interview in Naples?

2) Is the I-864 one of the required documents? If yes, I need some important answers (consider that we are both living and working in Italy and any incomes and asset we have is from Italy).

- I-864 Part 6 - point 23:
Is this the income my wife (the petitioner) had since Jan 1st 2007 until nowadays?
Is this the pre-tax or after tax income?
Can this Italian income be counted, even if, moving to the US, she will lose this Italian job and the related income?

- I-864 Part 7 - assets:
We should consider only the assets that we own in the US, or can we consider also the assets we own in Italy?
I (the beneficiary of the petition) own a house in Italy. Can I count this as an asset?

3) Will all the medical examinations be performed in Naples by US-consulate authorized doctors? Or should I do them with my italian doctors and then provide certificates and documents?

4) Considering our petition has been approved on August 20th, when we should expect to be contacted?

5) Is there a way to have an expedite process (e.g. paying larger fees.....)?


I hope someone can give me some answers! I reaaly need asap to contact the company in Chicago......

Hi Qwain,

As I mentioned on the Italia thread, I'm no expert because I'm just starting the process myself, but I have done quite a bit of reading and research on this site and other places. So I'll give you my untested opinion in response to some of your questions:

Yes, the I-864 is one of the documents you'll need for the interview. Only US income or income that will continue after the move is considered. If this means your wife has little or no income to show, you can use assets to make up the difference. They'll need to see liquid assets valued at 3 times the required 125% of poverty-level income. I think fully liquid assets in Italy, like cash in the back or stocks, etc., are fine (Please anyone correct me if you have a different understanding). The house MAY only be eligible for consideration if you show that you are preparing to sell it. I don't know this for sure, but I know they want to see that the value of the asset will be available to support you if necessary. As for value of the house, it's the market value minus any loans owed.

If you don't have enough assets to fill the gap in income, then you'll have to get a joint sponsor.

The only way to expedite the process, as far as I know, is to provide the documents requested as soon as they're asked for and to contact the consulate to check on your status and let them know you're ready to go. I've read here that they only answer the phone a couple hours a day on particular days, so calling at the right time is the trick to getting through.
From Breezy's post:
"After calling many many many times and insisting, I finally discovered that the Immigration Office in Naples only takes calls on Tues and Wed at exactly 2 - 4 p.m.

Best luck when I called at 2.00 on the dot!!

The "operator" will connect you to the office, and it may seem like the phone keeps ringing, but your really on "hold". "

From what I've seen here, it looks like the DCF process in Italy takes about 4 months from sending the I-130 to getting the visa, if no problems are encountered and if you respond to everything immediately. You're already through the first month.

I hope this is helpful and not at all misleading. Anything I've written could be wrong; it's just the best of my understanding at this point.

Best of luck!

Thank you very much whattodo! (nice nickname, why changing it?)

As far as I understand, the only way to understand if a house is a good assets, is to call them.

Regarding the number to call (the one at which they answer only during certain times......), are you talking about the normal landline number or the 899 number (the one which cosst 2 euros / min)?

Regarding the sponsorship problem, we can also be sponsored by my wife's father. He is a veterinary and he owns a clinic, so he has the requirements to support us. However, at this point I do not really know if the household changes. In other words, if we could sponsor ourselves the household number would be 2 (me and my wife). If my wife's father is going to be our joint sponsor, do we have to join his household? In fact he already has a family with 5 members, does it means that me my wife have to join his household (that would be 7)?

In this case the poverty line would change drammatically......

I know these questions seem really complicated, but the form is not really clear for these points.......

Regarding the time-line. Do you mean 4 months from the I-130 acceptance or the I-130 submission? I submitted the I-130 in Jul 2007 and it was accepted in Aug 2007....

Thank you!!!!!!!


Qwain

I'm sorry, I don't know the phone number. I'll have to leave that to Breezy or someone else to answer.

If your wife's father is a joint sponsor, I think YOU get added to his household size, but your wife doesn't because she (being a US citizen) doesn't require sponsorship. It's only for the immigrant. So his household size for the poverty guideline would become 6.

For the timeline, I meant 4 months from the submission, if everything goes perfectly smoothly. That's just what I gather from perusing the timelines here. It's not a very scientific conclusion. And of course some people do get delayed for unexpected requests for evidence or for other glitches. There are no guarantees.

About the phone number, I just found this on another thread:

If you have a case number, have already contacted the Visa Information Service, and are in need of additional information, you may contact us only between 2 and 4 pm on Tuesdays and Wednesday by calling (39) 081-583-8111 and following the directions for immigration visas.

Thank you!

Now things are getting more clear.........

My only doubt, at the moment, is about my US wife incomes (point 22 and 23 of I-864).

We live in Italy, so these incomes will be lost as soon as we move to the US. So should she put 0 (zero) incomes, or she can put her italian incomes?

In case she can put Italian incomes, should they be the ones of the last entirely past year (2006), or should they be the incomes of the last actual year (from Sept 10 2006 to Sept 10 2007)?

Incomes should be considered pre-tax or after tax?


Thank you again!