Douglas1527

We submitted an I-130 in Aug 2022 but there were errors so we cancelled and refiled in Sep 2023 (both electronically). This second one was received and marked as "Being Actively Reviewed" almost immediately. The "Estimated time until case decision" initially said 6 weeks (!). This made us very happy as we thought maybe someone was being merciful given the year we'd just lost due to the previous filing error. But that counted down and nothing happened except the status changed to "Taking longer than expected". It remained that way for a few weeks and then the Estimated Time reset to 2 months (but still Being Acively Reviewed). That counted down and (now Jan 2024) the status again changed to "Taking longer than expected." It remained that way until just last week (April 2024) and now has reset to 7 months. We are no longer so happy. Has anyone seen this sort of behavior before, know what it could mean, or if we should try to do anything about it? On the one hand, even 7 months from now is still very shy of the "15 month" general estimate for I-130's at Texas, so by that count we should not contact USCIS until well into 2025. On the other hand, it really looks like something is wrong here and we don't want to wait until mid-2025 to find out what it is. Losing that first year was quite a blow and is not an experience we want to repeat. Any advice?

A few weeks ago, I submitted a request to withdraw the previous I-130 since there wasn't a way to correct my mistakes. I received the confirmation of that today, so that attempt is dead and buried and I'll try to stop kicking myself about it. We filed (and paid for) a new I-130, electronically again, on Sept 27th and by Oct 2nd it was already marked as active, with an estimated time until decision of 6 weeks. I was hoping for something in the mail to expand on this (we received the NoA1 quickly, as normal) but nothing has arrived - though the estimated time is ticking down (to 4 weeks now). My question is what could be going on here? Normally an I-130 would sit there for a year+ before being looked at right? Is there a chance that some angel at USCIS read my letters and bumped us up since this is a "replacement" application? Or is this more likely a sign that something is wrong? I suppose, in theory, that I will find out in 4 weeks - but I thought I would ask and maybe save another month of stress. Either way, good news or bad, it would certainly be better to get it in a month rather than in a year!

But the purpose of my post was the title (where to send the withdrawal letter) and now that's been lost. Shouldn't threads be by topic rather than by situation? You're just going to end up with each user having their own single long topic, which is an awful way to try and get questions answered as things move forward. Anyway, can we say the "there were mistakes on our I-130" situation is done now? I've certainly moved past that snag but I will probably have continuing questions on various matters as we move forward and they (like this one) are not about whether there are mistakes on our I-130. I would like to be able to have new discussions about these new topics rather than a single multi-page chronicle of our journey all in one topic with my new questions buried where no one is likely to consider them. Or is everything I post from now on going to get buried here?

Due to uncorrectable errors on our I-130, we are going to withdraw the flawed petition and resubmit. I have the withdrawal letter ready (with all pertinent info) but I am not certain where to send it. Our NoA1 was from the Potomac Service Center. Our NoA2 was from the Texas Service Center. The new I-130 will be sent to USCIS in Carol Stream, IL. I think that I recall reading that it should go to the last place that took action. That would be Texas. But that last action was an I-130 approval that shouldn't have happened (due to said errors). I could easily send copies to each place, but could that end up causing more problems? I'm also wondering if I should wait for a response on the withdrawal request before submitting the new I-130. I expect the new petition will just sit in a pile for a year+ before any action is taken on it, so it seems like giving the withdraw just a few days head start (rather than waiting the weeks/months it might take for confirmation of the withdrawal) should be fine? I'm not sure if it matters, but in our specific case, we are petitioning for a visa to bring my wife to the US. An error on the I-130 made USCIS think she is already in the US so they approved it and sent us an NoA2 with instructions to start the Adjustment of Status process. Obviously, we can't do that as she's not here yet. I called the help line and was told to mail in a letter explaining the situation and to ask what we should do next. I did that and the reply contained no answers (or evidence of a human having read the letter). Thus it seems our only option is to withdraw and resubmit. That resets our timeline to day 1 so I'd like to get things moving as soon as possible.

I think everything is probably ok but I want to check. We filed our I-130 in Aug 2022 and just received the approval notice (which I think is also known as NoA 2, is that right?). There seems to be some contradictory information. Our Case Status Page says "nothing is outstanding at this time" and they'll let us know if they need anything. but The Approval Notice PDF doc says "submit a copy of this notice, along with a Form I-485". Do they mean that we should do that right now, or is this just sort of a heads-up as to what we'll need to do down the road (and so we should do nothing right now)? Also, the visajourney Step-by-Step guide says that the NoA would "indicate... the forwarding of your approved petition to the NVC" but I don't see where our approval notice says anything about that. It acts like the NVS has it, but doesn't say anything about it being forwarded to them - but maybe I'm just not understanding the process. Is the simple fact that we got this document the "indication" that the Guide is talking about? I've attached screenshots of the bits below. Is there something weird going on, or is this the usual procedure (and so we should just wait for further contact)? If we do just wait, is the next thing expected the "welcome letter" people mention and then the interview preparation packet with its associated To Do list? Thank you.