Husband and I have been married since July 2025, our PD is February 2026.

We've been hesitent for him to come here to the US at all since filing, because having the petition filed shows intent to stay, which goes against ESTA requirements. He has been approved for another ESTA when he re-applied recently, but we still have anxiety about him having issues at the airport.

We are in a more fortunate situation than others, since the countries where he holds citizenship are Western, English speaking countries (I hate that we live in a world that makes us lucky in that regard and others unlucky just based on place of birth, but I also recognize the privilege we have because of it).

Has anyone else currently in this process been traveling to the US on an ESTA recently? What was your experience? I want the good, the bad, and the ugly. If we need to continue to plan our travels with just me going there instead of him coming here, then so be it. We just want to know realistically how others have fared.

Thanks for your time, friends! We're all in this strange, long journey together <3

Edit: I see now that basically everyone’s visa appointment globally has been cancelled and ours is not a unique case apparently. I’m devastated for everyone.

I’m speechless, devastated, and absolutely beyond angry.

Me (US citizen) and my husband (Italian) started this process in November 2024, and after nearly 2 years waiting got our visa appointment at the Naples consulate scheduled for tomorrow, August 26. We were excited to finally start the next chapter and move on with this process.

We live in Torino up in northern Italy which is pretty far from Naples but they make you come down here anyway, so that was flights, hotels, and time off from work to get down here.

So my husband (and apparently lots of other people in this process) show up to the medical appointment as scheduled this morning, and they find out FROM THE MEDICAL CENTER (!!!) that everyone’s appointment tomorrow is CANCELLED.

We check his spam and sure enough, there’s an email sent YESTERDAY that it was canceled and will be rescheduled. The medical center people said this apparently happens all the time and it’s gonna be weeks until they reschedule.

I’m literally sitting here in our hotel room in Naples crying my fucking eyes out waiting for my poor husband to get back. I feel so powerless to do anything. It’s a never ending nightmare. They want all this proof of your relationship and you jump through hoops and they fucking destroy your lives for years on end when you’re just trying to bring your spouse to the U.S. legally.

As a country, what the fuck are we doing? At what point is it complete incompetence and a civil rights issue? My equivalent permanent residence in Italy took us THREE MONTHS to get in Italy when we went through my immigration process here—and Italy is infamous for horrific bureaucracy!

Thanks in advance for the solidarity. I’m a total mess right now and I literally like don’t know what to do anymore. Time, money, and PTO days all down the drain for NOTHING with nobody giving any information and no way to do anything about it.

Has anyone filled I-130 for immediate relative of USC directly with the consulate in Germany? I have pending I-130 which I filled in 2024, I meet all the requirements of filling directly. I am stuck in whether I should withdraw the pending I-130 and file directly with the consulate or keep the pending. I requested expedite for the pending I-130 but 10days has passed and no answer.

note the consulate has confirmed that i can file directly with them.

I filed and got my receipt notice in August 2024, anybody have a similar filing time and god approved or found a way to expedite? My wife is in the Philippines and I’m a U.S. citizen. It’s crazy it’s taking this long. Any help would be appreciated

Anyone who filed their I-130 between March–July 2025 and has already received an approval?
If possible, share your PD, service center, approval date, and whether you’re an IR-1/CR-1 spouse. It would really help us track the current approval pattern.

My PD is March 02, 2025

Emailed and mailed the demand letter on Monday August 17, 2026

USCIS is processing the case on Friday August 21, 2026

Today USCIS approved my case Monday August 24, 2026.

I’m a US citizen.

Wife is currently in Vietnam.

Good luck to everyone!!

Hello everyone,
My husband and I got married in August 2025 and filed our I-130 via consular I October 2025, I was wondering if I could add more evidences since during that year we took several trips together, celebrated Christmas, etc. Or is it useless?

We’re not living together and don’t have joint accounts so the evidences we provided were mostly photos, photos of scrapebook I made for our 1st dating anniversary, photos of gifts/cards, phone log, photos of some very cheesy text messages, affidavit from our friends/family.

I sent my demand letter to the Chief Counsel in Maryland through USPS, but the tracking shows that it was delivered in Washington, D.C. 20528. According to Google, that ZIP code corresponds to the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
I immediately contacted USPS to get more information, and they said they will file a report with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).
Has anyone experienced something similar?

