Daily Report: Approval-ish

I got news on Epril's visa application today: It went all backwards... in a good way.

I had been following VisaJourney.com's instructions for obtaining a K-3 Spouse Visa and everything had gone as expected: First I submitted the I-130 visa application. Next I submitted the I-129F visa application. According to historical time data, the I-129F visa application was supposed to be approved sometime in mid-July and things would proceed from there.

Instead, now at the beginning of June, I received a letter stating that the I-130 visa application was approved.

According to the advice contributors on forum at VisaJourney.com, the approval of the I-130 application precludes any further action on the I-129F application: The I-129F application is the "express" visa application... sort of an "I-130 Lite" that would require Epril to make a quick upgrade in her status upon arrival to America to become a full-fledged "Permanent Resident", while the I-130 has the "Permanent Resident" status already included.

But the way I'm looking at it, the I-129F visa application is still sitting there, awaiting action. As far as I am concerned, even though the full I-130 visa application is approved, I'll need assurance that the I-129F application has been taken out of the system, and that a contradictory visa approval will not be catching up with the I-130 at some point in the future... or if it does, it won't confuse things.

It figures that this kind of stuff arrives on a Friday afternoon, and I don't check the mail until 8 p.m., leaving me an entire weekend before I can call the Immigration Service to ask them what to do, if anything.

But, the upshot still is this: Epril's visa application has been approved more than a month earlier than expected.

Actually I see here that the average days between the point we are at now ("NOA-2") and the interview worldwide is 160 days. Sigh: November 11th. Well, we will do our best. I looked at the data and it seems that when you take not the mean but the median number of days, it is closer to 100 days... September 12th. Here's hoping.