K1 Visa Help?!

[coloradical 1]

Hi All,

My fiance and I submitted our paperwork early July and got our NOA1 July 17th 2012 from the CSC. We waited, very patiently, and on January 7th we called the USCIS hotline and were told they were processing July 17th and we might hear something within a week.

Two weeks passed, no word, so we called again January 21st and filed a service request which we never received a response for. January 21st we called again, spoke to an officer rather than agent, who said that a response had been emailed (they spelled my name wrong for the email address) and we should receive a hard copy soon. We never received a hard copy.

We called again January 28th and were told by an agent that we had never filed a service request - despite the fact that I had my confirmation number for it - and were told they could file one for us then...so we went ahead and filed a second.

On February 4th we received a response that said, essentially, they were doing their best under budget constraints and if we did not hear from them within 120 days, we should feel free to call back. At this point, they were still telling us on the national hotline that they were processing July 17th.

We then started the process of getting in touch with our congresswoman, Diana DeGette. A week and a half later (Feb 13th), with no response from her office, I stopped by in person and filled out a release for them to make an inquiry on our behalf. February 20th they notified us that the USCIS said our case was taking longer than posted processing times and gave them a number to call for the CSC. Today, we received a response from the CSC basically saying they are doing there best under resource constraints and if we don't receive a decision within 60 days then the Congresswoman's office can make a second inquiry.

It is also baffling to me that their posted processing times indicate they are working on cases from July 18th. Which is after our case was submitted.

At this point, we are lost. We have planned a wedding for August 2nd and when we made that decision, we prepared to have a courthouse wedding before if the process took less time than expected, but we didn't make plans for if it took significantly longer. My older brother is a Midnight Sun Hot Shot (elite wildland firefighting crew) and had to give notice last fall in order to get time off during the fire season to attend the wedding, so besides the serious loss of money from deposits if he isn't approved in time, I also won't be able to have my brother at the wedding.

At this point, we have been waiting 7.5 months for our NOA2, our application has not been 'touched' since it was submitted, and people with NOA1 dates in August are getting their NOA2s right and left. Of the last 50 visajourney applications approved, only 5 were before our date and one shared our date. 12 of the last 15 to get approved at CSC had NOA1s in August or later.

Is there anything that we can do? Any recommendations? I know that everyone at CSC is antsy and impatient, but it is brutal seeing all these August and September petitions getting approved and even more upsetting knowing the across the board budget cuts are bound to make the process any slower....

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Cathi 5,830]

Sounds like you have done everything you can do under the circumstances. But I will say, at least once or twice a week I read of people on VJ who have made wedding plans and made deposits on dresses, reception halls, caterers, etc... the whole 9 yards,only to have to change everything and lose thousands of dollars because they didn't wait until they had the visa in hand before they made huge wedding plans. There are so many things that can go wrong during the visa process, people really need to take the advice of others who have gone before them on this site and never put deposits on a wedding before the visa is issued. You still have 5 months until wedding time, hopefully the visa will be issued by then. Good luck.

[coloradical 1]

Sounds like you have done everything you can do under the circumstances. But I will say, at least once or twice a week I read of people on VJ who have made wedding plans and made deposits on dresses, reception halls, caterers, etc... the whole 9 yards,only to have to change everything and lose thousands of dollars because they didn't wait until they had the visa in hand before they made huge wedding plans. There are so many things that can go wrong during the visa process, people really need to take the advice of others who have gone before them on this site and never put deposits on a wedding before the visa is issued. You still have 5 months until wedding time, hopefully the visa will be issued by then. Good luck.

It is not a huge wedding - fewer than 100 people and we won't lose thousands of dollars if we don't get the visa in time. What we lose is the ability to have my brother be there, which is beyond important to me. He can't get time off during fire season without requesting it during the season before.

[coloradical 1]

We want to do everything in our power to get his K1 approved for our wedding and to live in the US where we are mostly settled, but if it doesn't work out we will likely get married anyway and apply for me to go to England instead, let him keep working for a few years, and then come back. That idea is less than ideal though, so looking for advice on moving this process along.

[Villanelle 4,122]

When you are outside of normal processing times (which you seem to be) you have the option of putting in service requests.

You can put in a service request over the phone through the reps. (you know how to do that). They will only allow you to put in so many requests with in so many days.

You have 1 local rep and 2 senators. You can ask all 1,2, or all 3 to inquire on the case. It seems like you contacted 1 of the 3 so far. (Some reps have similar policies to the phone center- they wont inquire multiple times- or they require you to be further outside the posted processing times before they inquire, you wont know what your reps policies are until you contact them)

There is also the ombudsman. http://www.dhs.gov/ombudsman-case-assistance

It doesnt seem like you have any grounds for an expedite. Theres really nothing to explain why your petition seems to be stuck and everything around you is moving. Sometimes is just the luck of the draw.