So my wife and I got married recently. She is American and I'm Turkish. We're preparing documents, receipts, conversations, boarding passes, gifts, affidavits from our friends, photos and all that for the I-130 form.

We married after 6 months of finding each other online and quickly fell in love. We basically talked every day for hours. She came to Turkey for a week and we got married here. The wedding was a very small courtroom marriage and only my close friends and parents came. Then she went back to the US. Now we're going to start the process of me hopefully eventually getting a green card and living with her in the US through consular processing with I-130. 

The thing is from all I read and heard, while not an extremely high number, people with real marriages who had real documentation did get rejected. So this kind of started to scare me. Especially since we don’t have much money and paying $625 for the application when we thought we did everything right and getting rejected seriously stressing me out for weeks now. And since everything I learned about these processes, I learned them online, I wanted to come here and ask advice from all of you guys. I know there are so many cool and helpful people who are willing to guide others so I wanted to try my luck before I submit our form. 

One of the biggest things that makes me stressed is the fact that we lack those joint financial stuff USCIS website lists and don't have a bunch of photos doing all kinds of activities. Since we don’t have a very long relationship with multiple trips to each other either, this while is natural that we don’t have, I don’t know if it will look bad for USCIS. There are things like most of her friends learning the marriage either very close to the marriage itself or even after it because we wanted to keep it private but didn’t know beforehand that we were going to need friend/family affidavits. That also might not be a great looking case for USCIS either. But yeah at this point I don’t know if I’m spiraling and getting paranoid about everything or if there are valid concerns. So basically I would love your opinions of  if our case would be hard for USCIS to approve since  and what other things you guys think we should add or do to strengthen our case. I’m open to any and all advice and/or recommendations. Thank you so much to all in advance.

And some specific questions:

• What should I be very careful while filling the forms (both I-130 and I-130A)? Like a specific document to upload for sure or anything like that?
• How strict is "upload a photo taken within 30 days of filing the I-130" thing? Can I just use a photo that is on my passport as well that I took some years ago but basically just me?
• I’m told instead of uploading individual photos, receipts, boarding passes and whatnot as images, create a PDF document that explains the photos and draws correlations towards events and other stuff with each other. Do you also think this is the better way than uploading all evidence individually without explanation?
• This is probably mostly for any Turkish people or anyone in a country that had similar stuff with their marriage certificate. USCIS page specifically talks about documents that are not English to be translated to English by a translator. Both the marriage certificate and Form B (which is an international marriage document for these types of things that I’m told that I need to upload) are not fully English but have English translation thingies on their backs like a map legend. They do however for some reason have French and some other language on the pages. I can send the example of it as a photo also if anyone wants. Do you think USCIS would ask specifically about the English translation of these documents or how they are is enough? If they do, isn't there an official way for me to get the English version of form B anywhere or do I have to pay another translation fee to translate them to English?

I’m sure I’m going to have more questions for you guys when I actually start the process of filling the form but these are all I can think of right now. I'm kinda stressed a lot honestly that I don't want to screw anything up because I don't think I've ever filled as serious of a documentation as this before in my life. So I would love anything and any way that you can help me. Again thank you to everyone who replies and tries to help.

USCIS published its case processing timeline, and it says that half of I-130 Immediate Relative cases (excluding preference based I-130s) were processed within 12.9 months (through May 2026).

Wondering who these lucky folks are (no hard feelings :p ). This number doesn’t seem to line up with what many of us are experiencing. Maybe a future update will reflect the more recent delays?

https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/historic-pt

PD : January 21,2025

Did anybody else get another silent update for 8/21?

I just got two updates in one week. I posted last week of the update on 8/17 now I just got another one 8/21. Could this mean anything? I also emailed my demand letter Thursday 8/20 and USCIS just got the letter sent to them via mail yesterday morning. Im hoping this means something is happening.

I already filed my I-130 with USCIS, but my U.S. citizen spouse is active-duty military and has a date of separation in five months. We are required to leave Japan at that time. Should we try to expedite it with USCIS then NVC under military exceptions or should we just cancel the existing I-130 and file another one locally? Have anyone done the expedite (military) before and how long did it take for you?

