Nuba

Another alterative to Canada is Gibraltar, an (English speaking) UK territory that will perform same sex marriage and requires only one day residence, which can be the night before or the night after your ceremony. Gibraltar would require a visa for the Indian beneficiary.. Should the marriage in person and CR1 not work out another option is to have the USC start the process for the K1 visa to bring the fiancé to the US to get married. As with CR1, same-sex is treated the same as opposite sex. Currently the K1 process is more expensive and will take longer but if you have met in person at least once in the last two years you can apply.

Yeah it's discouraging. I watch the data pretty closely and the revision to 13.5 months wasn't unexpected since that is what the VJ internal data has been showing for a few weeks. The bigger problem is that although the pace of processing has picked up over the past few months, it still hasn't reached the point there the time frame will stop extending. I had hoped this inflection point would be this month but the daily processing counts for July have been disappointing thus far. Right now the best we November filers can hope for is a Christmas present. One silver lining is that the processing times for the next steps in our journey are all shrinking consistently: Employment Authorization, Advance Parole and Adjustment of Status. So once we get past this interminable phase, the following steps should be more reasonable.

Not quite a direct answer. A colleague who is UK citizen and US LPR travelled to Moscow two weeks ago. He underwent 4 hours of questioning at entry and they went through his phone before they finally admitted him.. He had traveled to Russia extensively for business and personal over the past years.

Maybe much the same as where I work (big bank). New hires in training, systems downtime, summer vacations, people out with COVID, taking care of kids who are home for the summer.. Also possible they are sitting there drinking lemonade and laughing at us.

I think one thing you are missing is that on the day she arrives you could have a marriage in presence or do an online marriage and consummate it on the spot, so to speak. This is a much less risky course and has the same time line. All of us K-1 waiters share your pain and frustration. The best thing you can do is to ensure that you present all the correct information in the required format with properly completed forms the first time; they are very picky about this. Otherwise you will get RFEs that will only lengthen the process.

One other thing to point out. Although USCIS does not recognize an online marriage until it is consummated other agencies do, including the iRS. The USC would have to adjust their tax filings from single to married.

I would think passport stamps would do the trick , as long as there are no overlaps in the intervening period, no? I also don't think much of the plan. Just want OP to have all the information. My lawyer also recommended against doing a virtual marriage.

I did some research on Utah virtual marriages including talking with my immigration attorney. The OP may want to consult the website of the US Department of State. I have copied the relevant text for proxy marriages below. A proxy marriage does *not* disqualify you from the K1 visa as long as you can demonstrate it has not be consummated before the interview because it does not qualify you as a spouse. . This essentially means you must show you have not met in person subsequent to the marriage. A proxy marriage does not qualify you for a spousal visa (CR1 or I1) unless it has been consummated after the marriage. If you do go the proxy/K1 route and consummate after the interview, the date of the marriage for immigration purposes is the date of the original ceremony. I suppose this allows OP to game the system only slightly as they would still have to wait out the K1 interview. They could then apply for AOS a bit sooner and the 2 year clock for IR1 would have already started. I don't see how it does anything for spousal visa timeframe since they have to meet in person outside US to consummate at which point they could just as well get married https://fam.state.gov/fam/09FAM/09FAM010208.html A marriage where one or both parties was not present (proxy marriage) is not valid unless the marriage was consummated. (1) Consummated: For the purpose of issuing a visa to a “spouse,” a proxy marriage that has been subsequently consummated is deemed to have been valid as of the date of the proxy ceremony. A proxy marriage consummated prior to the proxy ceremony cannot be considered a valid marriage for visa adjudication purposes unless it has been consummated subsequently. (2) Unconsummated: A proxy marriage that has not been subsequently consummated does not create or confer the status of “spouse” pursuant to INA 101(a)(35)…. [A] party to an unconsummated proxy marriage may be processed as a nonimmigrant fiancé(e). A proxy marriage celebrated in a jurisdiction recognizing such marriage is generally considered to be valid; thus, an actual marriage in the United States is not necessary if such alien is admitted to the United States under INA provisions other than as a spouse.

I just noticed that the previous RFE on that list was exactly one month to approval. Hope that is the way yours goes.

A recent update from Justin and Michaela on Igor's list shows a little under 3 months from RFE to approval https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/monthly_filers.php.

Notes from a data dude gleaned from recent daily scans published elsewhere on VJ. - The never ending swamp of Apr/May seems finally to be moving to the rearview mirror. Recent Apr updates are follow-ups on previous RFEs. Although May processing is far rom complete. the bulk is now focused later in the month. - As of yesterday USCIS began processing June in earnest . This gives some hope that this is the month that the K1 delay finally levels off. My hope is that the VJ estimate peaks at around 410 days. - The high percentage of RFEs in newly touched cases occurring since May continues. My guess is that recently hired/trained adjudicators are erring on the side of caution. Let's hope this returns to previous levels by the end of the year. I continue to be optimistic that we will get Christmas presents and possibly something to be thankful for besides turkey.

