Hello, everybody, In this video, we're going to talk about 6 ways on how you
can expedite your case, so many people are now stuck waiting for visa appointments,
waiting for their loved ones to be reunited. And the wait time is so frustrating. In this
video, we're going to cover six ways of expediting, and taking advantage of some
new things that are happening right now where you can try to move your appointment
a little bit faster. So what are you waiting for? I'll see you on the other side.
Hello, everybody. And welcome back to our immigration channel. This is a
place where you can get the most up to date, immigration information, immigration news,
and everything else that you need to make your immigration journey less stressful. My name is
Jacob Sapochnik. And I'm an immigration attorney located in central California, and I help clients
in all 50 states. And remember, in this video, we're going to talk about some important ways how
you can try to expedite your case, or some ways that we use at our law firm to bypass this crazy
red tape of immigration backlog to try to help you as well with your immigration case. So we're
going to talk about those six ways. And hopefully, it will help you as well. So make sure you stick
to the end. Before that, If you hear for the first time, make sure to subscribe to our channel, click
the notification bell so you don't miss any of our videos. And also give us a big like, so YouTube
will be able to show this video to more people just like you. So let's get started. As you know,
the visa backlog crisis is insane, especially outside the United States when people were dealing
with US embassies and consulates. Previously, I've done a video on How to expedite your case with
USCIS. Right here, we can see that. So make sure you follow that video as well. If you're inside
the United States, the link is in the description of this video. But here we're going to talk about
what's happening at the State Department, what's happening when you're stuck overseas,
trying to get your loved one into the United States. Or if you're non immigrant trying
to get a visa to be scheduled at the US Embassy or Consulate overseas. We're going
to talk about all these ways to get your visa a priority interview. Now remember,
what's happening right now is that not only there's the huge backlogs because of the pandemic
because these embassies and consulates were not operating properly. And only now they're resuming
operations, and only a few of them are doing so. But also remember we have the 14-day travel ban
on quite a few countries, these travel bans does not mean that embassies are not allowed to issue
visas. Yet they're using the travel ban to say no, we're not issuing visas. And therefore there's a
lot of confusion. There's a lot of frustration. And people are getting really angry with the State
Department because again, we get it that there's a travel ban. Many of us do not agree with this
travel ban. But this travel ban is simple. All you have to do is quarantine for two weeks in a third
country that is not included in the list of those countries and you can enter the United States.
But if you try to apply for a visa in one of these countries, you're getting a lot of pushback from
these embassies and consulates and therefore people are stuck. What that means is that this
backlog continues to increase,continues to grow. And therefore people are looking for ways to try
to expedite their cases. And that's what we're going to talk about in this video. First of all,
the State Department created national interest exceptions both for non immigrants
and for immigrant visas to allow people to qualify under the national interest exceptions. So number
one, there is an automatic national interest exception for certain visa categories. And most
people are not aware of that. So under the new NIE regulations, F1 and M1 students are automatically
eligible for national interest exceptions, they do not need to apply for those. All they have to do
is enter the United States within 30 days before their program starts at the US University.
For Immigrant Visas under the State Department tier system, spouses of US citizens, LPR,
green card holders, spouses, and fiance visas should be getting priority. As far as processing
visas. Of course, in reality, we know that that's not the case. And a lot of these categories are
still waiting, but based on the rules, they should be a priority for visa processing. Number two,
manually applying for a national interest exception can apply manually if they meet
the national interest exception and we've done a video on that before as well. But applying
manually for that as a non-immigrant will be one option. And also of course as an immigrant which
is what we've been doing for the past and almost a year, for a lot of our green card holders,
CR1 spouses that are pending overseas and they're trying to come in here and they're not able to
get interviews. They can qualify for an NIE based on hardship. For example, we know a lot of those
that may be very effective. A Fiance visa, a lot of our fiancee visas that are sitting in waiting,
they are applying for manual national interest exception. And again, expedited based on that
we filed expedite with the National Visa Center first, we'll get that approval, and then that is
forwarded to the US Embassy. And at that point, we request emergency appointments,
manually expedited based on national interest exceptions are highly effective. They're not
guaranteed obviously, they're not that easy to do, obviously, but they are effective.
And sometimes it's important to evaluate your case to see if you qualify for an expedited
based on national interest exceptions. Those are highly effective ways to try to expedite your case
right now, aside from just sitting and waiting for the State Department to call you for an interview.
Before we move on to point number three, Interview waivers, I want to remind you that if you do need
help with your case, if you do need help to expedite your case, text me 6194834549,
we're here to help you. Point number three interview waivers for non-immigrant visas.