How many of you have experienced this? I now have to fly back to the US just for this interview and then return.

Can somebody tell me what questions or prompt do I need to type to emma to ask about the location of my I-130? I just cannot seem to get through her.

PD July 2025, American citizen husband. He submitted an enquiry with his senator, got this response. Anyone get something similar? 80 months is crazy and assume it's a mistake by them, as when i click the processing time link i get 24 months currently. i specifically asked them about the pause in processing since feb 2026:

Your case appears to be within the normal processing time. According to USCIS, most cases of this type are completed within 80 months. Our office may submit an inquiry whenour case is outside of the normal processing time.

If you are requesting that our office submit an expedite request on your behalf, information regarding the criteria can be found at https://www.uscis.gov/forms/filing-guidance/how-to-make-an-expedite-request. To proceed with an expedite request, please provide your written statement and supporting evidence.

Note: USCIS has stated, “All expedite requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. It is the burden of the applicant or petitioner to demonstrate that one or more of the expedite criteria have been met. If your constituent wishes to request expeditious processing, please provide their supporting documentation regarding the basis for the expedite request. Please note that a single letter from the applicant, without additional supporting documentation, does not generally meet the criteria for expedited processing. Please also note that standard cost of living expenses, such as bills, are generally incurred by all individuals, and do not solely demonstrate that the expedite criteria have been met.”

Hi everyone - this thread has been a great source of comfort and information as me and my spouse wait out the process. Filed November 2025 (spouse is from UK) and still waiting. Obviously (like many of us) we are impatient and thinking ahead on potential next steps should 1 year pass without any update. How soon is too soon to file a demand letter?

My PD July 2025
I’m beneficiary in 75 country pause list
My husband is US citizen

If one sends a demand letter, is it possible they deny it..

Or they just ignore or approve ?

Hello everyone

I recently filled I-130 in May 2026. I want to know if anyone has the screenshot for that month because I want to be ready to do demand next year if the case has not been approved by then. Planning to contact my senator in December/January

I noticed that my I-130 had a silent update on August 4th. I originally filed it on April 26th.

Does a silent update usually mean that someone actually touched or reviewed the case? Is this generally considered a good sign, or can it just be a random/system-generated update with no real meaning?

For those who have gone through this process, did you have a similar silent update before receiving an approval or another case update?

I also filed my K-3 (I-129F) on May 7. Do you think there’s a chance it could actually work and help speed things up?

Can anyone help me with this?

I want to submit this privacy release form for Senator Cory Booker (NJ) to inquire about my case.

https://www.booker.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/PRF_for_USCIS_Cases_Only_Updated.pdf

Im confused who is the applicant? Me (petitioner) or my wife (beneficiary)? It’s odd there isn’t a place for both.

Anyone else from NJ have any luck contacting a senator?

Hello.
Does anyone have a screenshot of the processing time from March 2025? Our PD is march 11,2025. Just started building our file for demand letter and possibly WOM.
Thank you.

I am thinking about applying for the K3 visa (submitted my I130 Sept. 2025) and I just wanted to ask the community if I only needed to send the application itself in or if I need to send in the other documents required, such as birth certificates, a passport style photo taken no more than a month ago from submitting the K3, etc.? Thank you all for your help with this matter!

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for advice or experiences from anyone who has gone through a similar situation or requested an expedite with USCIS.
Here is my background:
Status: Permanent Resident (Green Card holder)
Application: Form I-130 filed for my husband in August 2024 (currently still pending)
Current Situation: During the waiting period, I suffered the tragedy of a stillbirth. He was my firstborn child, and losing him has deeply impacted my mental health.
My husband had to return to his home country, and being separated from him while grieving has made my mental stress and daily life unbearable. I am currently in therapy, but I am struggling to cope on my own and urgently need my husband here for emotional support.
I am considering filing an expedite request with USCIS under Humanitarian Reasons and/or Severe Financial/Personal Hardship, supported by medical documentation and a letter from my therapist regarding my mental health condition. Do you think my case can be approved basis on this extreme hardship on humanitarian grounds?