Haribo

I posted this in another thread today, but seems appropriate here as well.

I, like many others have been watching Igor's list in hopes of some sort of movement. Today, I noticed that 4 filers got NOA2's from CSC yesterday alone. Now, this could be a fluke, but that's as many as the last half of February combined. I'm hoping it's not just a fluke, and is the start of a push forward on fiance Visas at CSC

It certainly isn't bad news, but three of those posters had earlier RFEs and 1 is from October and may have expedited their petition. I wouldn't read too much into it, at least not yet. Hopefully the numbers stay high.

Also, just to vent, and apropos of nothing in this particular thread but a common occurrence in other threads on the topic... Nothing aggravates me more than reading advice from people who were approved much more quickly in years past about how we need to relax about the processing delays and take advantage of this time to "get to know our fiances" before they arrive. Grrr.

Thanks guys for the help, maybe I will post in IMBRA sub-forum.. how do I post there? Lol I'm a newbee

The IMBRA forum is here: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/forum/126-imbra-special-topics/

I notice one of the topics on the first page is about a domestic violence conviction, so reading some of the responses to that may shed light on your case.

Will having a domestic violence misdemeanor 1 knowingly caused or attempted to cause bodily harm on my record with marijuana paraphernalia charge be grounds for denial of 129f petition. Both records are over 3 years old. My fiance the beneficiary has no record.

Who can be a co sponsor? I read somewhere that the co sponsor had to be living in the same household as primary sponsor. Can the co sponsor be a friend that lives outside of the household?

K-1 petitioners have to reveal certain convictions to USCIS, including domestic violence. I don't know of the impact this has on the K-1 process. Maybe move this thread to the IMBRA sub-forum, or ask your question there?

From Wikipedia: "IMBRA requires U.S. citizens petitioning to sponsor K visas to disclose convictions for a list of violent crimes on the “I-129F” petition form that they file with DHS, including convictions for domestic violence and assault & battery, as well as convictions for elder abuse, child abuse or neglect, and stalking; and multiple (three or more) convictions for offenses related to alcohol/controlled substances. DHS must provide to DOS a copy of the petitioner’s I-129F petition form, together with any criminal background information (including information on protection orders) that DHS has gathered on the petitioner under existing authority...."

There is no requirement for the cosponser to live in the same household as the petitioner.

Today, USCIS updated their estimated processing time on the website from 5 months to 5.5 months. Unfortunately, the new processing time is only accurate to December 31, 2012 (ie: totally useless), but I think it might be difficult to get a service request for another two weeks, since you aren't outside of published processing times yet.

I feel your pain -- we received an NOA1 on August 31 and are waiting impatiently for that NOA2. You could also call and try to get a service request. You never know, you might get lucky!

I don't want to sound insensitive here, but if you think a K-1 application is taking too long, I wonder how are you going to feel when you would be applying for the rest of the immigration benefits. Be patient, sooner or later you will receive an answer. Keep in mind that with K-1 you are just getting your feet wet for what we all call "an immigration journey". Good luck.

This may be true, but for many applicants, the K-1 application is what is standing between them and actually living with or seeing their fiance again. There's a huge difference between facing the rest of the "immigration journey" together with your husband or wife, or waiting impatiently just to be with them. That's why delays at this stage of the process are so, so frustrating.

snip.

Thank you for this information! We're not at all religious, so there is no need for us to have anyone licensed or official perform the ceremony. We'd always planned on it being more of a dress rehearsal or the "Canadian celebration of our [civil, U.S., official] wedding vows" than an official wedding, with a close friend reading the vows. Just that our original plans were for the civil ceremony to be prior to the fake Canadian wedding, but obviously that is looking more and more unlikely as the days tick on, so I thought it might make sense to have the Canadian F&F celebration beforehand rather than afterwards.

(Next August I'm starting an intensive one-year job with no vacation time, so if we postpone the F&F celebration we'll either need to have it in LA (yuck) or put it off for a whole year... and we wanted to think about starting a family soonish. So complicated!)

Maybe if instead of calling it a "wedding" I called it a "celebration" of our (hopefully) impending civil marriage?

And phew, happy to get to save $1500 on a lawyer.

Thanks everyone! My friends got an RFE in August and the visa in the middle of November, which seems very fast to me, but of course I don't know all the details of their case. I think I'll save myself the $1500 and go without a lawyer.

Also, sorry for any confusing terminology -- I meant to say that we applied for the visa and received our NOA1 in August. Last night I realized the administrative parole took longer than I'd thought (for some reason I thought it took 30 days, not 90 days, ugh), which has thrown a wrench into the plans.

However!! I also realized that I don't need to spend the summer in the States, so unless we manage to get an interview date before May, it will make more sense for us to have the wedding for friends and family in Quebec in August and then have him travel to the US, visa in hand, have the official, civil ceremony there. That takes a lot of the time pressure off, which was stressing us both, and it means even if there is some sort of massive delay we can still have the wedding -- he just won't be able to come to the US afterwards.

Can we do that? Have an unofficial ceremony before he enters the US? Could that cause any problems with the visa? Obviously we wouldn't arrange for a Canadian marriage certificate or anything like that.

My fiance and I are hoping to get married next August in Quebec City. We submitted our NOA in August of this year, so we were hoping we'd have enough time to get the visa, have a civil ceremony, and apply for him to leave the country. However, looking at all the delays with the Montreal embassy, I'm starting to get nervous about my master plan, and wondering if hiring an attorney to navigate this portion of the process is worth it.

I am fairly confident in my and my fiance's ability to put together visa application packets. But a friend of mine recently married a Canadian, had some DOS-side processing errors, hired an attorney, and ended up getting their approved visa back much faster than they were expecting. They said their attorney was able to expedite some of the paperwork and cut out some of the wait time. The attorney came highly recommended to them from an immigration professor at a top law school.

I'm wondering if it might be worth it to hire this attorney in the hopes of speeding up the process somehow. Are there any opportunities for a savvy, connected lawyer to cut some time/get an earlier interview date than might otherwise be available? When I emailed the attorney, he told me "Also, the process typically involves interfacing with government officials from CIS, Consulate, Visa Center, and (perhaps) Border Patrol ... which is what we do everyday ... so there would be plenty of chances to expedite. On the other hand, we never guarantee results ... it's not prudent."

Is this accurate? From reading the forum, it seems like lawyers don't offer any added value to the process -- but my friend's visa came but much faster then the timing would have suggested, and logically it seems to me like an attorney who works regularly with the consulate staff at the Montreal consulate should be able to help out. Any thoughts?