Prayush C
Jan 28, 2022
What’s next after I-130 approval?
Bula(hello),
After such a wait, finally our approval just came though!!!!
Just wanted to reach out to the community, what is our next steps from here?
My wife is a US citizen(Lives in the US) and I live out of the US.
IR-1/CR-1
U.S. citizen filing for a spouse
Total Days: 394 days
Case
2021-01-02
2022-01-31
I-130
394 Days
California Service Center: I-130
Timeline Map
2021-01-02
I-130
Submission to USCIS
2021-04-09
I-130
D+97
Request for Evidence(RFE) from USCIS
2021-06-01
I-130
D+150
Response to RFE
2022-01-31
I-130
D+394
Decision (Approval or Denial)
This timeline was created with the Lawfully App. Download the Lawfully App now.
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e cJan 28, 2022
Congratulations!! I just typed up a lengthy response to another user at the same stage for a question regarding processing times and how to prepare for the next steps, so this might be helpful for you as well :)
Next steps:
Pay filing fee for immigrant visa application and financial sponsor
Submit applicant forms for the immigrant and financial sponsor(s)
Submit civil/financial documents
Medical examination and interview in the country where you selected to do these in the I-130
Coming to the US with immigrant visa and becoming GC holder upon entry
Processing time:
You can see on NVC’s site which date’s USCIS submission they are currently creating user profiles for (it sounds like you are at this stage, there is usually not a huge backlog here, at least the last time I checked). You will get the NVC welcome letter in the mail but if you submitted an email correspondence request with your I130, you will have your login the details even sooner. The first steps—paying for the filing fees, submission of the application forms, requesting to add a joint sponsor to the application if needed— will go through in the system very quickly, like a few days max. The second processing time you see on NVC’s website is regarding the review of the civil/financial documents. They update the website weekly with the date of the submitted documents that they are currently reviewing so if you check back every week you guys can estimate it almost perfectly when it is your documents turn for review. Once everything is accepted your case will be transferred to your local embassy and then it is up to them when they can facilitate the interview. The biggest head start you can get is submitting your civil/financial documents the moment they invite you to do so.
To do so: start preparing the application forms and the required civil/financial documents. With Covid it can take a while to get the necessary paperwork from local governments and translations if needed (eg. birth/marriage certificate, police clearance, etc.) and you can speed up the process by being ready to submit all documents once your application is in the system.
The NVC system is set up in a way that you won’t see the list of documents they require from you up until you submitted the application forms and the filing fees but you can find all the ones that they require for everyone so you at least get a head start with these in hand. Any additional documents you have to submit will depend on your case—for example for me, because we listed 3 different countries where we lived in the last 5 years in the I130 they asked me to submit two additional local criminal records besides my home country’s (which is required for everyone). If you can’t submit these you can provide a reasoning why not—for example I couldn’t travel back to these two countries for Covid/financial reasons to pick up the criminal records and they accepted that. Some documents have to be issued within a certain timeframe from the time you submit them—obviously, wait with those. They will require to see the original hard-copies at your embassy interview at the last stage so you might need to have certain documents issued/translated twice to meet the expiration criteria. If you already know that you won’t have the hard copies with you for the interview it’s worth to put this fact in the notes when you upload the electronic copies to NVC—for example they asked me to supply a 10-year old visa from the time I worked in NY for 3 months and I lost my old passport while moving but luckily I still had a photocopy of the visa.
Also pay close attention to the required formatting of the civil/financial documents. For example, my home country has a standard police clearance/criminal record we need for employment but for the US immigration I had to request a special format. Luckily all the information on these documents is readily available on the immigration’s website specific to the country of the applicant but it’s easy to overlook minor details if you just make assumptions based on the simple list of the required civil documentation. If you submit the wrong format of the required document they will reject it and you have to wait months again to have them take a look at the resubmitted paperwork (that is, you don’t get priority just because you already tried to supply these documents once, the same processing time will apply to you that is stated on the website and you are back to day 1 in the waiting game). Also for scans of the required documents if they have a stamp on them, you have to scan the back of stamped page as well (even if the stamp is not visible on the back of the paper)—otherwise they will reject the document saying the scan is missing some pages.
As the sponsor, make sure that you have the last 3 years of US federal tax returns filed and that you have a phone/utility/etc. bill with your name and US address on it to prove that you reside in the States. If you don’t meet the financial requirements for sponsorship, you have to have a US joint sponsor with the same required documents submitted as well.
Also note that even though that the civil documents required from the immigrant and the civil/financial document required from the petitioner/sponsor(s) are in two different sections on NVC’s website, they won’t take a look at the documents until you submitted them all.
This is all I could think of and the best of luck to you guys in this next stage :)
Prayush CJan 28, 2022
I cant thank you enough for this!!!!
Nick KakadiyaJan 29, 2022
next wait for interview letter
current interview date is January 08 2021 DQ spouses for CR1 category
Nick KakadiyaJan 29, 2022
also you can join telegram group for CR1/IR1 spouse for further updates
miss mulaJan 29, 2022
congratulations! can i ask at what center your case ?
Prayush CJan 29, 2022
California
tina tJan 30, 2022
congrats and may I ask if your receipt start with an IOE?
Vk SSSSJan 31, 2022
if you are living in us already , don't you need i601A waiver ? before leave country for interview ??
