Changing Country of Application

[fletchvann 0]

We have a bit of a unique situation. My fiance is a citizen of Bangladesh but a legal resident of Indonesia. We applied for the K-1 visa through the Jakarta embassy. We've been approved in every avenue. He had his interview three weeks ago and was approved, but they put our case into administrative processing. His residency expires on August 31 at which time he will return to Bangladesh.

I have contacted one of my senator's offices and requested their help, and they have been contacting various agencies on our behalf. The embassy is aware that his residency expires on Friday, and we're hopeful that they will be able to complete the administrative processing and issue the visa in time. However, just in case, I am looking for some information on our options.

I understand that, if they do not complete the administrative processing in time, we can file form I-824 and pay a fee of $405 to have our case forwarded to the Dhaka embassy in Bangladesh. Seeing as this is expensive and will probably add several additional months to our waiting period, I'm looking for any other options we may have. Does anyone know if perhaps we can keep the case in Indonesia and then, after his AP is complete, he can just fly back to Indonesia to get the visa? This would be significantly cheaper than the I-824 fee. Any insight is appreciated.

[Anh map 2,098]

We have a bit of a unique situation. My fiance is a citizen of Bangladesh but a legal resident of Indonesia. We applied for the K-1 visa through the Jakarta embassy. We've been approved in every avenue. He had his interview three weeks ago and was approved, but they put our case into administrative processing. His residency expires on August 31 at which time he will return to Bangladesh.

I have contacted one of my senator's offices and requested their help, and they have been contacting various agencies on our behalf. The embassy is aware that his residency expires on Friday, and we're hopeful that they will be able to complete the administrative processing and issue the visa in time. However, just in case, I am looking for some information on our options.

I understand that, if they do not complete the administrative processing in time, we can file form I-824 and pay a fee of $405 to have our case forwarded to the Dhaka embassy in Bangladesh. Seeing as this is expensive and will probably add several additional months to our waiting period, I'm looking for any other options we may have. Does anyone know if perhaps we can keep the case in Indonesia and then, after his AP is complete, he can just fly back to Indonesia to get the visa? This would be significantly cheaper than the I-824 fee. Any insight is appreciated.

Your Senator's office is most likely clueless. They just don't deal with many of these issues. Take your cues from the embassy in Jakarta, because that it what the Senator's office will do.

Did the embassy lead you to believe that it may be possible to issue the visa by Friday? Who told you that having the case forwarded to Dhaka would likely add months? Have you asked these questions to the consular staff in Jakarta? Start there and then formulate a plan based on what they are able to do.

[fletchvann 0]

Thanks for the advice. I emailed the embassy this morning.

The embassy didn't give any indication of a completion date other than saying that AP can take anywhere from 2 weeks to several months, but we decided to hope for the two-week window because the thought of longer was too heartbreaking at the time. They did not request any additional documentation or evidence for the AP so we're assuming it's just additional background checks.

Now that we're down to the wire, it doesn't look like we'll get the visa before he returns to Bangladesh. I spoke with a USCIS official at their customer service center about forwarding, and she was the one who suggested form I-824 and said it could take anywhere from one to several months to process.

Everyone I've spoken to at each level of the process has been very confused by our situation and not quite sure how to proceed. If anyone on this forum has a similar situation, I would be very interested to hear your story.