I-130 Petition Submittion

[fem_femme 6]

Hi guys. So I submitted I-130 for my spouse who lives in Azerbaijan and received a NOA1 shortly after in about two weeks. Surprisingly, I had filled out the G form for electronic receipt, but it's been a month and I never received anything besides the letter NOA1. Waste of filling out the form I guess. I also included everything my husband had given me from his home country such as his military record, police clearance, two passport-sized photos, his birth certificate, divorce decree and everything I submitted myself, I also included his own which he had translated from Azeri to English and notarized in his home country. I later learned that it is at the NVC stage where we will need to submit his own docs, so I rushed into things I guess adding those to my own supporting docs. I also submitted lots of bonafide evidences all at once to deter any RFE which I heard slows down the process. 

 

I'm doing this all myself so I would like to ask a few questions please:

 

1) Will the NVC stage ask for my husband's supporting docs again such as his military, police clearance, passport pics, etc even though I submitted at the filing stage of the petition? I suppose I can tell my husband to go and get cleared again at the police station and translate and notarize the doc again because from the time he got the first one and the NVC stage (assuming he is approved), it will have been months. OR....alternatively, do we not submit another police clearance and it would be better to get one like the day before his interview at the Embassy so that the EMbassy staff will see that up until the day before, he is clear? 

 

2) I got this on the NOA1 and I am little confused as to what it means in terms of the submission date and the timeframe of approval? {priority date: Dec. 27, 2018). The address of the USCIS office shows as Texas Service Center. Could you explain what 'priority date' means? How do I determine the timeframe of how long it will take to get approved based on my priority date? 

 

3) My husband and I will be meeting soon in a few weeks again, and since it's been only a month since the USCIS had received my petition, I will have more evidences with this upcoming trip to submit and I would like to 'side-load' my previous bonafide evidences with much more. From the time that the USCIS got my docs and until the time I can side-load more evidences, it will be two months and a half, which I'm assuming our docs will still be at the Texas Service Center, so would you advise me to send more evidences then, because once the docs get approved and are moved to NVC, ti will be a hassle to side-load at the NVC, so i feel like side-loading while the docs are at the USCIS (in Texas), would be more logical and easier to do. Has anyone side-loaded a USCIS or NVC level? I just want to the EMbassy staff to have so much evidence that they will most likely look into prior to the interview for less chances of denial although we will certainly meet again for the 3rd and 4th time....4th time being his itnerview date if all goes well. 

 

I'd really appreciate some advice as I want to make sure that I am takign the right steps from this point on. Thank you!

[fem_femme 6]

I also was wondering does Azerbaijan considered a high-fraud country? I'm trying to figure out how easy or difficult it would be for an Azerbaijani citizen at the interview. I heard that the US Embassy in Azerbaijan only considers visa interviews, but for K-1/CR-1 interview is the neighboring Georgia (Tbilisi), that interviews Georgians and Azeris, so my husband would have to cross the border to Georgia to be interviewed. There aren't many Azeris or Georgians in the US, so I'm not sure if that makes it a country that's less of a fraud unlike some African or Asian countries. 

[aleful 1,905]

hi

 

yes because a lot of civil documents are sent at the nvc stage and not with the i130. did you send the i130A as well? for spouses the i130 and the i130A are sent together

 

no need for bona fide evidence at the nvc stage, whatever you are getting together now, is for the interview. 

[Bayman 65]

3 minutes ago, aleful said:

hi

 

yes because a lot of civil documents are sent at the nvc stage and not with the i130. did you send the i130A as well? for spouses the i130 and the i130A are sent together

 

no need for bona fide evidence at the nvc stage, whatever you are getting together now, is for the interview. 

it also important to sideload more evidence of on going relationship at the NVC stage. But is a choice

[pushbrk 12,106]

Priority date is meaningless, if you are a US Citizen.  It's just the receipt date.  Expect about 8 months from submission to approval.  Any civil documents that are required at NVC stage, are a waste to submit with the petition.  Yes, you will submit all NVC stage civil documents for the foreign spouse AGAIN at the NVC stage.

[carmel34 3,529]

From your post, you did not read and study the guides here on Visa Journey for the spousal visa and all the stages, documents for each stage, etc.  I suggest that you do this and also follow the USCIS instructions very carefully.  Errors cause unnecessary delays.  Texas Service Center is taking 7 to 9 months for petition approval now, then NVC stage and interview abroad stages take an additional 7 or more months.  You can submit more evidence of your visits and time spent together, and financial co-mingling evidence at the NVC stage, but NVC is moving to electronic uploading of documents and I have heard that it is limited in what you can upload so side-loading may not allow too much new evidence to be submitted.  You can take additional evidence to the interview, that will be more than a year from now if all goes well, with no delays along the way.  Good luck!

