Prior background checks and K-1 timeline

[Megan & Luke 93]

Hello everyone!

My boyfriend and I are intending on filing the I-129F within the next two weeks. (Formal engagement is coming in a few months but we've talked extensively about what we want and want to get this process moving)

Needless to say I have seen a wide range of timelines - I am a U.S. Citizen and I will be petitioning for him to move here, he is from the United Kingdom. We've been scouring timelines, checklists, guides, requirements, etc and have made our own exhaustive checklist all the way up to Naturalization (if he wishes). Some take as little as 4-5 months between I-129F filing and the arrival at POE. Others are taking the 6-8 month average that seems the norm.

This question is specifically for those of you who have easy, short timelines, but anyone can offer thoughts of course!

So here we go:

I am 30, my boyfriend is 24. We both work full-time, I also go to college part-time. Neither of us have criminal records, have been at our employers for a number of years each, have never been married and have no children. We were not adopted and from our exhaustive list can provide all of the required documentation with no issue. I know these things alone make our process a bit smoother.

I work for a company who is contracted by the United States government. To get this position we had to go through a very long process (9 months total for mine) of security, criminal and other background checks along with fingerprinting. This was done again when I was promoted last year to a higher security clearance. Is it possible that the process may go faster due to this part already being done? I understand that USCIS and INS are not the FBI but I would assume that they would use similar checks.

After looking at all the timelines, he and I sat down to discuss our finances based on best and worst case scenarios (best is having every dollar right now and prepared to move! alas...) We want to be together, but the high cost of the visa process, plus his employment going away when he gives notice and a number of other things... we estimated our finances bases on 6-8 months out. If the visa process does take less time, we want to be prepared! Since there is 6 months after the K-1 is approved, we have to prepare that he may be here as early as the new year.

Does anyone have experience with having a previous background check and finding that their process moved along faster? I would think that since he is the one immigrating it would have been more beneficial for him to have had the background check already.. but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Thanks!

Megan

[lilsadie 50]

Hi! Congrats on starting the process! Im not sure about the background checks but as for time line get an idea of which service centre you will be sent to. At the moment tsc is around a 7-8 month wait for NOA2, from there your looking at maybe another 2-4 months for interview and visa in hand. We were lucky and went through CSS and got our NOA2 in 12 days, all up for us is about 80 days from first applying to visa in hand. We were prepared and sort of hoping it would be longer so we could save more money due to me not being able to work when we first arrive in the states (3ish months I think) im lucky though, my partner lives in my country with me so were not in a huge rush.

[Megan & Luke 93]

Thanks! I've seen that the best SVC so far to get is CSS.. the other scares me a bit. I was browsing the timelines and most going through CSS right now have at least a NOA1! Most recent from TSS have nothing

Crossing my fingers that they decide to ship my petition to California

We've crunched numbers a dozen times and can make it work with the worst case scenario. Annoyingly, his employer (UK based, only in the UK, nowhere even close to the US and has no US clients) would allow him to work remotely from the US. Obviously that's what I am researching now as it's just a big gray area. If he was able to do that, we would have no issues at all for money (he makes more than I do!)

We'll see!

Edited June 25, 2014 by MeganLuke

[landr 126]

Since your state is Pennsylvania, you'll be sent to the Texas Service Centre for processing - though some recent filers have had their petitions transferred to the Vermont Service Centre. Some have speculated that this is due to the horrendous wait times for an NOA2 from Texas.

I suspect that you'll find the petition stage is the longest part of the wait for you. The London embassy stage seems fairly efficient and quick, in comparison. My personal experience is that it took longer than the petition stage (my fiance's petition was processed at the California Service Centre), but for many others, it was very quick.

I believe that the background checks for the petitioner (USC) occurs at the USCIS stage after the petition has been filed and the background checks for the beneficiary (UKC) occurs at the embassy stage after the interview. Someone else may be able to weigh in to confirm this. For the UKC, after the interview, people have been able to get their passports back within 1-2 weeks after their interview and the Administrative Processing (CEAC status) for final checks took 1 hour, 1 morning/afternoon or 1-2 days - not long at all - mine took 1 afternoon to change from Ready to Administrative Processing to Issued.

