Request for Evidence from USCIS

By Victoria

Today in the mail I received a I-797E Notice of Action form (dated September 19) with a Request for Evidence from USCIS.

It seems that the proof of citizenship documents I provided in our original application packet didn't fit the bill. I included a copy of my birth certificate as issued by my hospital in South Carolina, as well as a birth certificate card from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). The note I received back from USCIS explains, "If the petitioner was born in the U.S. and will be submitting a birth certificate as proof of U.S. citizenship, such must be a civilly registered long-form certificate. Abstracts of Birth and birth documents issued by hospitals are not sufficient."

In hindsight, I suppose I should've realized that I needed a full DHEC document (not the card) or looked into it more...but at the same time, it would've been nice if the I-129F Petition form instructions would've clearly stated that they needed the long-form birth certificate issued by a civil authority (i.e., my birth state government). The only thing the original instructions say is: "If you were born in the United States, submit a copy, front and back, of your birth certificate."

So I feel kind of dumb, and also ticked that I may have delayed our process a little bit longer. Since I imagine I would have to wait a while to receive my long-form DHEC birth certificate if I put in a request, I've decided I'll go the route of submitting a copy of my U.S. passport for proof of citizenship instead. I've already made the copies and will be putting the new evidence in the mail tomorrow (Friday). Hopefully approval won't be long after that.

UPDATE: Our online case status shows that the USCIS California Service Center received our response to the Request for Evidence on September 29, 2014.

He can Visit the U.S. Again!

By Victoria

Great news! Before I left Northern Ireland from my August visit, Colin kept thinking about it and saying there had to be a way for him to visit me in the U.S. again even with our K-1 application pending...so he did some more digging online and found a forum with a community of people going through U.S. immigration. One of the discussion threads is very helpfully called "Yes, you can visit!"

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/67796-yes-you-can-visit/page-65

It's focused pretty specifically on people going through K-2/K-2 and IR-1/CR-1 visas. The last few pages of the thread have a lot of recent anecdotes (as recent as this August) regarding foreign fiances entering the U.S. to visit their citizen fiances. People seem to have been able to successfully enter the States at all stages of their K-1 application process -- from pre-Service Center approval, post-Service Center approval, National Visa Center stage, and even up to the U.S. Embassy interview stage. According to others' experiences, the key is to make sure the foreign fiance has the evidence to assure the border official that they intend to return to their home nation and NOT get married or attempt to stay in the U.S. without the official visa. Such evidence can include a booked return flight, a lease agreement to show there's a home and financial obligation to return to, and a message or note from work regarding when the person is expected back at work.

There are still a few horror stories scattered throughout the pages of people being pulled into interview rooms and grilled (although often eventually allowed to enter) or even being turned away with some kind of probation term attached (eek!), which certainly sets off my anxiety mode. However, so many more of the personal anecdotes in the thread indicate that it will be okay. In fact, there are quite a lot of people who had/have foreign fiances from the UK coming for a visit during K-1, and I don't think I saw a single anecdote about a UK fiance being turned away.

Colin already went through the tourist/visitor visa waiver process a few days ago, since his previous 2-year one had already expired, and was approved by the online system. And now...he has also officially booked his flights! He arrives on October 18, so we won't have long to wait between visits this time.

There is still a little concern (mostly on my end, since I'm the major worrier), but we're both optimistic and excited about it! The countdown has started!

Back from Visiting

By Victoria

I just returned on Monday from a visit with Colin in Northern Ireland. I was only able to go for 10 days (arrived on August 23 and left on September 1), but we packed in a lot of adventuring! That included a 3-day road trip through County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, staying at Bed & Breakfast places for the 2 nights. We did a lot of things and visited a lot of places all throughout the week that were new experiences for both of us.

We had a really amazing time. And we might have an update soon about Colin making an additional visit to the U.S., so stay tuned...

