LC2010

@LilyJ thank you for the quick reply!! Looks like Madrid should be reasonably quick. I can’t imagine being in a country that has a 5+ month waitlist for an interview. Geez. What a brutal process this has been!! 

3 minutes ago, LC2010 said:

Finished submitting docs to NVC 10/23 ; got the email today that we’re moving on to the interview stage!! 
 

I know the amount of time until the actual interview varies big time from embassy to embassy. But when can I expect to at least know what the date will be? Whether it’s going to be Jan 2020 or October 2020, I just want to know so I can get it on our calendars! 

Oh dear. I think I’ve answered my own question looking in other threads i.e. it al totally depends on the embassy. Welp, more waiting! At least we are used to it now. 

15 hours ago, Velsay said:

Hey @LC2010,

 

My spouse ended up uploading this instead of the certificate and it has just been accepted.

 

Good luck!

 

Thank you!! He wound up just paying the 100€ or whatever it was to get the French certificate and have it translated. BUT this is very helpful for people in the future who may be looking for solutions to the problem. 

@VelsaySame thing happened to us! Husband (applicant) lived in France as a student for 9 months about 8 years ago. We were very surprised to see the requirement for the French police certificate. Please let me know if you call the NVC on your matter and learn anything useful! 

On 9/1/2019 at 11:11 AM, portorusa said:

Our NOA2 was on 7/9, also Texas Service Center. NVC received it on 8/23. Still waiting for the case number.

And @Nyhearts

how did you know when the NVC received it? Did you get an email or have to call? I got the emails that USCIS sent it to NVC about 10 days ago. But I haven’t heard anything since. 

21 hours ago, Tin4ik1990 said:

Or would that be too early? Did anyone else, who is in the process for not that long fill for the K3?

If I could do it again, I would file as soon as I got my NOA1 for the I-130!! No reason whatsoever to wait based on the data we’ve seen. 

On 8/22/2019 at 3:20 PM, sunatim said:

did you send your i129f to the same service center or.

No! Do not send it to your service center. Per USCIS website (https://www.uscis.gov/i-129f), send here:

For U.S. Postal Service (USPS):
USCIS
P.O. Box 660151
Dallas, TX 75266

For FedEx, UPS, and DHL deliveries:
USCIS
Attn: I-129F
2501 South State Highway 121 Business
Suite 400
Lewisville, TX 75067

I agree with @SunnyTiger that the 8-11 or even 13 months outlook may be a little rosy... people who only file the 130 and get stuck with the Nebraska service center are looking at 15 months minimum (from the time you file until the time the beneficiary as approval in hand). The worst part is you have no control over what service center you will get assigned to, and there’s no way to predict it. 

4 hours ago, BunyanP said:

Hey everyone. My PD is July 15th Nebraska. I’m somewhat was optimistic with the IOE case number but seeing more I-129 being sent, I’m starting to wonder if I should just go ahead and send it. It was under my impression that I would have to pay a new $535 fee? Do I file it directly to Nebraska as reference my I-130 or submit it to the Chicago lockbox? 

 

Thanks for your help!

You do not have to pay the $535 again! It is free if you filed /paid for the 130 already. You send the application to either Lewisville, TX or Dallas, TX depending on what shipping service you use. 

It is *much* faster to pull together than the 130 application. I did it all in just a couple of hours. Since it’s free and easy, I say why not? (Although this new IOE system may  change the calculus... no idea.)  

https://www.uscis.gov/i-129f

To people in Nebraska still waiting: you might still consider filing the 129f. I know at this point it may only save you 1 month, but:

1) One month is still a long time! (I have friends who get miss their spouses when they’re gone on 2-3 day business trips 😂)

2) With the way things have been going the last couple of years, God only knows what conditions will be like in October. This was actually my main motivation for filing even though it seemed “late”. (I’m an October 2018 filer (Nebraska), didn’t learn about the 129f until late June, and didn’t file 129f until July 9.)

Even though my 130 has been approved now, I worry every single day that the rules of the game are going to change before my husband gets here. I didn’t want to wait for October only to find out that months were being added to the process for who-knows-what-reason e.g., a new USCIS director adding another step to the process or redirecting resources. 

Just some food for thought!

On 8/13/2019 at 12:50 PM, Jmeleecur said:

I understand that. We've planned on a year wait from the time we submitted the application.  I'm just looking for information about this process, and to understand other peoples experiences.

Scroll through the link above (and the predecesor thread - “part 4”). You will see tons of us who recently caught on that filing the 129f speeds up processing of 130 by MONTHS. Without it, people at Nebraska are waiting 11.5–12 months. 

There is one person in the threads who filed the 129f 2 months ago and hasn’t heard back. Other than her/him, everybody else (I’d say at least 10 people, probably more) got their 130 approved within 3-6 weeks of filing 129f. Nobody has gotten a K3. But everybody I have seen who has tried it has said that while they would prefer an IR1/CR1, if they got a K3, they would be fine with it as long as it meant being with their spouse faster. 

I myself filed the 129f as soon as I saw others experiences. Less than 1 month later my i130 was approved “ahead of schedule”. 

I am making it a personal goal to respond to everybody who asks this question bc I am so sad about the misinformation I got when I started the process. If I had filed the 129f back at the first opportunity, my husband would probably be here already!

