Submitting form DS-260 before 2 year home requirement has finished (J1)

[aokash 0]

Hi all! My husband is finishing his 2-year home requirement at the end of January (basically 1 month from now). We have already got the I-130 form approved, and would like to submit the DS-260 form as soon as possible. Does anyone know if submitting this form before the home requirement has ended will result on his application being put on hold (there is a question on this form indicating whether the 2yr home requirement has been completed, with an option for explanation below)? We would be careful not to schedule the interview before the home requirement has finished, but we are under a tight timeline and would like to start the processing as soon as possible. Any experience/knowledge would be appreciated! 

[EG&XY 144]

You are fine. As long as you are close then the consular officer will decide if they will go ahead or if they will just hold the passport for a little bit in AP until the period is over. We were in a similar situation. We actually thought the period was already over at the interview but the officer said there was actually another week or two. But they went ahead and approved and issued the visa because there was no way my husband would have been able to enter the US before the time was up anyway (due to time required to issue the visa and return the passport).

[aokash 0]

Hi! Thank you so much for this information. Do you have to provide proof that the two year home requirement was completed? If so, at what stage did you do this? With submission of the DS-260 or during the interview process? 

[EG&XY 144]

No, they will already know what dates he entered and left the us, so they already know. On the ds-260 my husband just put a short statement that the period is up in Xxx YYYY (approximate date) and that he was aware that he must complete the time before he can enter the US.

 

Also, since this is for an IR-1/CR-1, your husband won’t schedule the interview. It will be set by the consulate and the NVC will let you know the date. If you don’t already have the date then there is almost no chance he will interview before the end of January. It sounds like you may not have even submitted all of your documents yet, so you still have to wait for the NVC to review all of those once they are submitted before you are even in the queue for an interview date.

[aokash 0]

 

 

1 minute ago, EG&XY said:

No, they will already know what dates he entered and left the us, so they already know. On the ds-260 my husband just put a short statement that the period is up in Xxx YYYY (approximate date) and that he was aware that he must complete the time before he can enter the US.

 

Also, since this is for an IR-1/CR-1, your husband won’t schedule the interview. It will be set by the consulate and the NVC will let you know the date. If you don’t already have the date then there is almost no chance he will interview before the end of January. It sounds like you may not have even submitted all of your documents yet, so you still have to wait for the NVC to review all of those once they are submitted before you are even in the queue for an interview date.

Thank you so much. Yes you are right- we haven't submitted these documents yet, but the lawyer that we were working with thought that we should maybe not submit the forms in case they placed a hold on the application due to the requirement not being fulfilled yet (he said that we might want to wait until after the requirement officially ended)... But we are pressed for time and hope to not delay the process.

[LilyJ 1,258]

Just now, aokash said:

 

 

Thank you so much. Yes you are right- we haven't submitted these documents yet, but the lawyer that we were working with thought that we should maybe not submit the forms in case they placed a hold on the application due to the requirement not being fulfilled yet (he said that we might want to wait until after the requirement officially ended)... But we are pressed for time and hope to not delay the process.

Nope not needed, you can submit them now and they won’t delay your process for it. They would only delay issuing the visa after the interview if the 2 year requirement wasn’t filled by the time the interview takes place, but since you haven’t even submitted yet and the requirement is fulfilled in January you’ll be more than fine 

[EG&XY 144]

Yeah, just submit everything. The NVC doesn’t care. It is only the consular officer that will care, and he won’t be seeing them for at least a couple more months.

 

Also, please fill out your timeline.  It helps us to know where you are in the process and to have an idea of what country/consulate is involved. In some cases it may impact the answers that you receive (tho not in this case).