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Hi everyone, I'm a student in the U.S. on an F-1 visa. I came here in Aug 2024 (a year ago), but my wife, who is in Pakistan, has been rejected for her F-2 visa three times.

Now, I have a new opportunity to start a business with investment from my Aunty. I m trying to figure out the best way forward:

- Should I try to change my visa status to an E-2 (investor) visa while I'm here in the U.S.?

If I do that, will my wife be able to get her E-2 dependent visa?

I'm really worried about going back to Pakistan to apply because I might get stuck there, and get my student visa canceled.

Has anyone gone through a similar process or successfully changed from an F-1 to an E-2 status with a dependent applying from abroad? Any advice or insights would be incredibly helpful!

Hi everyone,

I am in a bit of a limbo and not sure what to do - I would very much appreciate your honest thoughts on the best way forward. This relates to my application for N-400. For context, I have a I-751 (petition to remove conditions on residence) this was submitted on 11 August 2023.

I submitted my N-400 citizenship application to USCIS and received receipt notice on 5 June 2024 (as of today this is over 15 months ago). My receipt notice states National Benefit Center (Overland Park, KS) I checked and my field office for any N-400 interview is West Palm Beach, FL.

On my N-400, my biometrics were reused and I have since had the status of "case is still being processed by USCIS." My USCIS online profile also has now been over months saying: "your case is taking longer than our previous estimate and is now outside normal porcessing times."

When I checked the case processing time tool on USCIS page and gave my receipt notice - it stated that states - You can send us questions about your case by submitting a Service Request online.

I sent e-request for outside normal processing time to USCIS about two weeks ago. Yesterday, I received an email from USCIS (Customer Support in Washington, DC) stating the following "We have determined that your immigraion benefit request has not been pending longer than what is normal for the specific request type. Please be assured that we are handling your request..."

I think USCIS are wrong. As noted, it has been over 15 months since I filed and when I first looked at the processing time for West Palm Beach, FL, it provided that processing time is around 6 months. Now it is 9.5 months, but still I am now beyond even this current longer period.

I am not sure what to do in these circumstances. Do you think I should submit another e-request to USCIS or contact congressional representative and/or request assistance from USCIS Ombudsman or escalate this otherwise. Or should I just sit and wait until they assign an interview for me.

I'm not sure if this is the pending I-751 that is causing this issue but that is still not a reason for them to delay N-400 that is its own separate application. In other words, if you are married to US citizen and have a green card, you have a right to apply for citizenship within 3 years rather than 5 years on the green card.

I feel quite defeated. I was hoping for a positive response with this e-request. I have a few friends that filed N-400 after me (in busy locations e.g. California) and have gone through an interview already.

I would very much appreciate any thoughts and comments on this. If anyone is in the same boat, please also let me know.

Hi guys. Our k1 visa application is now at the final stage of scheduling an interview appointment with the local consulate after receiving the email from them this week telling us to proceed to schedule interview.

I have filled in my information and paid the fees in the system however we are not able to see the available dates on the scheduling page. Every time we check, it just says No Slots Available and has been like this way for 3 days. I called the consulate CS and they only told me to keep checking the page until there are available slots, and there s nothing else they could provide to help. Additionally, I have filed a feedback on the system raising this issue and now the feedback status just updated to Escalate to PMO (not quite sure what it means).

Well we will continue to check everyday and hopefully there are slots released very soon as we hope to complete the interview in early October but it looks like the slots are released randomly and we have to be always on the lookout.

Has anyone encountered similar situation when scheduling the appointment with the local consulate? Could you please share some of your experience with this ?

Has anyone been able to successfully expedite for a non-medical reason? Hoping critical nature of current work might be possible.

Dina and I sent in a fat envelope on 9/2/2025 for AOS and EA. Checks cashed two days ago. We're in the game.

Good luck to us all...