Once you have established that you are in a position to sponsor your blood relative to the USA on family based immigrant visa, and you want to sponsor your blood relative for settling in the USA, you have to start the process of this family based immigrant visa at the earliest. This cycle takes a long time of around 8 to 12 years to complete depending upon the priority of your case.
The first step is to file the visa petition for your relative in the form DS-130. You will have to show your financial condition in the USA by various bank statements, your salary stub, proof of your US citizenship, and your family details. You are also required to fill in the form DS-325A seeking biographic information about you and your family. You are required to establish your blood relation with your relative you want to sponsor. You will need documents like birth certificates for you and your beneficiary, Marriage certificates for both you and your relative, the family details of your relative to establish how many total persons would be eligible for the immigrant visa. If any of such documents are not available, then proper affidavit, duly notarized, has to be submitted. Once these forms are submitted to INS, you will receive a notice of approval for the petition filed by you in the form number I-797. This notice will have a registration number and the date of approval marked on it. The copy of this approval notice is also sent to your beneficiary. This approval letter becomes the main basis of your application. It takes around 6 months to one year to receive such approval notice, depending upon the priority of your beneficiary. It is suggested to preserve this document very carefully. In case, you or your beneficiary change residences after the issuance of this notice, make sure to notify these changes to INS authorities promptly.
Whenever INS authorities will be ready to process the visa case, you will be notified to confirm that you are still interested in processing your petition and would be asked to submit “Affidavit of support” to establish your financial stability in this country. You will be also required to pay visa process fees of US$ 380 (as per present rates) for each of your beneficiaries. This visa fee can also be paid by your beneficiaries from their home countries. Once these are submitted, INS starts the detailed study, investigation, and the analysis of the data sent by you. If everything is found in order, you as well as your beneficiary would be advised that INS is now ready to process the petition filed. This stage may take around one year time from the date visa fee is paid. The beneficiary is sent the form DS-230 having two parts at this time. The detailed list of the documents required from the beneficiaries is also given along with this form. The beneficiary has to confirm readiness of all the documents as required and forward Xerox copy of his/family valid passports along with the part-1 of the form DS-230 dully filled in to INS authorities in the USA. The passports must be valid at least for a period of one year from this date. Once this is done by the beneficiary, INS will intimate to the beneficiary that his file has been forwarded to the nearest embassy in his home country and he would here from that embassy on the visa interview date. It takes about 3 to 4 months for getting a visa interview date from the concerned embassy, depending upon the work load of that embassy. You and your whole family have to appear for the visa interview on the date and time given to you. You and your whole family would also need to present themselves for the medical check-up, at the hospitals fixed by the US embassy, prior to visa interview.
This final visa interview shall decide the fate of your case. Many applicants are not able to present their case properly, resulting in to visa refusal or the long delay due to the faulty documents. Once you are issued with the immigrant visa, you will have to reach To the USA within a period of 6 months maximum. If you cannot do this, you will have to apply to US embassy for the suitable extension. I have passed through this phase of obtaining immigrant visa twice in my life and am aware about the accuracy and the exactness needed in all the documents you present to the US embassy. I have tried to cover the family based visa cycle in general. The time taken for this entire cycle cannot be defined as it depends on your case priority and the visa number allotted in each priorities. It may take even around 15 years to process the case of priority F-4 (brothers/sisters of US citizens). So, the key is to wait peacefully till your turn comes and strike with full force when it comes to get through the visa interview at the first attempt only.
