molehills

Using ESTA to marry and leave is fine. It's when you use the ESTA with intent to marry and adjust status (stay in the US) when it becomes fraud.

Using ESTA to marry and leave is fine. It's when you use the ESTA with intent to marry and adjust status (stay in the US) when it becomes fraud.

Using ESTA to marry and leave is fine. It's when you use the ESTA with intent to marry and adjust status (stay in the US) when it becomes fraud.

You have many misconceptions about this process.  I'll try to clarify some of them.
 
1) You are married, so you are no longer eligible for the K-1. After your next visit, you can petition her for a CR-1 visa.
 
2) I-130 petitions for spouses are not adjudicated at service centers based on where you live, so moving to a different state is irrelevant.  Accepted petitions are batched to the service centers from the lockbox based on some secret USCIS algorithm.  
 
Yes, US immigration is expensive.  Visits are expensive.  The process is time-consuming.  All of these factors should weigh in when we choose overseas partners.
 
As far as the vaccine requirements, that is not a US immigration issue.  If it becomes a barrier to seeing your wife though, you may have to reconsider your stance on the vaccine.
 
Good luck - sounds like you need it.
 

I married my best friend in November in Guatemala. She is my everything, my soulmate, my partner for life. She cries every night that I'm here and she's there, despite the fact that I am able to visit every other month for 3 or 4 days (we spent our 1st Christmas together as husband and wife and it was amazing, but saying goodbye SUCKED!) We haven't filed anything yet though because it's sooo overwhelming and seeing hundreds of thousands of illegals crossing the border every month, we're wondering what's the point of doing things the "legal" way if there's literally no penalty for just crossing over? The democrats have made a mockery of our immigration system so why would anyone wait 2 years to be with your significant other if you can shell out $$$ to have your spouse by your side every day within a month? Honest question. I'm usually the most happy go lucky upbeat guy, but this is heartbreaking. Let's have an honest conversation. Thanks

Hey guys,
 
My EAD got approved today!
 
08/04/2021: Sent package (i-130, i-485, EAD, AP)
08/05/2021: Lockbox receipt notice
08/09/2021: NOAs in my mail box for all forms
08/30/2021: Received online account mail
09/30/2021: RFE
10/30/2021: Biometrics scheduled (NYC)
01/03/2021: EAD card is being produced
 

Not a problem.....in fact, it is a wise choice....

Much congrats! Hopefully soon for us.

Yes, here's our timeline:
August 2nd - filed
August 9th - NOA
November 3rd - Biometrics
December 9th - Interview
December 17th - Greencard received (best Christmas present we could have asked for!)
 
I suspect it depends on how busy your local field office is. I hope you get your interview scheduled soon 😃 Happy holidays!
 
 

Any early August filers have interviews yet? We filed July 30, and have NOA from Aug. 2. I am seeing updates coming in from a few people around the middle/end of July get interviews scheduled for early next year. Our biometrics have been done and we already responded to an RFE for the I864.
 

Just got my interview scheduled already today!
 
PD: July 6
Bio : Aug 3
Interview date: Feb 3, 2022
FO : Long Island NY
 
 

Just got ours in the mail Monday!
 
PD: July 21
Interview Date : January 21
 
FO: San Bernardino CA 

Any early August filers have interviews yet? We filed July 30, and have NOA from Aug. 2. I am seeing updates coming in from a few people around the middle/end of July get interviews scheduled for early next year. Our biometrics have been done and we already responded to an RFE for the I864.
 

Got my interview scheduled already!
PD: July 6
Interview date: Feb 3, 2022
Chicago FO

Congratulations!!! 
I also got a notification last night for my interview but still waiting for the mail with instructions in the mailbox.
PD: July 14 
Interview date: Jan 20, 2022
San Bernardino , CA FO 

My question would be, why pose such a question on this forum? wouldn’t your US rep friend know better than anyone here whether or not he could influence immigration matters in your favor? 

LOL, why?  Because you don't want to wait in the queue, like everyone else has to?
 
Everyone going through US immigration has been impacted by COVID shutdowns and delays.  You're not special that way.
 
US senators and congresspeople don't "put in a good word" with you for immigration.  They can make inquiries when processes are 'outside of normal processing time.'  You're not even close to that, since nothing has been filed.
 
If you choose to have a relationship with someone overseas, there will be periods of waiting.  No way around that for any of us.

This is the exact same RFE we received. Similarly to you, I make well over the income guidelines and had completed the document and given the relevant info upon our concurrent filing. We did not include W2s but had given the tax transcripts, a letter from my employer, 6 months of pay stubs.
 
Just do everything the letter says. I uploaded all requested info within a few hours of receiving the RFE, and the status was updated soon after. 

I remember sending a letter from a banking officer for the K1 and my retirement accounts info as well. Not sure if that was also an optional attachment, but I digress. 

I mean, within the progress report threads from a VJ member for each month, all those documents are optional to attach. And from a newbie perspective, frontloading a petition with more evidence in the beginning is always going to seem like a better idea than not including them.

This is the exact same RFE we received. Similarly to you, I make well over the income guidelines and had completed the document and given the relevant info upon our concurrent filing. We did not include W2s but had given the tax transcripts, a letter from my employer, 6 months of pay stubs.
 
Just do everything the letter says. I uploaded all requested info within a few hours of receiving the RFE, and the status was updated soon after. 

Yeah, OK......Well, imo, you are going to face issues even with a divorce waiver.  This, imho,  is outside the norm for a normal marriage.  Good luck

We had our interview today. The officer didn't say the case was approved or denied, but a lot of things were implying it would be approved (e.g. "all documentation is present and correct", we signed a statement acknowledging that we'd have to remove conditions after two years). It's 6:40pm where we are, so I'm thinking she already went home for the day, but there's no update to our case at the moment.
 
A few things that may be of interest that were gray areas when I tried to research them:
- The I-693 deficiency notice is mostly meaningless unless you didn't know your application was supposed to have one. It means your application did not have a medical, but it doesn't imply at all that it was supposed to have one.
- Filling out just the vaccine portion of your medical is A-OK if that's the only thing that was missing from your overseas medical.
- What was a very pleasant surprise was that the officer offered to adjudicate our daughter's I-485 as well (here on K-2) at the same time. My daughter's case was still at NBC after I had responded to the initial RFE. She said that it was possible for her to do so because my daughter's case was electronically filed, and since she's 5 years old, she doesn't need an in-person interview. Since all needed docs were present for her case as well, she would try to adjudicate hers, barring some computer issues.
- She said they're able to access any IOE case even if they're still at the service center, but she still had the paper copy of my wife's case in front of her (permanent record style, starting with the I-129F). This is a plus for electronic filing, but the downside is that the electronic copy of it is very slow to access for them. It pretty much hangs on every single page she tries to load, so the more pages you submitted, the harder it is to evaluate. Take that for what you will; I just know that some people like submitting everything but the kitchen sink as evidence "just in case", but if more forms go electronic and things don't improve speed wise for the officers, I can imagine a case with 400 pages of evidence would be frustrating to adjudicate.

We had an RFE about 2 months after our biometrics were done. 

It is illegal to travel to the US with pre-conceived intent to stay and adjust status.  Don't do this.  It's fraud.
 
If you are outside the US, the only legal path for you is to apply for an IR1 spouse visa through the US consulate in your country.  That process starts with your wife filing an I-130 petition for you.  You may travel to the US for short visits, but you cannot wait out the entire process in the US.