We received our letter from the INS today approving our I601 waiver. INS has had the waiver since November 26th. We called the consulate and they have not received the approval yet, but said it's normal that we would be notified first. Now we just have to send his passport to the consulate and wait for them to return the fiance visa/passport to us! Eight months after filing the inital I129 we're finally ready to bring him home! Of course it could still take another two weeks to get the passport back from the consulate. I'm just excited to know that he should be here by Valentines Day! :) Thanks to everyone who gave us advise and support. To all those people still going through the waiver process - finally a "good" story - we've been approved!

Congratulations! I know it is a milestone for you guys.

BTW why is it going to take two weeks to get the Passport back from the US Consulate in Montreal? What about going in person and/or overnight mail of some type. You can do DHL and/or Fedex in Canada ;-) Send a prepaid return bill of lading and envelope with the passport so they can return it to him asap.

Also have him check it over carefully for any errors, i.e. name misspelled, wrong birthdate, etc.

Rita

Thank you! :) It was a HUGE milestone!
They already have a prepaid Canada Priority (or maybe Express - I can't remember! lol) letter from us to mail the visa in - it was required when we filed the waiver. The problem is that they are still waiting for their notification that the waiver has been approved. It takes longer for them to get their mail now - they are still taking extra precautions in opening mail. He mailed his passport and a copy of our approval letter out today - they will have it delivered by Friday and hopefully in the office by Tuesday (crazy that it takes a week to actually get it to them!) Then it's just a matter of them receiving the approval and mailing out the visa. We're hoping it won't take two weeks - but she said "it could take two weeks" when we talked to the visa section at the consulate today. February 14th is our anniversary - so we are hoping I'll be able to go and get him the weekend of February 8th. We're keeping our fingers crossed. I woke up today with the flu and feel terrible - never dreaming it would turn out to be one of the happiest days of my life. :)

We had our interview in November in Montreal - the visa was denied because of a criminal history - we had to file the I601 because of that. It has nothing to do with a service center. This waiver went to the INS/Department of Justice. They had to approve it so that we could get our visa. It could have taken 6 months or longer. We were very lucky to get a reply this quickly. We had to prove extreme hardship to get the waiver. I don't know your situation - so I'm sorry I can't reply to it. Thanks for the congratulations! :)

We're in pretty much the same situation. We'll be denied because of a criminal
history from 12 years ago. There was no jail time, only a one year suspended
sentence. Crime was possession of stolen property over $1000. Can you please tell me
how you proved extreme hardship? That is the thing worrying me most...if we can prove
this well enough for them to approve the waiver. Any tips? thanks!

Congratulations, Jade! This is really wonderful news! I'll keep good thoughts in my
head for a Valentine's reunion =)

Betastar

On 22 Jan 2002 15:20:32 -0500, Jade <[email protected]> spake:

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Thanks for the congratulations! :)

As far as proving hardship goes....you understand that what you're having to prove is that the US citizen is unable to live in their spouses country? That it would be an EXTREME hardship for them to move there. Unless the criminal history is 15 years or older this is the only option for the I601 waiver. In our case I have a history of Hodgekin Disease and am a diabetic. I was looking at immigrating to Canada. Since they have socialized health care they can refuse you PR status if there is a concern about your health and it costing the govorment too much. We'll never know if this was why they decided to approve the waiver. We did include other reasons. We're just very thankfull that they did. :) We didn't use an attorney for the waiver - but I would advise you to at least consult one. We did use Doc Steen's page and followed his suggestions on what to include in the hardship letter. I wish you the best of luck in your waiver Joe & Melinda - if there are any other questions please feel free to email me. :)