Please help - need to decide

[Aishwarya]

Friends,

I need to make a decision between AoS and CP very shortly, I would appreciate your guidance on this.

Firstly, I will be going on my seventh year H1 extension starting August 2002 (till August 2003).

My service center is Nebraska, I am on EB3 and my consulate is Chennai.

My question is:

If my 140 gets approved in September 2001, how likely is it that I will be through with the CP process before August 2003?

My attorney mentioned that sometimes the 140 does not reach NVC for about 3-4 months, and there is no way to track this. How common is this situation?

The way I have understood the process is:

Time for NVC to receive I-140 is about 1 month.
Time for NVC to send out Packet-3 is about 1.5 months.
Time for us to return Packet-3 is about 0.5 months.
Time for NVC to review & forward Packet-3 is 2 months.
Time for Chennai consulate to schedule interview is 2 -3 months.

So the total time from 140 approval and CP interview is between 7-8 months (though some people seem to get through in about 5 months).

How typical is the above time estimate? I know there are no guarantees, but is the above timescale true for most CP applicants?

My attorney's question to me is if CP is going to take 7-8 months, and if in AoS, one is pretty much done in 6 months, then why go for CP?

My personal preference is really for CP (unless people here come up with scary stories of 140 transfers from INS-Neb to NVC). I am not at all sure of how the post 180 days AC21 situation works with 485. I don't want to wait for 1-2 years for the 485 to be approved.

This is a company attorney, so I have to come up with a convincing reason for CP, or go with the AoS recommendation.

This is already long, but one last question - what happens if the principal applicant can only attend the CP interview, and the spouse has to go later? Does the Chennai consulate allow this to happen (for legitimate reasons) ? Can the spouse remain in the US in the interim period?

Can someone please please help me?


Aishu

 

[cpmumbai2002]

CP usually takes about 5-6 months from the time NVC receives the paperwork...

As far as Nebraska, I am not sure how long they are taking to send the paperwork to NVC. I know that California was taking a long time (in some cases more than 3 months) to send the papers, whereas Texas surprisingly was pretty fast. But after your papers reach NVC, it takes about 5-6 months till your interview.

You might want to go to cptracker.com, filter by Nebraska and look at how long they have been taking to send the papers.

As far as separate interviews for you and your spouse, I am not sure about that.

Hope that helps.

 

[netuser]

here is my view

It will be very hard to provide a specific answer to questions "like how long it will take to complete the CP process" ? However, you will be able to get a fairly accurate feel for this if you scan through the well maintained cp traceker site (www.cptracker.com).

Here is summary of my case,

I-140 approved on December 18th
Visa Interview in Chennai on June 18th


So, after teh in six months (that includes one month delay caused by myself), I could complete the whole process. I would call this typical but again you can always see an exception.

 

[Moulin Rouge]

MY $0.02...

Your timeline is conservative.. It usually takes about 5 - 6 months to get an interview. You could also contemplate filing a 140 for AOS and then doing AC140 if your consulate accepts to shave off a month or two, but it is not recommended.

As with any other process, there are its fair share of risks associated with CP. Lost files from INS -> NVC , a returned P3 at review, NVC errors (like giving u a wrong consulate) all have a certain probability of happening and could add a couple of months to the normal time..

IMHO, if you dont need AC21's 6 month protection, CP is probably a better bet.

As far as separate interviews goes, its possible (spouse can follow to join) but will have to independently maintain status if in the US (H4 will no longer be valid) until the time of the interview. If you want to do this, then CP is not really recommended, since you will have to go through the same hoops all over again to get your spouse's CP and by then both of you should have got AOS approval, specially at NSC.

With everything said and done, you have a very very good chance of completing CP before August '03 AND if not, you still qualify for 7th yr. extension since you have an approved 140.