pyridine

This isn't an expedite at all so make sure not to use that terminology with the consulate. An actual expedite is extremely difficult to get - this is not that (which I think caused some confusion from others claiming definitively this was impossible), it's just doing the filing of the I-130 in another location not ordinarily approved for non-DCF countries but usually approved if you have any of the listed circumstances, that happens to make things much much faster than the normal route. You can find the official list of exceptional circumstances maybe earlier in this post or my earlier one, but it merely says a "short notice job relocation or new job offer".
 
I asked our attorney what constitutes "short notice" and she said there's no clear definition but that 3 months, which was what I had before needing to start, most certainly qualified. Beyond that, I guess it's getting more uncertain but any realistic offer will start well before Chicago lockbox would go through so it's always worth a shot trying this. And 3 months was quite far out too, I pushed it as far as this company would allow and it's definitely not standard, they wanted me in more like 1 month but too bad, I couldn't do that.
 
You don't need to prove anything about financial loss to company or about specialty of your role. I only submitted the job offer letter and attorney made it sound a bit dramatic how important the company's work was and my role at the company in the letter, very briefly, but I tend to doubt that was necessary. 
 
I will say she also expounded on the fact that I'm pregnant in the letter as well and the hardship to be caused by being separated from my husband, which is a second exceptional circumstance, but I didn't send anything proving that. You just use whatever you've got, but our situation was definitely such that I wasn't going to go for this job and would renege on the offer unless we could do DCF because it just wasn't worth it. He's now trailing me going by 3 weeks and I'm glad it's not any longer since I'm already getting a bit disabled by pregnancy. 

Thanks! And yeah - the attorney assistance was provided to us by the company hiring me. I would have blown my brains out if I had actually paid for her advice myself. Sometimes it's easier to just figure things out yourself (and hopefully my story here can provide a bit of that for those who can't afford an attorney). She did provide a bit of early assurance that this DCF thing was possible though, although she misunderstood the details of the entire process in general. And she helped us figure out how to proceed despite missing one of the key documents up until well, the day it suddenly came, in one form or another. But we're done with her now that the visa is being issued!

Oh trust me I know...if I hadn't already exhausted this with him to death I wouldn't be asking here about this. It's apparently more important to him than I understood that he work in exactly this thing. He's had interviews for tangential industry roles where he at least has some core qualifications and after a few interviews with those (2 big on-site ones) that resulted in rejections, he feels he's exhausted these too and stands no chance. I search for jobs for him daily and have to admit we're kinda running out of companies. He's unwilling to go back to really basic stuff.

I'm an American citizen and my husband is from Hungary. We were living together in Denmark for over 5 years and came to the US about a year ago since I had a job offer with relocation. We went through the laborious and expensive process of getting him the CR-1 visa (used direct consular filing with exceptional circumstances, so filing the I-130 was very fast) and he is a conditional green card holder now in the US.
 
We both have PhDs and he has had a lot of trouble finding a job in our area. While there are probably other issues here with his ability to expand his job search to areas outside of his niche field successfully, and the job search was interrupted by having a baby, we've been here for 10 months and he still has nothing. He is depressed and has practically given up on finding a job here and has started applying to things worldwide in his niche area - these jobs are few and far between and scattered on distant parts of the globe.
 
He is now in the early stages of interviewing for a position in Glasgow, Scotland. I'm not keen on following him (and frankly think this entire situation is terrible...I worked my ### off to get him over here) and I've barely been in my position for a year. But feel I may have to at some point, but these are all things to work out. My question is how likely it is to retain is LPR status? Should he apply for a reentry permit before he leaves? Is establishing residency in the UK disqualifying for LPR if anyone finds out? He obviously will need to establish residency there to have health care etc. But can he maintain dual residency in the US?
 
There are two scenarios:
1. I stay in the US with our daughter and he works abroad until he (hopefully) finds a position in the US again. In this case he will still be on our apartment lease, car title, will be maintaining his drivers license, everything.
2. We follow him abroad, in which case most things in the US establishing ties will have to disappear (would a reentry permit still work for this case? I know this would make it easier to redo getting a CR-1 visa since we could do DCF again, but the cost of all the application fees and medical exam is far from negligible).
 
Thanks for any guidance!
 
