Original Signatures No Longer Required for Affidavit of Support Forms (I-864, etc.)

The National Visa Center (NVC) announced that it will accept photocopies and scanned versions of signed the Affidavit of Support Forms: I­-864, I-864A, I-864EZ and I-864W, starting January 1, 2017. Original signatures are no longer required.

The Affidavit of Support Form is required for Family-Based immigration applications.  The petitioner and/or a joint sponsor must provide evidence to show that they have enough financial responses to support the individuals immigrating to the U.S.

The NVC already stopped requiring original civil documents in 2014.

Who is afraid of the National Visa Center?

The United States is a land of immigrants.  Although there are different ways to obtain the American green card, overseas applicants ultimately must go through a consulate interview process before they may travel to the U.S. as landing immigrants.  And before an intending immigrant's file is sent to an overseas American consulate for local processing and interview, it must first be cleared by the National Visa Center (NVC).  NVC processing can be challenging and laden with pitfalls, causing unnecessary delays if not handled properly.

What is the National Visa Center?

Created in 1994, the National Visa Center (NVC) is a branch agency under the U.S. Department of State. It's main function is to pre-process all immigrant visa petitions for final consular processing. After U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approves an immigrant visa petition, it sends the petition to NVC for immigrant visa pre-processing. Immediate relative categories (U.S. citizens' immediate relatives) do not have yearly numerical visa limits and, therefore, their cases are processed as soon as administratively possible. Other categories of cases have numerical limits each year, and will be processed only if visa numbers are already available or visa numbers will likely be available soon.  

My case has been sent to NVC - now what?

As mentioned, NVC will only start processing a case if it estimates that visa numbers will be available soon.  Therefore, it is possible that you may not hear from NVC for months or even years. It is extremely important that you keep the NVC and your attorney updated of any changes in your address and other personal information.  When a case is ready to proceed, NVC processing involves several major steps: (1) Invoicing and payment of  the visa application fees; (2) Processing of visa applications and supporting documentation (civil documents and affidavit of support); and (3) Holding the visa petition until an interview can be scheduled with a consular officer at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

It is very important that the visa fees and affidavit of support fees are paid correctly and promptly. Without correct payment, NVC will not proceed with the case.  If electronic payment is made, be sure to return to the payment website after several days to print out the payment receipts.  Each visa applicant must pay for his or her visa fee but only one affidavit of support fee is needed for each family.

Visa Application  DS-260

After an applicant paid the visa fees, the next step is to submit a visa application to NVC electronically.  In an effort to transition to more paperless processing, NVC mandated the use of  the DS-260 Immigrant Visa Electronic Application on September 1, 2013, replacing the old paper-based DS-230 Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration (parts I and II).  The DS-260 form requests for more detailed personal information from the applicant and also contains more security-related questions.  Applicants should review and verify all answers very carefully before submitting the form to NVC.  Once submitted, there is no easy way to make changes.

Civil Documents

Civil documents are required by NVC for each immigrant petition, including birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce judgments, police clearances, criminal record documents, passports, etc.   For many years, originals or certified originals of civil documents are required by the NVC. This policy changed as of November 12, 2014.  NVC now on longer requires or accepts original documents from visa applicants.   Instead, applicants will have to bring with them the originals to the U.S. consulate office during the visa interview.  If a document, e.g., a birth certificate, is not available, an applicant may use secondary evidence to meet the legal requirements.  However, a qualified immigration attorney should be consulted in such situations.

Affidavit of Support (Form I-864)

Many immigrants find the I-864 Affidavit of Support form one of the most confusing forms out there. Their feelings are well justified - many visa petitions are delayed because of mistakes and problems relating to the I-864 form.  Although there are thirteen (13) pages of instructions to the I-864 form, completing the form correctly according to the NVC requirements still proves to be a daunting task for most people.  Part of the confusion may be attributed to the different languages used in the immigration field and in the tax field.  Not only must the petitioners complete the forms correctly, they must also produce all required supporting documents such as tax returns, proof of employment, etc., to NVC.  Things become even more complex for petitioners who need to rely on joint sponsor income or personal assets to meet the financial support requirements.

The "Checklist" letters

Any meaningful discussion of NVC must include its famous checklist letters.  The NVC uses checklist letters to inform the parties about various issues of the case - missing documents, wrong documents, forms incorrectly completed, etc. The checklist letter is similar in nature to the Request for Evidence (RFE) letter issued by the USCIS.  Because of the checklist letter is based on pre-defined format, its content can sometimes be confusing.  Thus far, NVC has not imposed any deadlines for checklist responses, although cases not responded to within one year will be considered abandoned.  Sometimes, NVC may use multiple checklist letters to get the case ready for consular processing, resulting in substantial delay.  

Conclusion

NVC processing is an important phase of the U.S. immigration process for overseas applicants.  It is also a rather complicated process with many legal and documentary requirements.  Intending immigrants and their sponsors should handle the process carefully.  Whenever in doubt, one should seek legal advice from a qualified immigration attorney to avoid problems and unnecessary delays.