19 hours ago, Scott001 said:

Well I didn't do it July. Just did it now. I don't know if it will help or not, I'll have no way of knowing. Even if it doesn't help, I feel a little better. 

 

Seeing the 4 cases befor mine get transfers, and subsequently approved (Filed the beginning of Mach, approved  mid-July. ) made me say f-it. All it cost me was $7 and change.  

 

Even after the I-130 is approved we'll still have a long wait for collecting docs. She's an immigrant in the country she lives in now. 

 

I could go on but all it'll be is grumble grumble  so no sense. 

 

 

 

It saved us at least a couple of months. And I agree - just doing something - anything - felt better than sitting around waiting. 

5 hours ago, Rose__ said:

Congratulations!! That is awesome news, especially since you get to celebrate together!

 

I'm really envious though, our I130 PD is Sept 21st 2018, our I129 PD is July 1st 2019... And I'm from France, even though currently living in Canada. So very similar to your husband but I'm still waiting with no idea what to expect  also I don't even know where to look for updates since some people get the snail mail when nothing online has been updated, for some others it's only the email, others don't receive anything and only find out when they decide to call. I'm losing hope.

I bet anything your approval is coming!! Or has already been issued and is coming via snail mail. Fingers crossed! 

More bad (but at least interesting?) news:

1 hour ago, portorusa said:

This is it outrageous!! How dare they transfer the money we pay them for processing our cases to get the undocumented deported by ICE??

55 minutes ago, CaroY said:

Well that’s infuriating 😡

Outrageous and infuriating are the perfect words!! My husband can't believe this kind of thing happens in a country like ours that is so "well-developed" and prides itself on efficiency. 

To be clear, I don't think USCIS has gotten approval (YET!) to move the $200 million worth of fees over to ICE for enforcement FY2020. But the fact that they even asked shows where their priorities are. I will be doing some research to figure out when the USCIS budget goes up for a vote to see if it's ultimately approved. Like I said before, I know this does nothing to move my case along. But it does make me feel better to be informed and to feel like our concerns are at least semi-validated.

7 minutes ago, GAMAJM said:

No clue and they deleted almost like 10 mins after they posted it..

7 hours ago, Kimi31 said:

They didn’t  🙄 and the post was deleted before I even saw it 

it was a case of “someone I know who works there” type of statement 

no proof given 

Hmmm... interesting. Thanks for checking!  Guess we’ll find out soon enough. 

I read all the testimony from the House’s hearing on processing times last night. It was depressing! But at least it gave a credible voice to a lot of things we have all had hunches about. For example:

“And in its FY 2020 budget request, USCIS sought to transfer over $200 million in applicant and petitioner fees out of USCIS into ICE to support the hiring of hundreds of ICE enforcement officers, further calling into question USCIS’s utilization of fees paid by users of our immigration system to obtain congressionally mandated services, as well as the agency’s commitment to efficient adjudications.”

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20190716/109787/HHRG-116-JU01-Wstate-LindtM-20190716.pdf

I know it doesn’t help speed things up, but gathering facts does make me feel a little better! 

I 10000% understand the temptation to be frustrated at people “jumping the line” by filing the129f. As an October-Nebraska filer who has been living 5,000 miles away from my husband for almost 2 years, trust me, I get it!!

But the way I see it is this: it’s not those couples’ fault we all got bad information at the beginning. The bad info was “don’t bother filing the 129f - it’s a waste of time.” Maybe it used to be a waste of time, and maybe in the near future it will be a waste of time again (or worse! Maybe it’ll slow things down for the 130 approval! Truly, who knows.) But for now it clearly seems to be helpful, and there is no reason to be upset at people for trying and reporting their results.

On 7/19/2019 at 9:01 AM, GAMAJM said:

someone just posted on FB that USCIS has caught on to the Nebraska folks and supposedly they are going to nip it in the bud shortly. Of course, I have no clue if their source is reliable or if this is even possible according to the laws. They are indicating that USCIS has seen all of the posts etc. anyway...just figured I would pass along, but have no idea if its legit. 

Out of curiosity, who did this person say was their source? I don’t have Facebook or I’d look myself  

@CSTSLP Thank you for compiling all the data in one place! I was driving myself nuts clicking through all of the profiles of recently approved people and trying to figure out who had filed the I-129f. 

Is it ironclad proof? No, of course not, and you aren’t saying that it is. But what you’ve already provided is absolutely relevant “evidence” - and I say this as lawyer who has a very technical understanding of the word! 

1 hour ago, Pininfarina said:

I think the service center decided at the lockbox might be based on the state the petitioner lives in. I could be wrong though.

 

If I had the time I'd make an excel list of all centers and states of petitioners

 

 

Nope. I’m a Texan who got sent to Nebraska. 

Finally something semi-encouraging! Press release from US Hispanic Caucus linked here: https://congressionalhispaniccaucus-castro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/chc-chair-castro-and-81-democrats-demand-gao-investigate-uscis-record

Basically, Castro and 81 House dems demand that GAO investigate USCIS’ “record-breaking backlog”! I do wish it referenced the disparity in processing centers though...

Dallas Morning News covered the story here: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2019/05/13/joaquin-castro-house-dems-ask-watchdog-look-record-breaking-immigration-backlog-trump