Consulate assignment & beneficiary address change to different country?

[michael1980 0]

great forum, so I was hoping to find folks who could provide insights to following two issues.

1) my wife is Chinese, i am a USC. we filed the I-130 on July 1st and received NOA1 on July 8th, 2011. My wife currently works in Japan as an expat and we put her current Japanese address down on the I-130 application form. However, her employer has now asked her to relocate for job-reasons to China in late August. Here are my questions:

- Do we need to report this change of address before USCIS has approved the petition and sent it onward to the NVC?

- Also, does anyone know which consulate is assigned by the NVC to conduct the immigration interviews? Based on current address (i.e. Tokyo in this case) or on country/hometown of citizenship (i.e. Shanghai in our case)?

- I am worried that, if we don't manage to change her address before USCIS sends the approved petition off to NVC, the NVC will code the wrong responsible foreign consulate into the case number, causing trouble later-on. Which forms do we need to fill-out/submit to make this address change for my wife (the beneficiary)?

2) What can we expect in terms of NVC processing duration between approved i-130 (NOA2) and final granting of immigration visa? Does anyone have any recent experience how long this step takes? Thanks so much for your advise!

- Michael

[Ryan H 3,902]

Contact USCIS and tell them that your wife's address is changing and what you need to do to go about updating her address.

If she will be in China when it comes time for her to have her interview, it will be at the Consulate in Guangzhou, that is the only Consulate in China that issues immigrant visas.

Additionally, if she will be interviewing in China, you can opt to have everything processed electronically once the file reaches the NVC. Some information on EP from the NVC. Opting for EP will save you some time; paper files usually sit in a storage warehouse for some amount of time before being seen by the Consulate.

She will need a police certificate from Japan if she has lived there for more than 6 months.

[michael1980 0]

Thanks Ryan, this was very helpful information! Does the e-processing really get rid of the reported 3-months storage at Chinese customs once the NVC sends our case to the consulate in Guangzhou? If so, awesome! Two additional questions you might be able to help me are:

How does the sign-up for the NVC e-processing take?

Do you know how long NVC normally takes to process the visa application after NOA2 before sending out the case to the consulate?

Thanks so much for your swift response last time!

[Darnell 8,479]

I say fix it at NVC - after the approved I-130 petition arrives.

Be adamant and firm, until you get what you want (figure 2 to 3 weeks for this, at NVC, once the casefile arrives)

and then

you get to ramp up for NVC Electronic Processing for the casefile headed off to Guangzhou IV.

Good Luck !

[Ryan H 3,902]

How does the sign-up for the NVC e-processing take?

The process of sending the OPTIN email is in the link in my prior post. Scroll down approximately halfway and look for this heading: What Must I Do Now to Join the Program?

You will not be able to send that OPTIN email until after your receive a GUZ number. Once OPTIN is accepted the GUZ number would change to a GZO number. Additionally, you can OPTIN once you have the GUZ number, however it's probably best to wait until you have the IIN number that is associated with the GUZ number as well. OPTIN prior to having the IIN number could result in the initial OPTIN email going nowhere at the NVC (Darnell has encountered that problem from what he has heard from others, so he always suggests holding off on the OPTIN until you have the IIN number).

EP does get rid of "warehouse storage time" because the file is electronically transferred from the NVC to GZ IV.

[miashin 0]

I had similar questions - I am the U.S. Citizen, and we are both living in Korea where I am on a work visa.

This is the email response from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul:

"To transfer a visa case from one U.S. Embassy to another, the IV applicant must send a request by submitting a DS-3098 (Request for Transfer of Visa) form by mail, fax or e-mail, along with a justification for the request, to the intended receiving embassy. The intended receiving embassy then decides whether or not to accept the file. If the receiving embassy accepts the case, it will request the sending embassy to transfer it. The receiving embassy should accept the case if the applicant is a citizen of that country or is currently living in that country."

We are just filing the I-130 Visa, and after calling the USCIS at the embassy in Seoul for clarification, they said that since I haven't been in Korea for 6 months, I still need to file in the U.S.

Hope that helps.

[Darnell 8,479]

Ya, that's after the silliness at NVC is finished. My approach changes up a bit, compared to that one.