spyrals

I requested an appointment at the local office, they said they will respond within a month. Is that my only option?

Hi, hopefully someone has encountered this situation before. My step son applied for his citizenship certificate and received a letter in the mail a year later to say that his oath ceremony was scheduled. Since then he's lost this letter (we looked everywhere) and missed his ceremony. I requested a new letter to be sent but it hasn't arrived yet. We've called the USCIS multiple times and they said we have to make an appointment at a local office. We tried to make an appointment at the local office and they sent us an email saying we can solve this issue with the tools on the website (we can't!). He just needs to go to his next ceremony. Any thoughts?

I filed on July 20th. Please add me

I do not, I just have experience of this forum and personal experiences of people posting here.

Certainly she can apply, there is nothing stopping her. The thing is, when applying from a "high fraud" country as Russia is usually considered to be (at least for tourist visa purposes), you need to show more ties to your home country than someone from a "low fraud" country.

Stupid Russia with its stupid fraud! Well we're going to try and I'll post how it goes. I've read every thread on this forum about the issue and it's mostly about guys trying to bring in mail order brides which isn't the case here. There aren't too many stories about genuine cases that fail. So I am choosing to be optimistic

I doubt it, especially if they saw the business was very new, which it would be.

Just wondering if you have any personal experience with this specific situation? I mean surely SOME people are getting tourist visas who don't have a job and who are female. There are over 200,000 Russian tourist visas granted every year.

She is right, without stronger ties to Russia her chances are above zero, but not by much.

Would it help if she had a business there? She is thinking about starting a clothing import business.

I'm dreaming about bringing my childhood best friend to the US to visit me. I am an Australian married to a US citizen and living in the US. My friend is in Russia, she is 33, in a common law marriage with her man. They used to be married but had a fight and got divorced and now are still together, but not legally married. She is unemployed because the company she worked for went out of business but she doesn't care as they want to have a baby. They are living with her mom in a place that her mom owns. What are her chances of getting a tourist visa to the US? I would like to take her on a trip around the US and show her all the attractions. It's a genuine short term visit but she is very pessimistic about being granted a tourist visa due to her unemployment. Can anyone tell me that her chances are good so I can calm her down? Thanks in advance!

My lawyer just informed me that Bangkok processing times for I-601's have recently increased due to the shut down on the USCIS office in HCMC. He says that we are looking at more like 120-150 days for the waiver as opposed to 90 days which he had told me at the beginning of our process. We are still pre interview with an interview date of June 15th. Hopefully we are denied on interview day and we can file our waiver right away. (My fiancee has an obscure conviction which my lawyer is not sure the Embassy will know whether or not it will constitute a CIMT, so there is some chance the Embassy will not just deny us on that day.)

We filed back in August with the CSC had an NOA2 in late January and interview in June. Sad when you are hoping against hope that they will give you a denial.

Hey kuhio, I'm not sure where your lawyer is getting his info but the standard processing times for waivers in Bangkok is 180 days and has been for a while. I've never seen anything that said 90 days processing time. If you speak to the Bangkok office, that's what they will tell you - and they won't answer any queries before the 180 days has passed. I'm waiting on my waiver from Bangkok now and it's been 3 months and I'm pretty sure it'll be another 3 months if not longer..if your case is not totally straight forward it'll probably take longer. Not trying to discourage you just saying that your lawyer doesn't seem up to date on his info. Hopefully you won't need a waiver at all!

Hi,

I am just wondering if anyone has filed a i-601 waiver with Bangkok. I have received a letter saying that it was received on April 22, 2010 and that the current processing time is 180 days. Anyway let me know if you had any dealing with Bangkok.

Thanks.

would be interested to know how this turned out. I'm in the same process now.

Hello Spyrals,

Sorry to hear about your problems with an overstay. It must be quite disheartening to get all the way to the interview expecting no problems to be hit with this, especially when you were told that there would be no problem by US Immi. I will be going through the waiver process in Bangkok as well after we have our interview. Which won't be for another month or two though. So I don't have any first hand knowledge, however I have been told by my lawyer and seen a bunch of cases which people posted online saying that the waiver process through Bangkok has taken less than 6 months. In some exceptional cases a lot less. However, as always, you never know what you are going to get.

Putting aside the time frame though, I think your primary concern should be talking with a US Immigration Attorney who can advise you on your case as soon as possible. It will take some time to put a waiver package together and most agree that it is best to use an attorney that has experience in the USCIS jurisdiction where the waiver will be adjudicated to put the waiver package together. The waiver approval hinges on demonstrating "extreme hardship" to the US citizen spouse if you were not granted the visa. It is not at all automatic. A good attorney can evaluate the particulars of your case. A look trough threads on this forum as well as the immigrate2us forum (which specializes in waivers) will give you a good idea about the waiver process.

Since you were able to do a DCF I assume your spouse lives with you in Australia at the moment? If you don't mind if I ask, how much longer do you have until the 3 year ban expires?

Again, sorry to hear about the visa denial, best of luck going forward.

Thanks kuhlio, I'm sorry to hear about your situation as well. Yes, my spouse came over from the US to be with me because this is taking so long. He is a resident in Australia. It was only last year that I overstayed so it's been about 8 months since my ban started.

