I-130 & I-212 Please Help

[JustDesperate]

Hi guys,

- I'm from Italy and I am Married to an American(Native) Citizen.
- We applied through a lawyer in April 2015 for the I-130 Petition and we received the Approval 11 Months later(March 2016).
- After waiting again for a few months with no notification or actions from Immigration, we talked again to our lawyer in July 2016 and he suggested us to "spend" more money and apply also to the I-212 Waiver(According to him this could be faster) and FOIA.

We started the Petition on April 2015, today is November 2016(18 Months)... and nothing has changed, no news at all... the lawyer keeps telling us that she is trying to contact ICE, but no response for now.

In 18 months I met with my wife 8 times, most of the times in different locations(Europe and South America/Caribbean), according to where the flights would be cheaper and also matching the working schedule...
But it has been still a very long time and we are extremely exhausted about all this, 18 months and nothing really happened...

We are very desperate, not just because we are unable to live like a normal family, but because we have no idea about what's going on and that is causing us a lot of stress.

WE WOULD APPRECIATE VERY MUCH IF SOME PEOPLE THAT ARE MORE EXPERT THAN US WOULD WRITE DOWN SOME OPINIONS ON WHAT IS GOING ON AND EVENTUALLY WHAT TO DO NEXT...

Thank you very much for your time.

[Nobody@12]

Did it take 11 months to receive approval of the petition? Have you not received any notification regarding your petition going to the NVC which is the next step? I would be contacting them yourself. Doesn't seem like your lawyer is doing much unless there is more to the story

[JustDesperate]

Did it take 11 months to receive approval of the petition? Have you not received any notification regarding your petition going to the NVC which is the next step? I would be contacting them yourself. Doesn't seem like your lawyer is doing much unless there is more to the story

- The lawyer told us that it took so long(11 months), because Immigration had plenty of cases and they are backed up on the work. We applied on April 2015 and by then our lawyer told us that Immigration was working on the cases of January 2015. That's why according to what he told us it took 11 months.

- That is the problem/NVC. We received the Approval Notice on March 2016, and from that date we tried to call every single week the NVC to know about the next step and they keep saying that they didn't receive any paper work yet. Also the lawyer tried to contact Immigration but still no answer from them. What do you think about that?

- About the lawyer... we hired a lawyer in NYC that is called Spar & Bernstein, he used to give advices on the radio channel about Immigration, not sure what to think about them anymore.

What would you do?

[Nobody@12]

- The lawyer told us that it took so long(11 months), because Immigration had plenty of cases and they are backed up on the work. We applied on April 2015 and by then our lawyer told us that Immigration was working on the cases of January 2015. That's why according to what he told us it took 11 months.

- That is the problem/NVC. We received the Approval Notice on March 2016, and from that date we tried to call every single week the NVC to know about the next step and they keep saying that they didn't receive any paper work yet. Also the lawyer tried to contact Immigration but still no answer from them. What do you think about that?

- About the lawyer... we hired a lawyer in NYC that is called Spar & Bernstein, he used to give advices on the radio channel about Immigration, not sure what to think about them anymore.

What would you do?

I would be contacting Immigration perhaps. I'm not an expert but it seems a little unusual to me that it would be taking so long.