K-1 to CR -1

[Evelyne 0]

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone from Canada had made a K-1 visa application to drop it and change it to CR-1 ? Anyone has been married inside the USA to an American without the K-1 visa ?? I know this is a general question but we want to explore our options as we applied for a K-1 visa but had serious delays due to some issue with our application and we tentatively booked July 30th for a catholic wedding. Our NO1 was accepted January 12, 2011. But we are not sure about the timeline. We sent our application in September 2010 but it was returned twice (one for a forgotten signature, and the second because the fees were reduced and they returned it again).

Any feedback, comments is appreciated !

[amykathleen2005 441]

You're not going to make that wedding, not by a long shot. To do a CR-1 you would have to start the process over. You can get married in the US whenever you like, you just can't plan to stay.

[Danu 19]

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone from Canada had made a K-1 visa application to drop it and change it to CR-1 ? Anyone has been married inside the USA to an American without the K-1 visa ?? I know this is a general question but we want to explore our options as we applied for a K-1 visa but had serious delays due to some issue with our application and we tentatively booked July 30th for a catholic wedding. Our NO1 was accepted January 12, 2011. But we are not sure about the timeline. We sent our application in September 2010 but it was returned twice (one for a forgotten signature, and the second because the fees were reduced and they returned it again).

Any feedback, comments is appreciated !

The NOA phase can take anywhere from 3-6 months on average, not bearing any hiccups along the way like missing paperwork which you get an RFE for. After that is the consulate phase where you get a package, fill it out, send it back and they schedule you an interview. If you live from Man. west you interview in Vancouver, which is about a 2 month wait on interviews, if you are Ontario east, you'll be in Montreal which can get really backlogged and is usually in around 3-4 months average. If your NOA1 just went through in January, you'll be looking roughly around August/September in best case scenario for completion.

For CR1, you will have to start all over, new fee's and more waiting. They all go through MTL, there are no CR1 interviews in VAN, and roughly 10-11 months is your timeline there, putting you in the states probably sometime next summer as you will need to wait for your marriage cert etc to apply. Is there any way you can pay a small fee to get the date changed to later this year or the beginning of next? If you can it will probably save you a lot of time and money, its one of the reasons we stress not to book anything with solid dates until you have your visa in hand, because so much can be bumpy in this process.

[Evelyne 0]

The NOA phase can take anywhere from 3-6 months on average, not bearing any hiccups along the way like missing paperwork which you get an RFE for. After that is the consulate phase where you get a package, fill it out, send it back and they schedule you an interview. If you live from Man. west you interview in Vancouver, which is about a 2 month wait on interviews, if you are Ontario east, you'll be in Montreal which can get really backlogged and is usually in around 3-4 months average. If your NOA1 just went through in January, you'll be looking roughly around August/September in best case scenario for completion.

For CR1, you will have to start all over, new fee's and more waiting. They all go through MTL, there are no CR1 interviews in VAN, and roughly 10-11 months is your timeline there, putting you in the states probably sometime next summer as you will need to wait for your marriage cert etc to apply. Is there any way you can pay a small fee to get the date changed to later this year or the beginning of next? If you can it will probably save you a lot of time and money, its one of the reasons we stress not to book anything with solid dates until you have your visa in hand, because so much can be bumpy in this process.

Your response have been very helpful. I personally don't mind waiting an extra few months to get married but my fiancé had already told everyone on his side about July 30th and making it more difficult to cancel or postpone the wedding as 95% of the guests are out of town/country. Also, because of the risk of him being re-deployed he doesn't want to postpone it any longer. So I am gathering all possible options before making a final decision on the whole process.

[Danu 19]

Your response have been very helpful. I personally don't mind waiting an extra few months to get married but my fiancé had already told everyone on his side about July 30th and making it more difficult to cancel or postpone the wedding as 95% of the guests are out of town/country. Also, because of the risk of him being re-deployed he doesn't want to postpone it any longer. So I am gathering all possible options before making a final decision on the whole process.

For either way (k1 or cr1), if he gets redeployment orders you can request expedited processing, which would get you through faster. If he doesn't get the orders and you do the wedding, sure you'll be married sooner, but you'll also be apart longer.

I wish you all the best in your decision!

[Tater&Bugger 3]

Your response have been very helpful. I personally don't mind waiting an extra few months to get married but my fiancé had already told everyone on his side about July 30th and making it more difficult to cancel or postpone the wedding as 95% of the guests are out of town/country. Also, because of the risk of him being re-deployed he doesn't want to postpone it any longer. So I am gathering all possible options before making a final decision on the whole process.

Is he in the military? If so request an expedite. We did. It wasn't expedited for the first part through USCIS, but we requested again with Montreal and got an interview about 3 months sooner.

My husband was deployed when we began the process, and request for expedite was based on his leave dates. His boss said to get married on leave (like we had that much flexibility) because of all the training he'd have to do/oversee (he is section chief). ANyways, that's the short story but we explained it all in our cover letter, then again and with more detail in an email to Montreal when I sent them back packet 3. They answered quickly and asked for evidence but all we had were deployment records, his boss told us getting hard copies confirming what will happen when is useless because everything changes. So in that email we explained that we are asked to be flexible by the US Army and by Immigration so we are trying to accomdate both while getting married in between haha. I also explained since I am not working and he is on leave we can attend an interview late minute as well. Two weeks later we got an email telling us our interview was in one week.

Detailed timeline is in my sig.

Edited March 4, 2011 by Tater&Bugger