 

And the list of exceptional circumstances is the same everywhere and short notice job relocation or new job offer is one of them, quite explicitly. The same memo is posted on all the USCIS field office websites including the one for Mexico City (for which this whole thing ONLY applies to Canadian residents in their jurisdiction). At any rate, it certainly doesn't hurt for the OP to:
1. Write to Montreal asking about filing DCF with an exceptional circumstance and what their procedure for this is
2. If they say it's possible, then send what they ask for and try to do it. There's absolutely no harm done than perhaps a week or two lost when the I-130 could have already been in the mail to sit in line for 6 months with Chicago lockbox. So long as OP and wife are long-term residents of Canada, and the wife has a job transfer within the next ~3 months or so, I believe this is almost guaranteed to go through. Although I know you won't believe me, so let OP try it and let's see how it goes.
 
And it will be no more than a week or two lost, because per the USCIS manual, the USCIS field office is required to give their response about permission to file the I-130 locally for exceptional circumstances within 3 days, IIRC.
 
Worst thing that happens if they are bitchy about domicile at the interview like you warn about, is the wife has to move there and work a bit first. It's still a buttload faster than Chicago Lockbox will ever be. OP should ask advice about it from Montreal rather than listen to strangers online saying it's impossible.
 
There were also lots of people on here telling me flat out that I could never get an exceptional circumstance approved, despite that everything everywhere official from USCIS said this was possible. Turns out it was possible and quite easy, and everyone telling me this ####### was dead wrong.
 

Thanks! And yeah - the attorney assistance was provided to us by the company hiring me. I would have blown my brains out if I had actually paid for her advice myself. Sometimes it's easier to just figure things out yourself (and hopefully my story here can provide a bit of that for those who can't afford an attorney). She did provide a bit of early assurance that this DCF thing was possible though, although she misunderstood the details of the entire process in general. And she helped us figure out how to proceed despite missing one of the key documents up until well, the day it suddenly came, in one form or another. But we're done with her now that the visa is being issued!

Just wanted to share the extremely fast experience I have had with doing DCF for the CR-1 visa as a US citizen living abroad from a non-DCF country (Denmark) with an exceptional circumstance, which was a short notice (~3 months) new job offer in the US for me. I was given quite a lot of misinformation here by some commentors (including that the request to file DCF would undoubtedly be refused) and hope this will be useful if anyone else is searching for the process for this in the future.
 
1. The exceptional circumstance was practically automatically approved because it's one of the official ones allowed. I sent the letter and information the embassy requested on December 11 and received an email from the embassy on December 14 inviting me to file the I-130 at the embassy on December 18. In this time, they had gotten permission from USCIS London office to allow filing of the I-130 at Copenhagen.
 
2. I-130 was approved today on January 2nd, and we have received the checklist of documents from the consulate in Stockholm that we will need for the interview (where immigrant visas from Scandinavian countries all get sent; Copenhagen only does non-immigrant). They ask us to send them a completed checklist first - when they are satisfied, I assume we will be able to select an interview date.
 
So including that this took place over the holidays, it took a grand total of 22 days to go from requesting DCF to having the I-130 approved. We could not even get all our documents together in time for the interview yet (it's proving somewhat challenging to obtain my husband's military record), but it's looking very likely that my husband will be able to accompany me back to the US in mid-March. I was afraid we would have several months of separation and could find virtually no information for this situation on this forum. Of course individual outcomes may vary but the embassy here was very efficient and I am very happy. It has been even faster than doing DCF from a country with a USCIS office.

Just wanted to share the extremely fast experience I have had with doing DCF for the CR-1 visa as a US citizen living abroad from a non-DCF country (Denmark) with an exceptional circumstance, which was a short notice (~3 months) new job offer in the US for me. I was given quite a lot of misinformation here by some commentors (including that the request to file DCF would undoubtedly be refused) and hope this will be useful if anyone else is searching for the process for this in the future.
 
1. The exceptional circumstance was practically automatically approved because it's one of the official ones allowed. I sent the letter and information the embassy requested on December 11 and received an email from the embassy on December 14 inviting me to file the I-130 at the embassy on December 18. In this time, they had gotten permission from USCIS London office to allow filing of the I-130 at Copenhagen.
 
2. I-130 was approved today on January 2nd, and we have received the checklist of documents from the consulate in Stockholm that we will need for the interview (where immigrant visas from Scandinavian countries all get sent; Copenhagen only does non-immigrant). They ask us to send them a completed checklist first - when they are satisfied, I assume we will be able to select an interview date.
 