Have a look at the London guide. It is an excellent resource for guiding you through the journey:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/474161-london-k1-a-complete-guide/

It's all a bit swings and roundabouts - sometimes you'll be lucky and your petition and application will hit a sweet spot and be processed quickly because the organisation handling the processing is being particularly efficient at the time. Sometimes, you hit some bad luck and the organisation is overloaded and they're have staffing problems, causing major delays. That said, London is one of the easiest embassies to go through as they don't ask for relationship evidence - though you'd be wise to include a handful of pictures or perhaps a page or two of Skype logs, you just don't need to frontload it as much as you would if you were going through another embassy. They're happy to look at these items at the interview if you bring some along to refer to, though they don't need copies for the file.

Good luck!

Edited June 25, 2014 by landr

[bunnygirl 86]

Thanks! I've seen that the best SVC so far to get is CSS.. the other scares me a bit. I was browsing the timelines and most going through CSS right now have at least a NOA1! Most recent from TSS have nothing

Crossing my fingers that they decide to ship my petition to California

We've crunched numbers a dozen times and can make it work with the worst case scenario. Annoyingly, his employer (UK based, only in the UK, nowhere even close to the US and has no US clients) would allow him to work remotely from the US. Obviously that's what I am researching now as it's just a big gray area. If he was able to do that, we would have no issues at all for money (he makes more than I do!)

We'll see!

I'm afraid you'll be sent to TSC, sorry. We've just waited 6 months for our NOA2. Be aware that these things tend to go in cycles though, they speed up and slow down seemingly at random! Last year it was CSC who was taking a long time to approve petitions! They only advice I can give on this is to prepare for both scenarios, both a quick approval and a long approval and try and plan accordingly.

Re your fiance's work - whilst it's great that his company will let him work remotely, he won't be able to do this legally until he has his EAD in hand after filing for AOS. So, legally, he'd need to take a break of a few months until he's authorised to work before he could do this.

The alternative is for you to get married and then file for a CR1 visa. He'd be able to work as soon as he walked off the plane

Good luck!

[Nich-Nick 3,353]

Does anyone have experience with having a previous background check and finding that their process moved along faster? I would think that since he is the one immigrating it would have been more beneficial for him to have had the background check already.. but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Thanks!

Megan

My husband and I both had extensive background checks for jobs prior to filing. He worked with the police in England. Mine was an FBI fingerprint type check because of a Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) requirement having to do with trading on the stock exchange. I can assure you that did not speed up our timeline one bit over how it was going for others filing at the same time. What helped us somewhat was being detailed so no RFEs to slow us down and being prepared and timely in jumping through the next hoop.

Timelines change so you can't count on anything to happen for you based on others. It is a weak guess at best.

[FlyingPhoenix 4]

Mine has taken just under 4 months total from filing to POE which will be tomorrow neither me nor my fiancé have had background checks previously, in fact my fiancé does have a criminal history and he is the one in the US. Nothing for domestic violence though which is specifically what they look for in the USC background check I believe. I have no criminal history which is good because if the alien coming into the USA has a criminal history I believe that might slow the process down or even cause denials due to prior research when we were checking if my fiancés criminal history would cause any problems.

I think something that helped us though was having a lawyer I'm not sure if having a lawyer associated with your case speeds it up I've heard that sometimes is does because having already convinced a lawyer that you have a truthful and bonafide relationship they don't need to do such extensive checking and there is less chance of you having any RFEs because the lawyer should make sure everything is in order, other people have said nothing speeds it up your either lucky or your not.

Our application was sent to the CSS which seems to be a fast one, but they vary from time to time with which ones are faster or slower.

So I would just recommend you triple check you have all the forms you need to submit do your research and maybe even ask on here before you send it off listing everything you have and someone will be able to tell you if anything is missing. Also make sure you include plenty of evidence of your relationship to show that it is genuine, so pictures of you together, plane tickets from visits if you have them-I didn't, so I sent in scans of the stamps in my passports from when I visited. Also chat logs from Skype or anything really just of how you communicate when you are apart and just anything else you can think of to prove your genuine relationship.