National Visa Center (NVC) no longer requires original civil documents

As of 11/12/2014, the National Visa Center (NVC) will no longer accept original civil documents in support of immigrant visa (IV) applications, according to a recent State Department communication.

Under this new policy, applicants will only be required to submit photocopies of supporting civil documents such as birth certificates, divorce judgements, marriage certificates, and police clearances, etc., to NVC.  Visa applicants will be instructed to take their original documents to their interviews for consulate review.

However, applicants must still submit application forms such as Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, with original signatures.

This change in policy makes good sense as it will facilitate electronic processing of documents and eliminate any risks of loss of original documents.

Best times to call NVC (National Visa Center)

The National Visa Center (NVC) pre-processes all immigrant visa cases for the overseas U.S. Consulates before immigrants visas are issued.  NVC handles many phone inquiries from attorneys, petitioners, applicants, etc. NVC’s main contact phone number is (603) 334-0700. When all their phone lines are being used, callers will get a busy signal.  NVC has recommended through AIlA that the best times to call NVC are during the off-peak hours of 7am to 10am (EST) and 8pm to midnight (EST).

August Visa Bulletin: EB-2 India advances to 01/01/2008

Ever since October 2012, EB-2 India has been retrogressed and the cut-off date has been kept at September 1, 2004.   However, this is about to change in August.  The August Visa Bulletin announces that EB-2 India's cut-off date will be changed to 01/01/2008, representing an advancement of three years and four months.  Sudden movements in the cut-off dates are not unusual during this time of the fiscal year, which ends September 30th. These movements are intended to generate more green card and immigrant visa applications so that any remaining visa numbers for the fiscal year will be used up.   This is also precisely the reason why the Family 2A preference category becomes current in August for all countries.  

Eligible applicants should take advantage of these movements and file their green card applications as soon as possible.  As intended by the State Department, the significant advancement in EB-2 India and the "current" status of the Family 2A will likely generate a large number of filings, which will cause the pendulum to swing to the other side again - the side of visa retrogression.  Therefore, do not delay in filing your green card applications if your case has become current.   Overseas applicants should start their NVC or consular processing immediately.  Applicants residing in the U.S. should prepare and submit their adjustment applications domestically with the USCIS.

Marriage-based K-3 visa processing changes

Effectively February 1, 2010, the processing of the K-3 marriage-based visa is changed. If the U.S. State Department National Visa Center (NVC) receives the approved K-3 visa petition and the underlying I-130 immigrant visa petition filed by the same petitioner from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at the same time, the NVC will administratively close the nonimmigrant K visa petition and continue to process the immigrant visa petition only.

A United States Citizen, after marrying a foreign national, may file petitions for his or her spouse to come to the United States so that they may live as husband and wife. If the foreign spouse lives outside of the United States, there are usually two ways to bring the spouse here. First, the United States citizen may file an immigrant petition for his spouse by using the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Form I-130. Upon approval of the petition, the case will be sent to the National Visa Center in Missouri for further processing. Original documents such as birth certificates need to be presented along with financial support affidavits and documents. Secondly, the petitioner may also choose to file a K petition so that his spouse may come to the United States faster while the immigrant case is pending. This K visa should not be confused with the K-1 fiancée visa, which is designed for unmarried fiancées or fiancés of United States Citizens to travel to the U.S. to get married. For married couples, the K-3 visa should be used. One of the reasons to use the K-3 visa is for the processing time, which is usually a lot faster than the immigrant petition. It has been the practice of the NVC to process both petitions. The foreign spouse may choose to use the K-3 visa to travel to the U.S. first and complete the immigration process here, or to wait for the immigrant visa to be approved and enter the U.S. as legal resident.

Recently, the NVC announced that in situations where the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) has approved both the immigrant visa petition and the K-3 petition and forwarded both files to the NVC, the NVC will no longer process both petitions. Instead, the NVC will “administratively close” the K-3 petition and continues to process the Immigrant Visa petition. What it means is that the K-3 file will be closed and placed on the shelf temporarily. If the processing of the immigrant visa for the parties is successful at the end, the K-3 case will no longer be used. The NVC will contact the petitioner and you with instructions for processing their immigrant visa. However, if the NVC does not receive both I-130 petition and the I-129F K-3 petition simultaneously, the NVC will continue to process the K-3 petition by sending it to the embassy or consulate in the country where the marriage took place. If the marriage took place in the United States, the NVC will forwarded the petition to the embassy or consulate that issues visas in the foreigner’s country of nationality.

It appears that the change is to avoid duplicated processing on the government side. By processing only one petition, both time and resources can be saved. However, it is unclear how much impact this change will have on the total processing time. Would it be faster or slower for married couples to be re-united in the U.S. Most U.S. consulate offices especially the busier ones process the K-3 a lot faster than the immigrant visa. It is hoped that consulate processing of the immigration visa will now speed up given that the consulate officers should now have few number of K-3 petitions to process.