[fem_femme 6]

Thank you guys for your replies. Sorry for the delayed response as I got sick for a while then took another trip abroad to visit my husband and just returned from our 2nd meeting. We plan on meeting up this summer again for the 3rd time. So I am getting different dates regarding approval timeframe for USCIS stage. As they received the petition on December 27, when would you recommend me to do a case inquiry through my congressman's office on the status that won't be too early for the uscis? Another question is in case that we get a RFE, for example, which I have not gotten one and it's been now two an a half months since the time they received it, approximately when does USCIS send a RFE? I will side-load our new evidence of bonafide relationship at the NVC level assuming we get to that point lol.Thank you.

[LilyJ 1,258]

2 hours ago, fem_femme said:

Thank you guys for your replies. Sorry for the delayed response as I got sick for a while then took another trip abroad to visit my husband and just returned from our 2nd meeting. We plan on meeting up this summer again for the 3rd time. So I am getting different dates regarding approval timeframe for USCIS stage. As they received the petition on December 27, when would you recommend me to do a case inquiry through my congressman's office on the status that won't be too early for the uscis? Another question is in case that we get a RFE, for example, which I have not gotten one and it's been now two an a half months since the time they received it, approximately when does USCIS send a RFE? I will side-load our new evidence of bonafide relationship at the NVC level assuming we get to that point lol.Thank you.

They will not issue you an RFE until they look at your case for review (aka the same time it may possibly be approved assuming you DON'T get an RFE), which will still not be for quite some months seeing as you only submitted it two months ago. Texas right now is taking 6-9 months to look at cases and approve/deny/send RFE. So you still have a while to wait. Similarly, you cannot make an inquiry until your case is past normal processing time, which it isn't anywhere near past processing time right now. So you cannot submit a case inquiry because you are still early on and well within processing time.
You can keep an eye on the processing times here:
https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/

Should your case go past the date that it says under "Receipt date for a case inquiry", THEN you can submit an inquiry. Not until then. Submitting an inquiry sooner than being past processing time will not speed up your case at all, so I would recommend not even trying it unless your case actually becomes past the processing time. But like I've said, you're still nowhere near past the process date.

[fem_femme 6]

Thanks for your response. I didn't mean to do a case inquiry now obviously that would be dumb lol. Correct me if I am wrong, but I heard that if the uscis wants to deny your petition, they do not outright deny it, but rather send you an intent to deny letter asking for more evidence? Is this true? Is this the same as RFE? I'm trying to learn in advance about different scenarios. I actually have more evidence now and I would love to front-load it, but I do not want to do it until they send me RFE because in case I send it now as a front-load, and then after some months later they send me RFE, I wouldn't have anything new to submit except chat/phone logs unless it's the time when we meet for the 3rd time again. I am guessing to just sit still and wait for whatever they send and then go from there. Regardless, I still would like to get an idea after how many months later do they send a RFE along the process? 

[LilyJ 1,258]

42 minutes ago, fem_femme said:

Thanks for your response. I didn't mean to do a case inquiry now obviously that would be dumb lol. Correct me if I am wrong, but I heard that if the uscis wants to deny your petition, they do not outright deny it, but rather send you an intent to deny letter asking for more evidence? Is this true? Is this the same as RFE? I'm trying to learn in advance about different scenarios. I actually have more evidence now and I would love to front-load it, but I do not want to do it until they send me RFE because in case I send it now as a front-load, and then after some months later they send me RFE, I wouldn't have anything new to submit except chat/phone logs unless it's the time when we meet for the 3rd time again. I am guessing to just sit still and wait for whatever they send and then go from there. Regardless, I still would like to get an idea after how many months later do they send a RFE along the process? 

They won't send out an RFE until your processing time comes and they open your file to look at it (with the intent to make a decision). The USCIS has a new rule in place that they can deny a petition without sending an RFE, in that case they may send an intent to deny with instructions on what to do, however I believe they are not so harsh on this so it's more likely that an RFE will be sent IF they feel there is not enough evidence. I wouldn't worry about sending more now. Wait to see what they say, you may not need to send any of that at all if they accept your petition with no RFEs. The timeline to expect an RFE (if you get one) is the same timeline as the timeline to expect approval (if you get approved). They won't send you an RFE before your case is opened to look at for either RFE, approval, or denial. Why do you feel you will receive an RFE?