So including that this took place over the holidays, it took a grand total of 22 days to go from requesting DCF to having the I-130 approved. We could not even get all our documents together in time for the interview yet (it's proving somewhat challenging to obtain my husband's military record), but it's looking very likely that my husband will be able to accompany me back to the US in mid-March. I was afraid we would have several months of separation and could find virtually no information for this situation on this forum. Of course individual outcomes may vary but the embassy here was very efficient and I am very happy. It has been even faster than doing DCF from a country with a USCIS office.

Just wanted to share the extremely fast experience I have had with doing DCF for the CR-1 visa as a US citizen living abroad from a non-DCF country (Denmark) with an exceptional circumstance, which was a short notice (~3 months) new job offer in the US for me. I was given quite a lot of misinformation here by some commentors (including that the request to file DCF would undoubtedly be refused) and hope this will be useful if anyone else is searching for the process for this in the future.
 
1. The exceptional circumstance was practically automatically approved because it's one of the official ones allowed. I sent the letter and information the embassy requested on December 11 and received an email from the embassy on December 14 inviting me to file the I-130 at the embassy on December 18. In this time, they had gotten permission from USCIS London office to allow filing of the I-130 at Copenhagen.
 
2. I-130 was approved today on January 2nd, and we have received the checklist of documents from the consulate in Stockholm that we will need for the interview (where immigrant visas from Scandinavian countries all get sent; Copenhagen only does non-immigrant). They ask us to send them a completed checklist first - when they are satisfied, I assume we will be able to select an interview date.
 
So including that this took place over the holidays, it took a grand total of 22 days to go from requesting DCF to having the I-130 approved. We could not even get all our documents together in time for the interview yet (it's proving somewhat challenging to obtain my husband's military record), but it's looking very likely that my husband will be able to accompany me back to the US in mid-March. I was afraid we would have several months of separation and could find virtually no information for this situation on this forum. Of course individual outcomes may vary but the embassy here was very efficient and I am very happy. It has been even faster than doing DCF from a country with a USCIS office.

I think some people were confusing the exceptional circumstance for an expedite, which is not what this is at all. But after finding the list of exceptional circumstances written out very clearly in official memos and a State Department manual, I was feeling quite confident that this would be approved. I think if you clearly fit into one of the circumstances and can prove it, it is very unlikely you will be rejected.
 
One person tried to convince me it was not a valid exceptional circumstance and linked a memo older than the one I found, which was explicitly from before when DCF was eliminated at all embassies! After they eliminated automatic DCF from all countries without USCIS offices, they added the circumstance of a short notice job relocation or new job offer to the list. It makes sense because otherwise a lot of people would be pretty screwed over, waiting a year or more for their spouse to join them back in the US when they were married and living together abroad.  Also made more impossible by the steep financial requirements for expats to sponsor their spouse, since you can't do it with a non-US income and basically HAVE to have a job offer in the US to do this without substantial savings. While I didn't initially trust the US government to not make this completely stupid and impossible, I have to say that my faith in them is restored a bit. 
 
For some reason it seems to be a relatively rare thing but I don't frequent here enough to see all the questions. I could only find one with any information about possible timelines from a lot of searching and it wasn't very detailed.
 
 

In addition to getting current with your taxes, you should also file FBARs (it's separate from tax returns) if you have ever had a foreign bank account that hit $10k or higher value at any time in the reporting year. I had a nightmare with this many many years ago when my ex and I discovered this requirement, as he had a bank account in his home country and had no idea he needed to file. We ended up hiring a tax lawyer who completely ripped us off (there are civil and criminal penalties that were seriously scary - they're reduced the civil penalty now to "only" $10k but that's still bad). You will want everything to be squeaky clean with all the US authorities before you begin this, so I would recommend having these done even if it's not required to show this anywhere. 
 
Fortunately they have made the process of filing delinquent FBARs a bit clearer now (it was really a black box when we did this, hence the lawyer) but it's always a small risk that they'll go after you for a penalty:
 
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/delinquent-fbar-submission-procedures
 
We did get away with filing quite a few years of them all at the same time late, with no penalty. I also filed one accidentally less than a month late a few years ago, now that I'm living abroad, but that was fine too.