Grandpa Ed

A close relative brought in his fiancée on a K-1 visa and they just got married. So now they are planning to file for adjustment of status. I know normally an I-130 is filed along with the I-485 but am I right in thinking that this would not be necessary here since there is already an approved I-129f?

Can anyone explain what is going on with the Visa Bulletin. Looking at the Dates for Filing Family-Sponsored Visa Applications for the F1 category, the dates in the April 2024 Bulletin are the same or virtually the same as in the July 2023 Bulletin. (I’m focused on the Philippines but I think that is true more generally too.). If they are presumably working on applications, how can the dates not change in 9 months?

Thank you. These comments are extremely helpful. We will follow their advice.

Our granddaughter in the Philippines just got her IR-2 immigrant visa but, unfortunately, the expiration date is two months before her high school graduation date. We are exploring our options but is there a form or process for requesting a short-term extension to an immigrant visa expiration date?

Hi everyone. I’d appreciate any insights or guidance I can get on this. Our grandson is a native-born Filipino but living here now and an American citizen. But at the moment, he is going to college in the Philippines where it is affordable. He is early in his third year. He has been in a serious relationship for the past two years with a lovely young woman in the same town he is living in. They want to get married. They would like to have her come to the United States with my grandson as soon after he graduates as possible. Given the long lead time on processing visas these days, they are considering either starting the K-1 process now, or getting married now and starting the spousal visa process. Does anyone have any insights on the relative pros and cons of the two options from an immigration standpoint, either as to the time it is taking to get a visa or any other aspect of the process? I’d like to help guide them if I can.

Thank you for this. It is good to know these wait times are posted. These wait times are for non immigrant visas. I wonder if there are comparable data anywhere for immigrant visas.

Has anyone had a recent interview for an immigrant visa at the U.S. Embassy in Manila lately? How long did it take to get an interview? Any idea what the backlog is? I’m checking for the daughter of a close friend. She’s in the B2A category. I think she has been waiting for an interview since mid-June but I know there is a long wait.

Thank you for the helpful responses. She is 22 but, thanks to CSPA, she is still being treated as under 21. I knew we could bring her here and send her back but I was concerned that it could affect her Green Card. So I'm very happy to hear that we can send her back immediately for a month or two without it having negative consequences

The daughter of a close friend is starting her last year of nursing school in the Philippines. The friend is a green card holder here. The daughter has been approved for an interview and is waiting on scheduling in Manila. It’s uncertain when the interview will be scheduled, since there is a substantial backlog. We are hoping she doesn’t get her visa until January, so the six-month expiration date will fall after her completion of her studies. We certainly don’t want her to have to come here before she finishes the work necessary to get her degree. If the visa is granted before January and will expire before she finishes her schooling, is there a possibility of getting a short-term extension? If not, if the interview comes too soon, is it possible to get a slight delay in the interview to push back the visa issuance date? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much. That is very reassuring.

Thank you, Chancy. It took awhile to really understand your response but I do now and I think that does explain it. And thanks to others for their help

Just helping out because I’ve helped bring a number of grandkids here under F2A and she thought I might know. The I-824 has already been approved and she was notified that her document review was complete and she was ready for scheduling a visa interview. But now her lawyer said she was classified as B2A rather than F2A and we didn’t know what that meant. I’ll look for the VAWA forum Thanks.

Thank you. She is relying on a communication from her legal aid attorney. We haven’t seen anything in writing. I had checked the list of visa types and couldn’t find it either. I didn’t know if the fact that the Green Card was based on VAWA had anything to do with it.

A friend recently got her Green Card under VAWA. She petitioned to bring her daughter (under 21) here as a derivative beneficiary. The daughter was put in a B2A category rather than F2A. But a lawyer told her that the B2A is a subset of F2A even though I understood B2 to be an non-immigrant category. Does anyone know what the B2A category is or where it’s described?