Bullitt

22 hours ago, AmeriCanadian91 said:

My husband went through the process of applying for a work permit in Canada this past May, so he has copies of police checks from the UK (where his citizenship is from) and Australia (where he was a PR). However, he's been living in Canada for about 9 months, so we'll need to get one from here as well. Thanks for the reminder!

There is a time limit on how old the police checks can be...I can't recall if it was 3 or 6 months old before you had to re-do them.  Best of luck!

B

10 minutes ago, AmeriCanadian91 said:

I heard that the recent policy update (I believe in January 2020?) made it so that the DOS has the discretion and no longer needs to ask USCIS for permission. I may have misinterpreted that though, as I have only recently started researching this whole process. I've also looked into USCIS field offices in Canada and don't see that there are any (if that's what you're referring to).

 

I'm really stressing over this process because if I have to separate from my husband for roughly a year, it changes/complicates so many things! (For one, he'll have to move back to Australia to stay with his parents since we can't afford to pay for 2 homes, but they still have $3,000 quarantine hotels for all travelers). In any case, I'm just glad that this process exists to give us a CHANCE at being together the whole time. When did you go through all this?

I did it in May 2019, so my information may be out of date.    I did a quick Google search and found this, which seems to confirm what you wrote above:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20200131-I-130FiledAbroad.pdf

and

https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-6-part-b-chapter-3

While the back office procedure looks a bit different, my guess (and it's just a guess) is that it is not going to make much of a difference in practice.  The test for what constitutes an exceptional circumstance remains basically the same, and in practice the DOS was making this call as well before (I think they would satisfy themselves that exceptional circumstances existed before asking USCIS if they could proceed under the old system as well).  At the end of the day, it was always discretionary, and I'm not sure you could compel the DOS to see things your way.  That said, my experience was that the DOS was happy to assist (but maybe I just got lucky).

I remember how stressful this was; for us, we would not have taken the job if we could not make exceptional circumstances route work.  In terms of timing, I would start collecting documents now (especially the criminal background checks)...I think 2 months is about the absolute fastest you can get it done; I would count on closer to 3 months.

B

50 minutes ago, AmeriCanadian91 said:

I just emailed the Montreal Consulate requesting approval for DCF, as my spouse and I live in Canada and I got a job offer in California, starting next month. I've seen a couple comments about Canada not doing DCF - EC though, only for the "extremely" rare cases. Do you know anything about this? If I'm able to prove that I meet the exceptional circumstances listed in USCIS's Policy Manual, are they obligated to process my husband's application? Or is it totally up to them how strict they want to be with choosing applications to process?

When I went though the DCF process, it was not really up to the State Dept; they had to ask USCIS for permission to process an application via DCF.  In my case, once I got to the right section at the embassy, they asked USCIS and got the OK to proceed the same day.  This won't be an option for you if USCIS has a presence in Canada (I know there is some customs presence in Vancouver, so this might be an issue for you); DCF is only available where USCIS has no office that serves the jurisdiction that you live in.

This thread, and the other one that pyridine did had all the information that I used to get though the process.  I'm glad it is still helping people.

B

5 hours ago, jennyle0306 said:

So the job offer letter in the email is good enough right? 

In my case it was; I did not have a flight booked at the time I sent the letter.  I think my letter mentioned when my expected start date would be and that was enough do get the process started (together with the other points, e.g. proof of residency in the jurisdiction where you are seeking the embassy/consulate to get involved, mentioned in my previous posts).

Up to you, but I would not as it's not relevant to the question they need to answer.  There are thousands of people who are being separated from their family every month as a result of the ridiculously long wait times at the lock boxes; FS officers know this, but its not in their power to change it.

There was no form, I just wrote them an email.  I didn't include a copy of my residence card in my first email, but that's the first thing they asked for.  I wouldn't sweat it too much, just explain the situation.  You can see the timeline for how long it took in my earlier post...that timeline doesn't start until to make contact with the embassy; I would not get too bogged down in form over substance.

When I did it, it was brief.  It included the basis on which I was claiming Exceptional Circumstances (by the way, I don't think they consider pregnancy a medical emergency, but it won't matter as I was able to do it on the basis of my job offer alone), my dates of travel and proof that I was a resident of, in my case, Japan.

22 hours ago, Paul & Mary said:

I'd follow the instructions on the USCIS website.

 

https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-a-uscis-office/international-offices/united-kingdom-uscis-london-field-office

 

You do not need exceptional circumstances for London if you file now.   If you live in England.

I could not figure out how to edit my last post.  I think this is right; this was not an option for me as there was no USCIS presence in Japan.  If you can prove residency in England (maybe the UK?), then you might not need to bother with Exceptional Circumstances.  

4 minutes ago, familybasedvisa12 said:

 

Under London Jurisdiction with exceptional circumstances - job offer on short notice and pregnant wife. So you emailed the embassy or the USCIS field office? 

 

Thanks so much! 

 

 

The request you need to make is to your local Embassy/Consulate, not USCIS (at the time I did it, USCIS needed to give permission, but only the Embassy/Consulate can ask them, not the applicant).  In my case it was not possible to get a number to call the embassy directly, nor was it possible to get the right email for the correct section at the Embassy directly from the website. 

I had to call the third party service provider that the embassy directs all visa applicants to (I got this information from the embassy website).  These people are not consular officers, they are just administrators and they had no idea what I was talking about.  I was told several times that what I wanted was not possible.  After getting the runaround for a day or two, the message finally got to an officer in the right section and after that they emailed me directly and the process got started.    

I just wanted to say thanks to @pyridine for posting this thread and your original on using the Exceptional Circumstances route.  I was told that my wife would have to use the lockbox and wait 18 months to get her IR1 visa, which would mean that I would have been separated from my family for an unacceptably long time.   In the end we got it in about 2.5 months (that's with a 10 day national holiday in Japan; without golden week I think we could have done it in 2 months).  I would not have been able to do it without the information on this forum.

Our Timeline:

March 18th - I got my offer letter and contacted the Embassy in Tokyo the same day.  They make you go though a third party customer service provider who has no knowledge of exceptional circumstances.

March 20th - I get a response from the third party customer service provider providing me  the contact email of the immigrant visa section at the embassy, I contact the embassy the same day and they replied (the same day) confirming that ISCIS had authorized State to process my I-130 and set an appointment for my I-130 petition interview.

Late March-Early April - Thanks to the advice from @pyridine, I was forewarned that I need to start getting documents in hand, so we applied for police certificates in the 3 countries we had lived in.  The longest of these (the PRC), took about a month.

April 8th - I-130 petition interview

April 11th - Wife completes medical check

April 17th - I-130 is approved and we are given instructions on completing the DS-260 online.  We completed the DC-160 on the same day, and request an appointment.

April 18th - Receive my wife's appointment for her IR1 visa interview, which is scheduled for May 28th (they say this is the next available date).

May 28th - My wife has a brief interview and her visa is told her visa is approved at the end of the interview.  They take her passport and our pre-addressed express envelope and we are told we will have the passport back in less than 7 days.