Congratulations, @Shannon G We're going through the same process, and we were DQ'd in July, 2024. Please keep us updated.

wow so after the I-130 is approved you’re looking at another 2-3 years to get the waiver approved!? my lawyer assured me the waiver takes a lot less time and going to his country and back for his interview only takes 2 weeks? So now I’m confused why did your waiver take so long?? That’s scary.. we can’t wait that long with how the world is now.. he needs protection now. Did you have a lawyer and what center did you go through? Ours is IOE National..??

Also I’ve been wondering what documents they ask for? My lawyer hasn’t had us turn in any documents yet and I’ve heard from several other people their lawyers took all that when they filed their I-130?? I’m just curious bc I want to go ahead and have it all ready. The only thing they had us turn in was our marriage certificate, ids, pictures of us they took in office (that we had to pay for), and my social security card copy?? I even asked our lawyer several times if we should go ahead and turn things in now, what we need, and when to have it ready and they always just tell me the next step is to file the waiver after he’s approved?? Which never answers my question.. So if you don’t mind is there anything else I should have ready? If you don’t mind being detailed with the document list, I don’t mind a lengthy response!!? Please and thank you and anything helps!! & Congratulations on your journey.. I wish it didn’t take so long. they really need to find a better and more efficient way to do all of this. it’s very crazy and confusing??

@K & E Velasquez yes it takes from 2-3 years to get the waiver apprived. document wise - some lawyers summit application with documents and it goes under unsolicited evidence. you can even do it online if you have access to it. other lawyers just wait for approval then sumit documents to the NVC i know for a fact you need income tax forms of 3 years birth certificates ids passports /if any passport photos i personally am not doing the waiver but i do have 2 friends that have submitted it and its been over 3 years still no response

congrats 🎊

@K & E Velasquez So, back when we were about to submit our 601A, the processing times were WAY shorter. They ballooned to over 3 years while we were waiting, and they're still over 3 years now. The other unfortunate thing about the 601A is that there's no guarantee it will stick around during this administration because it was an Obama era Executive Order. Trump could cut it. And your i-130 does need to be approved before you submit the 601A, so your lawyer doesn't want to prepare all of that too far ahead of time, especially without the guarantee that the 601A will stay in place as a viable path. HOWEVER - one step you could do on your own is to write your personal statement and gather letters from friends and family. If the 601A path stays viable and your 130 gets approved, that is a big part of it. Your personal statement is a detailed letter about all the reasons why you'd suffer severe hardship if he were deported. The letters from friends and family are similar -- they should write about your relationship together and all the hardship you'd face (and by extension, your whole family/friend group/community would face) without him. Other things that the lawyer will do: (1) Ask you for any medical records or any other proof that you would struggle immensely without him here in the country for you, (2) Send you to do a psych evaluation (by a specific psychologist who does them), and the psychologist will write a report about you. The lawyer's job for the 601A is to gather evidence, with as much detail as possible, that demonstrates that you need him to stay here. I'm sorry it's not better news about the possible future of the 601A but I hope this helps. Take it one day at a time!

@K & E Velasquez Also - I had not heard of IOE so I looked it up. It looks like that means yours was all submitted electronically. Ours was all on paper and was at the Potomac Center. I actually think it's a good sign yours is all electronic because that may mean they're trying to get through them faster.

@DQ'd / Waiting Will do!

@Ollie D. Lauwo Thank you :)

A few (I hope helpful) comments, as someone who's gone through the process and had their I-601A approved within the past year: 1) Regardless of what your attorney told you, the process is not fast by any means. You can look up current processing times for each type of form, including I-601A, on the USCIS website. They are usually updated monthly. Once the I-601A is approved, you must then be declared Documentarily Qualified by the NVC, then there's another months-long wait for the interview to be scheduled. 2) There are lots of attorney websites on the internet that list out what documents you should prepare for your I-601A, but the key to that form is that you must prove there would be significant impact to the US sponsor if the petitioner would not be permitted to remain in the USA, and reasons why the sponsor cannot relocate to the petitioner's country of origin. It could be medial - the petitioner needs to be here to support the sponsor with medical needs. I could be financial - the sponsor could not maintain their home or standard of living without the petitioner, or psychological, etc. As someone mentioned above, if you are struggling to prove deep and significant financial or medical impacts, one way to try and prove that the sponsor would be impacted if the petitioner could not remain in the USA is to have a psychological exam done by a psychologist who specializes in this type of thing.

@ K & E Velasquez confirming we're talking specifically about the I-601A here, which is used for someone who came into the US without being seen or processed by an immigration officer. If your case involves someone entering legally and overstaying, that process is different and those timelines do tend to be much shorter.

Our lawyer said they would contact us if there was any change with anything due to Trump. But she assured us it’s a lot harder than his signing a paper. he can’t just do whatever he wants. But I’m not worried about it we already went through one term with him and he couldn’t touch USCIS. I doubt he’ll try now with everything he got already going on. I’m not worried about him and his racist ass. But thank you for answering me! I will call our lawyer and ask her if we can go ahead and get started on some stuff so we can move the process along. Even after you turn all that in it still takes 2/3 years so I guess it won’t matter how much faster we do anything.. May help some anyway. Every month matters!!

@K & E Velasquez another thing to consider is that Trump, in his own words a few weeks ago (yes, I realize that oftentimes his words mean very little) said that he "likes legal immigration". So if you have your approved I-130 and you have a receipt for your I-601A case once you start through that process, I'd carry printouts of both and also save them to your cell phone just in case. ICE and/or the immigration courts are having to release people they've taken into custody, because they don't have adequate funding (yet) to carry out the "mass deportations" that were promised, nor do they have holding space. That in mind if you're able to show paperwork that you're taking serious steps to work through the "legal immigration" process, that may help you with a sympathetic or understanding ICE officer or immigration judge.