Edited March 12, 2019 by LilyJohansen

[fem_femme 6]

1 hour ago, LilyJohansen said:

They won't send out an RFE until your processing time comes and they open your file to look at it (with the intent to make a decision). The USCIS has a new rule in place that they can deny a petition without sending an RFE, in that case they may send an intent to deny with instructions on what to do, however I believe they are not so harsh on this so it's more likely that an RFE will be sent IF they feel there is not enough evidence. I wouldn't worry about sending more now. Wait to see what they say, you may not need to send any of that at all if they accept your petition with no RFEs. The timeline to expect an RFE (if you get one) is the same timeline as the timeline to expect approval (if you get approved). They won't send you an RFE before your case is opened to look at for either RFE, approval, or denial. Why do you feel you will receive an RFE?

Thanks for clarifying everything for me. I really appreciate it! I feel that I might receive an RFE even though I sent a lot of bonafide evidence with my I-130 because I was previously married to a guy who was on a visitor's visa whom I met here in the US but when he got his conditional g.c. he pretty much abandoned the marriage so I sent a fraud letter to the uscis against him. My current husband is from overseas so it is a cr-1 case with my new hubby unlike with that a-hole lol. I feel like they might scrutinize me this time, but then again it's not my fault what that a-hole did, so I hope I don't have to pay for my mistake from 7 years ago or so. My first husband and I did get rfe but even without submitting much evidence at all (just affidavits from my parents), he surprisingly got his card. This time I submitted enough evidence right away, but like I mentioned, we just came back from our European trip where we celebrated my b-day there, so I have tons of new evidence and I got an expensive diamond ring among other stuff as gifts so all that is not in my file yet. We plan on meeting up again in 6 month's time again sometime in the summer. I wouldn't worry about at all had this been my 1st marriage, but since it isn't and my first husband abandoned the marriage right after his conditional card arrived, and then my fraud report against him, I don't want unnecessary delays in this new petition years after. I hope things go well, I mean when I petitioned for my 2nd husband, I also included out present European trip itinerary's as we had booked out flights some month before besides including out 1st meeting boarding passes. 

[LilyJ 1,258]

1 minute ago, fem_femme said:

Thanks for clarifying everything for me. I really appreciate it! I feel that I might receive an RFE even though I sent a lot of bonafide evidence with my I-130 because I was previously married to a guy who was on a visitor's visa whom I met here in the US but when he got his conditional g.c. he pretty much abandoned the marriage so I sent a fraud letter to the uscis against him. My current husband is from overseas so it is a cr-1 case with my new hubby unlike with that a-hole lol. I feel like they might scrutinize me this time, but then again it's not my fault what that a-hole did, so I hope I don't have to pay for my mistake from 7 years ago or so. My first husband and I did get rfe but even without submitting much evidence at all (just affidavits from my parents), he surprisingly got his card. This time I submitted enough evidence right away, but like I mentioned, we just came back from our European trip where we celebrated my b-day there, so I have tons of new evidence and I got an expensive diamond ring among other stuff as gifts so all that is not in my file yet. We plan on meeting up again in 6 month's time again sometime in the summer. I wouldn't worry about at all had this been my 1st marriage, but since it isn't and my first husband abandoned the marriage right after his conditional card arrived, and then my fraud report against him, I don't want unnecessary delays in this new petition years after. I hope things go well, I mean when I petitioned for my 2nd husband, I also included out present European trip itinerary's as we had booked out flights some month before besides including out 1st meeting boarding passes. 

It's no problem  Well, hopefully they will not hold you accountable for your previous husband's actions, since you were in it genuinely and he is not, so I'm sure they will understand. I can understand then wanting to submit additional evidence, but sometimes when people send in things to front load before getting NOA2/RFE, it isn't always matched up to the case. So, I would wait, but let's hope that you don't receive an RFE to have to submit anything and that you are approved without a hitch, and then you can sideload evidence at the NVC stage as others have said and also prepare evidence for your husband to take with him to his interview in case they ask him there. Good luck, I hope everything goes smoothly!

[fem_femme 6]

12 hours ago, LilyJohansen said:

It's no problem  Well, hopefully they will not hold you accountable for your previous husband's actions, since you were in it genuinely and he is not, so I'm sure they will understand. I can understand then wanting to submit additional evidence, but sometimes when people send in things to front load before getting NOA2/RFE, it isn't always matched up to the case. So, I would wait, but let's hope that you don't receive an RFE to have to submit anything and that you are approved without a hitch, and then you can sideload evidence at the NVC stage as others have said and also prepare evidence for your husband to take with him to his interview in case they ask him there. Good luck, I hope everything goes smoothly!

Thank you!! I did report him extensively to uscis for fraud and also submitted my divorce decree per uscis's request so I spend tons of time for uscis to know that my ex abandoned the marriage so i do hope they are understanding in the process as I did my share by reporting him. Thanks again for all your help in my solo journey :))