Cincochick

My son is a LPR and British Citizen. He's a full time student in the UK. He got married last week. Can he file the I-130 for his British Citizen wife direct to London?

He has a term-time address in the UK, which is a property we own there. He has lived there during term-time since 2010. We live in Texas. He will be coming back to Texas once he completes his studies in May. He already has a job lined up.

I'm a bit confused

Thank you to anyone who can help.

civilservant

An LPR cannot file to London as they re not resident in the UK (or they shouldn't be!) So it'll have to go to the US. Their spouse will not be coming with them in may as there is no way they'll have the visa by then.

Cincochick

Thank you for that. That's what I thought. But I spoke to our (Immigration Specialist) Attorney on Thursday last week and he said that he could file in the UK! I didn't think he could file in London.

It's a bit worrying that the Attorney who is charging $2,000 plus filing fees could make this kind of error.

civilservant

Hm - well I would defer to an attorney, but it doesn't seem to me that an LPR making an application using DCF on the basis of UK residency makes much sense. Still, I may well be wrong.

S Folinsky

Interesting questions. I have to say that I don't know if it can be filed in the London Field Office. I find the LND Field Office instructions to be somewhat ambiguous.

I presume that OP's son is taking the efforts to preserve his LPR status. [Legal consultation might be in order on this].

The backlog on WorldWide F-2A is not all that bad -- it may very well be current by time son graduates.

S Folinsky

The "resident" issues can be a tricky one to say the least. OP's son is a UK citizen apparently with right of abode in the UK.

It is legally possible to have more that one residence. As a general rule, it is "domicile" that generally applies to one's principal residence. That said, the Immigration & Nationality Act definition is off kilter.

Noorah101

It certainly can't hurt to ask the USCIS field office in London if they'll accept his I-130. Or, he can try filing the I-130 there and if they don't accept it, they'll send the whole package back (including the fee), with a note to file it in the USA.

Or, since there's a backlog in this category anyway, filing directly to London won't really save much time, so might make sense to just go ahead and file it to the USA in the first place.

Rene

S Folinsky

Rene:

It is not all that backlogged at the moment. But getting in line is more important when there is a numerically restricted category. Just saying.

Rete

I believe he could because he is in the UK for schooling and not an actual resident there.