As soon as your case is ready for filing the BTUSA Practice Manager will take one final look at your case in every detail. This is one of several BTUSA quality control check measures we have in place to ensure that nothing is over looked. Even though clients are generally anxious to hurry their cases through the system, they nevertheless rely on us to produce the highest possible quality of work. Your case will therefore be pre-screened before it is actually filed.

There are four regional USCIS Service Centers that process these petitions: California, Nebraska, Texas and Vermont. Depending on where your US Citizen resides will determine the service center that handles your case. The only exception to this would be if your case were filed through the Embassy.

When the case is received by the appropriate service center it is immediately screened by USCIS. The USCIS administration staff has a standard check list that they run your case through to ensure that all the basic elements are in place.

For example:

1. Has the case been sent to the right service center
2. Forms signed and dated.
3. Correct filing fee paid.
4. Evidence of US Citizenship included
5. Evidence of alien’s citizenship included
6. Evidence of prior marriages included
7. Etc.

Once your case passes this initial screening process it is then officially receipted and given a case number. If the case does not pass the initial screening it is sent back to BTUSA with a note stating what is required to correct the package. The required item would then be inserted into the package and re-submitted. BTUSA has never had this happen but it’s always a possibility and in any case, should be a simple fix.

There are two ways to track the progress of your case. We have created the appropriate links from our website to the service center websites or you can simply go directly to the service website sites.

The first thing you will need to track is how long that particular service center is currently taking to review the cases that were filed before yours.

1. Go to https://egov.immigration.gov/cris/jsps/ptimes.jsp
2. Select the Service Center where your case was sent.
3. Scroll down the page looking on your left hand side for I-129F Petition for Fiancé (e). This section also covers K3 applications.
4. Once you find that line the date entered in the far right column will tell you the date of the cases they are currently reviewing.

So for example, if you have a receipt date on your petition of March 2nd and they are currently reviewing cases filed (receipted) January 2nd then you know you have about a three month wait until your case will likely come up. Every couple of weeks you can go back on line to see where they are and how your case is moving up the line. Sometimes it will appear that the date posted on the government website has not moved up for weeks and then all of a sudden it will jump forward several weeks. This is because they do not update their posting on a daily or weekly basis. The posting is updated from time to time.

The second check you can make is to find out the status of your individual case. Although this initially sounds promising it really is not that helpful, as they simply post the fact that your case is in the system and then change the posting to say your case is approved or whether further information was required.

1. Go to https://egov.immigration.gov/cris/jsps/caseStat.jsp
2. Enter your case number without the dashes and spaces.

K3 Marriage Visa Guide