I have a friend living in Viet Nam who has been married to a Vietnamese American guy for three years, but she is still waiting for a spousal visa to come here to join him. He has told her for years that it’s only a few months away, and he’s still saying that. However, yesterday he sent an INS case number and we checked the status online and it says the application was received only two weeks ago. Also it’s for a fiance visa, not a spousal one.
First I need to know if it’s possible for her to investigate the true history of her husband’s dealings with the INS. Could this be a misprint? Did he have to reapply? Is this even really her case? (The online information just prints the status with no names.) She has to know this for her own sanity, and obviously she’s not of a mind to trust his word right now.
Second, assuming he has been lying to her for the past three years, does she have any recourse? Is there such a thing as international breach of promise?
Thanks for any advice you can give to this strange case!
She needs to get the number - there’s a number assigned for everything received. At that time she can go online to uscis.gov and find out her case status.
Note, she isn’t going to be able to move to the US on a K-1 fiancee visa if they’re already married. If they’re married, she can just come and then they file a spouse of citizen dealie (sorry, I immigrated on K-1 so I don’t have any help on that type of filing).
Thanks Ginger! She has a number, starting with WAC, which is how we looked up the information. All the CIS site says though is that the request was received on Oct. 18, 2006. It doesn’t say if there were previous petitions, and it doesn’t have her name or his anywhere.
It turns out it is the right visa at least. It’s an I130, which is correct for spouses. They describe it as for relatives and fiancees though, which should be an I129F. That’s one reason I don’t fully trust their online info.
Howdy. I do do immigration work for a living (my e-mail isn’t in my profile, though), but in the interest of full disclosure, I primarily do employment-based immigration petitions and have never handled an immigrant petition for a spouse residing overseas.
It does sound like the U.S. citizen spouse might be jerking her around, and also like the online system isn’t showing complete information for the case. (It normally does not show the petitioner or the beneficiary’s name, and normally shows only the most recent action on a case, so, for example, if a petitoner submits additional information in support of a petition, it won’t show all action taken on the petition, just when the additional information was received.) The online system in my experience is also frequently inaccurate. The online case processing time report for the California Service Center (for which case numbers begin with WAC) doesn’t show processing times for I-130 petitions, but I’ve never heard of one taking more than 3 years to be adjudicated unless something was badly wrong.
I think someone needs to see exactly what is going on here. Does your friend speak English? If so, then why doesn’t she call the National Customer Service Center? They may be able to give her some more detail.
Thanks Eva! She speaks English somewhat. I tried calling for her, but never was able to reach an actual person. The voice recording said they would only release information to the petitioner, not me, or even the beneficiary. Anyway, they say the number they provide for overseas would allow her to access the voice systems, which have no more info than the web site, but not talk to a rep. It seems the system is stacked against her.
That’s stupid - you’d think people overseas would need help more than anyone! Actually, is there any chance you could do a three-way call? They should talk to someone other than the petitioner, beneficiary, or attorney of record as long as he/she is on the line.
(Again, I really don’t deal with family-based immigration very often, but often responses are quite inconsistent, especially in the amount of detail the Customer Service Line will provide; if one rep is totally unhelpful, sometimes you can call right back and get someone who actually tells you something useful. Just nod, smile, be polite, and continue to ask probing questions until they hang up on you.)
In my experience, you NEVER get accurate information from the ‘help’ line. I’m lucky enough to be a twenty minute drive from our local Federal building, and will go there if I can’t find an answer online.