Transferred to California

By Victoria

I received a mailed notice today from USCIS. It simply states that the Texas Service Center has transferred our case over to the California Service Center. Verbatim:

"This is to advise you that in order to speed up processing we have transferred the above case to the following USCIS office for processing:

California Service Center, 2nd Flr, 24000 Avila Road, Laguna Niguel, CA 92607-0111

That office will notify you of the decision made on the application or petition."

Then there's some language basically saying not to bother them unless we really have to, but otherwise, that's all it says.

I'm cautious to not read too much into the "speed up processing" part -- I think they just mean that the Dallas office didn't have the time or resources to deal with our case, so they basically outsourced it to the California office.

I certainly hope our case can now be approved sooner than expected, but again, I'm not going to read too much into it. If it stays on schedule to be approved 5 months after submission, then we're aiming for an approval in October (we submitted in May). Then again, it took them 3 months just to realize they needed to send it somewhere else, so my optimism isn't all that high...

PS: The letter is dated August 8, so when people call regular USPS post "snail mail," they aren't joking. Sheesh.

Any Updates?

Nope. Still no updates.

Just twiddling our thumbs over here.

This Could Take a While (Volume and Trend Charts for Form I-129F)

By Victoria

Colin and I were doing some research on USCIS's website the other day and found an interesting area where you can look at charts regarding the intake volume and processing times of any USCIS field office in the U.S. It is, unfortunately, a little bit bleak in terms of how quickly ours might be processed...

To find the information regarding Form I-129F (which is what we submitted), you can go to http://dashboard.uscis.gov/ and enter the following information in the drop-down fields:

1. Form Type: I-129F
2. Office: Dallas Field Office
3. Chart Type: Pick either one

Trend: The top trend chart shows values for USCIS nationally, and the bottom chart shows the Dallas office's trends for each month over the past year. The top chart is scary looking, but it's national, so that makes sense...Dallas has much more manageable numbers. But still, you'll notice the "pending" values are much higher than any of the other values. As I suspected, they definitely have a backlog to get through.

Volume: The volume chart shows only a couple of months ago (March 2014); the top one is national volume, and the bottom one is volume for just the Dallas office. Again, that national one is really intimidating. The second one has much more relevant information: the Dallas office had 12 total I-129F forms pending as of March, with only 1 making it all the way through to completion in March. If that's the rate of completion, it doesn't look like the completion time for ours will be coming up very soon...we're probably at least #15 in the queue, since we submitted in May.

Average Processing Time: The most definitive bit of disheartening information comes from our discovery of the average processing time for I-129F forms that go through Texas. To see this one, go to https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/Dashboard/CaseStatus.do and enter the following information in the drop-down fields:

1. Form Type: I-129F
2. Form Sub-Type: K-1/K-2
3. Texas Service Center

You'll see that the average processing time for Texas Service Center is 5 months. Keep in mind, getting approved by the Dallas office is only STEP 1 of this whole process. After Texas, it still has to go through the National Visa Center in New Hampshire and then on to the U.S. Consulate in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which then has to set up interviews with Colin and process his additional documentation submissions.

So there's the bad news. If it does actually take 5 months for our application just to get through the Texas center, then it'll be a tight race to get Colin into the U.S. before the very end of the year. Let's just hope the processing time for us is somehow above average.

Arrived

By Victoria

Just a quick update -- USPS tracking confirms that our petition package arrived at the USCIS Dallas lockbox facility (fancy name for a P.O. Box) on Saturday morning (5/10)!

I don't think I will hear anything from USCIS to confirm receipt, so I'll have to wait until they actually review the contents and make a decision before I receive a notification.

By the way, I'm sure you've noticed that these blog posts have been written almost entirely by me so far...that will change once the visa application gets forwarded to the U.S. Consulate in Belfast, at which point all the hard work has to be done by Colin for his interview(s) and further evidence submission. You'll be hearing more from him on that side of the process once we get there.

UPDATE:
They actually did sent me a confirmation of receipt. Since I submitted form G-1145 for electronic notification, I got both a text message and an email saying that the Dallas center officially received our packet on May 15. I also received a letter of confirmation stating the same thing a few days later via snail mail. And here I thought the electronic notification option was meant to save paper...