Historically a K1 was the faster route to get your fiance to the US and then you would be together in the US while waiting for the green card. In fact this was even true last November when I filed for a K1. Post pandemic the situation is reversed. It is faster to get a Cr-1 approval than to get K1. Most importantly, the Cr-1 includes the green card approval and the K1 does not. So K1 filers have up to another year wait for the green card via adjustment of status once the fiance arrives and you get married. I If you can meet in person and get married you are better off to file for the CR-1. I wish I had done that. Also don't trust any other estimates you see on line for processing times. They are almost all out of date. The data here at VJ is based on members' timelines and is a reasonably accurate statistical sample.of the overall application pool. In fact the data here is more accurate than the official USCIS projections because it is more up to date.

See the original post here:

Encouraging K1 processing data reported by member DSBeijing (see their graph reproduced below) A few observations: 1 - Big jumps in cases processed in May and June. Seems USCIS is actually accelerating as they said they would in March. 2 - In June they were just short of the break-even number to keep the backlog from growing further past the current 13 months. 3 - If we see a similar jump in July the backlog will actually start to decrease (holding our breath) 4 - If there continue to be jumps over the summer we November filers may yet get a Halloween treat! Stay tuned...

For us pending K-1 filers only one line there is important right now: I129F for K-1 Visa CSC: May 23, 2021 This means that the California Service Center, where nearly all our submissions will be adjudicated, is (approximately) processing forms that were received on May 23, 2021. Otherwise put, USCIS is has a backlog of a little over13 months. There are folks on this site whose forms were received before that date who still don't have an answer and a (very) few from June who have received a decision. It is our fondest hope that the USCIS promises in March to reduce this backlog significantly by next year will come to pass. Unfortunately, there is as yet no evidence that they have made any progress.

[ Can't update my previous post.] I realize it is possible that all the VJ filers are confused about their being in Texas center.

Don't mean to be contentious but VJ has timelines for K1 approval in TSC and Igor's list shows recent K1 approvals from TSC. https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/monthly_filers.php?form=1&visa=1&scenter=3&option=2&sortby=2 Some of the latter show transferred from CSC to TSC.

If you go to the K1 Fiance Visa Timelines on VJ and sort descending by NOA1 then browse back through the pages of recent entries, you will see that ~ 20% are in the Texas service center. Perhaps some were confused about sending to Texas lock box. But you will also see K1 approvals from Texas service center in Igor's list of recent approvals on VJ.

In the eyes of the state of Utah and many institutions you are married. However, the USCIS does not consider you to be married via a virtual Utah wedding, or any proxy wedding, until the marriage is consummated. In practice, this means you must meet in person *after* the on-line weeding took place. For those saying the virtual wedding itself voids the K! application and to file a CR-1, consider that the USCIS will deny the CR-1 unless the marriage has been consummated. This is well documented. To the OP: do a search and you will find other immigration attorneys who say the same as in Mike E's post. This is a very recent development and you might want to consult an experienced attorney on how best to present your case whether you go for K1 or CR1.

Hi PKKS: I too had hope for October when USCIS (briefly) showed 10.5 months processing time when they changed the display from a range to a single number. Interestingly the fine print then said that this represented their internal cycle time, which is the amount of time it would take them to process the current backlog. Assuming that the number of cases is (roughly) constant and they were working at a (roughly) constant rate, that would have put us in late Sep thru Oct. However this brief hope was soon dashed by reality. 1 - Soon after posting the forward-looking 10.5 they changed to a backward-looking methodology that uses the 80th percentile of time to completion over the past 6 months. The revised number was 13. According to detailed daily processing data obtained by diligent folks on this forum running scripts against the USCIS check status page, this 13 months is accurate. 2- In order to achieve 10.5 months going forward they will have to average on each day more than the average number of cases in the backlog. There is currently no indication that they have achieved this rate. 3 - The number of June applications processed so far has been miniscule. Our best hope for a Halloween treat is that after the March announcement of the intention to reduce the backlog they actually have more adjudicators who will come up to speed this summer.

Hello fellow Nov 2021 filers. After reviewing the detailed data on this site about I129F processing, sadly the processing time is still running at 13 months. No sign yet of any backlog reduction in K1 land. Maybe we'll all get Christmas presents!

Given that their fiscal year is October and their cycle time target for I129F is 6 months you'd think there should be some significant progress by end of calendar 2022.. However, carefully analyzing the detailed daily runs by month posted in this subforum, it is clear that 80th per centile time they quote is still slipping, although at a slower rate.. The milestone for all us waiters is when the derivative changes sign. (I am a data dude) . As a November filer I heard nothing today that improves my hope of getting NOA2 before end of 2022.

I attended this webinar. They reconfirmed commitment to the target cycle times for end of fiscal 2023. They addressed efforts to improve processing times on certain visas. Nothing on K-1 or CR-1. A nothingburger for this forum.