I don't know about a lawyer, we've already had a bad experience once at the beginning of the process (after the incident at the airport where I discovered my visa was overstayed!). We went through the entire CR1 process very smoothly and did everything ourselves. The waiver seems pretty straight forward, as long as you can come up with convincing argument to hardship and evidence. I'm doing a lot of research at the moment to come up with a good extreme hardship letter. Too bad we don't have any medical hardships and will have to rely on financial and emotional reasons.

I read a few personal timelines for Bangkok processing and some people had their waver in as little as a month. Out of 10 cases I found, 7 were approved and they took around 2 months to process. This is pretty encouraging news to me. I'm hoping that will be the case with us too.

Do you have to do a waiver because of an overstay or another reason? Thanks for i2us forum referrals, I've already registered and started reading. Very helpful info there. I'm also going to check out Amazon to see if I can find any books on the subject.. Had this great book on fiance and spouse visas originally that made the process so far a breeze. Let me know how you go! I'll keep putting up updates too as soon as I have any.

Well, today was our final interview after a very smooth process of CR1 through dcf in Australia. Unfortunately, my previous overstay of my tourist visa was ground for inadmissibility. I overstayed by more than 180 days but less than 1 year (I didn't realise I had to come back to Australia after 6 months). When I overstayed, the people at the airport immigration told me that this will not impact my getting the correct visa so I can enter the US in the future. I guess they lied! Too bad we already left our apartment and I quit my job and bought tickets. So now I have to get a waiver of inadmissibility which the consulate officers said takes 6 months. We're totally devastated The waiver will have to go through the embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. I can't find any info on their turnaround times so I don't know how long it generally takes. 6 months seems like such a long time! So this is really bad news. If anyone has any info they would like to share, please do...

You don't need his birth cert, copy of his US passport will do- that sentence applies to immigrants only.

BTW, you are going for a CR-1 or IR-1 if married more than 2 years; the K3 was never available for DCF and is obsolete anyway.

thanks! well you know what I mean, I thought it was still called K-3.

We've been approved for application for a K-3 visa in Australia through DCF, received packet 3 in the mail. I have a question regarding documents needed to send back to the consulate: do we need the US citizen's (my husbands) birth certificate? I've read tonns of things about this before and it never mentioned that he needs his birth certificate, only mine. But packet 3 says: "Obtain the original or certified copy and one photocopy, of the birth record of each

family member (yourself, your spouse, and all unmarried children under the age of 21,

even if the children are not immigrating with you)."

So this sort of means that he needs his certificate too? I'm so confused. I'll ring the consulate on monday but maybe any of you know this now? He lost his certificate a while ago

thanks in advance!

Ana

Hello - Well we submitted our I-130 today at the US Consulate Sydney and they did say that there does tend to be a delay over the holiday period, but if we were really super organized we can realistically be on our way before Christmas. We have already sent off for our AFP Fingerprint Clearance and the medical is booked for next week. They said 2 weeks to process the I-130 and then if we have all the info we need ready to go, when they send us the paperwork we send it back they should be able to book an appointment. I am sure there are others here who can help you more, but that was just todays findings.

Also I have to file a US tax return for 2009 - which I didn't know!!

Best of Luck,

Hope

thanks Hope. That doesn't sound like it'll take too long. I just hope to be done by february really.

Does anyone have any experience with DCF over the Christmas/New Year period? Are waiting times longer or does it not make much difference? We're about to start going through the process and just wondering if it will make take longer. I'm hoping to have the visa in late January/early February. How realistic is this?

No reason, though some doctors require an appointment letter before they will do the medical. No harm ringing them and asking though!

PS: Your info says you are filing a K1 (fiance) visa; DCF is only available for spousal visas (CR-1/ IR-1).

thanks, I'll call tomorrow and find out. Yes, we were going the K-1 route first but ever since finding out about DCF we're doing that instead and getting married in Australia first. He is a USC and has residencies both in Australia and US, splits his time between here and there and is a permanent resident in Australia so I think this option is better for us. yes?

Is there any reason why I can't have my medical exam and police certificate completed before filing for DCF? I want to have everything ready so I don't waste any time gathering documents after I file. I looked up the right approved doctor etc.

It's for the 6 months immediately prior to filing.

If he has an Australian permanent residency permit, then he should be fine to file DCF there.

it's not that clear to me - you say he should be fine, but what are the actual rules for this? I can't find any info about what happens if he has residency but hasn't actually lived in Australia for 6 months prior to the filing... Just wanting to know for sure, if anyone can help.

Hi all,

one of the requirements for DCF in Australia is that the US citizen have to have lived in Australia for 6 months prior to filing. Just to clarify if anyone knows, does this mean that the USC have to have lived in Australia at any point before filing (like stayed in Australia for 6 months in the last 5 years) or just the 6 months directly prior to filing?

My husband to be (we're getting married very soon) is a USC but is also a permanent resident of Australia, lived here for 16 years but we both spent last year in the US and are back in Australia for now and want to move to the US permanently. Would we qualify for DCF in regards to the residency requirement?

thanks in advance!!