Back in March of 2020, the State Department issued a policy allowing interview waivers for
certain non Immigrant Visas that are filing for an extension in the same category. Even their visas
are going to be expired within the next 48 months. This policy is good until December 31st of 2021,
which means it's gonna help a lot of applicants avoid waiting for an interview, to be able to come
back to the United States, it's another form of speeding up the process of getting a visa.
If you are in the process of renewing your visa in the same category, you most likely are eligible
for an interview waiver. So you don't have to wait for that interview and be able to get your visa
automatically, as long as you extend your visa in the same category which hopefully they'll continue
to allow the policy even through next year as well. With respect to explaining your cases
with NVC view pending, Just so you know, people are asking how long is going to take typically
from start to finish, you should get a result, an answer from NVC, from between four to five weeks
after that email is sent with all the package for NIE. So it's relatively fast if they approve it,
you're going to know within four to five weeks if the case is recommended for approval, to be
expedited. And then once that happens, it's going to take another month or so to get an emergency
appointment at the US Embassy overseas so you'll be able to get an appointment. So remember, the
whole thing is about two months, two months and a half, still worth it because imagine how much time
you can save if your request to expedite will be granted. So definitely recommended to consider it
if you qualify. Number four, requesting a visa waiver to enter the United States from the CBP
is another very common process. But I thought it's worth for you to know about, sometimes,
specifically legal permanent residents are unable to obtain a passport from their home country to
be able to travel, especially now during the pandemic or certain people are not able to renew
their visas in their passports to be able to enter the United States. Therefore, there's form I-193
that is filed with the Customs and Border Patrol. In certain cases, they will allow a person to
enter the United States without a visa to continue or finish the process in the United States.
Or even a person that doesn't have a passport, for example, like a green card holder that is not able
to get a passport from their home country. And that person is now stuck waiting for your passport
appointment, they're not able to come to the United States, that is a good way to expedite your
entry to the United States. But asking for this waiver from the Customs and Border Patrol to be
able to enter the United States. If you meet those requirements, and you are eligible, you should be
able to apply for this and enter the United States and then finish your process here. So now you're
not stuck overseas, waiting for your appointment. So just thought about mentioning it here visa
waiver with the CBP using form I-193 to be able to apply for that waiver. If you have questions about
that. Make sure you post them in the comments of this video. Number five, applying for your
immigrant visa in a third country. What does it mean, you're now waiting for your appointment
at say, Moscow or Manila and you're not able to get it because those embassies are completely
closed. They're not taking appointments, your case is sitting at NVC. NVC is not
able to send your file to the embassy because the embassy is not releasing any slots to allow NVC
to send you to file over there. And then you get stuck, even expediting in this case, it's never
gonna help because your embassy is not taking any appointments. So what we've done, we were able to
schedule appointments in the third country. Let me give an example. We had a recent case that was
scheduled for the US Embassy Moscow, that embassy was not taking any appointments at the time.
So what we've done proactively, we've contacted the US Embassy in Kazakhstan, and said are you
guys taking third-country nationals at this time? We have an applicant from Moscow, they are ready,
they’re documented qualified. We've been able to get this case expedited with NVC. Are we able to
schedule this appointment with you? This embassy confirmed they said yes, we then moved our file
through NVC, we let them know about this change. And this case was scheduled for an interview at
the US Embassy because of Poland and Ukraine, they are taking cases. And you can also check Thailand,
the embassy in Bangkok, they will take a third country and national appointments from embassies
in China and other countries in the area. So it is a really effective way to take your case from
one embassy and try to request another embassy to interview him. It's important to be proactive, to
communicate with a different pose to keep them all informed and be very polite and persistent when
you try to do so. But it's been really effective. And once again, if you do need help with your case
if you are stuck at a particular embassy, and you try to figure out how to move your file
to another embassy, make sure you contact us. The best way to do so is 619-483-4549,
to try to see if your case can also be moved to a third country embassy to try to move your case
there as well. Again, very effective way to do so, especially now, while so many of these embassies
are not yet operating in full capacity. Finally, number six is the lawsuit, filing a mandamus
lawsuit against the State Department, against the embassy. Now you hear there's a lot of losses
right now going on. There's a lot of people that are joining in groups. Quite a few law firms are
joining, quite a few candidates. They're suing the US embassies under Section 212 F stating that they
are refusing to issue visas, they are using the travel bans, and are using all kinds of excuses.
We had lawsuits that were helping the DV lottery and saying that they're discriminating against
them because now they're a low priority in the tier system. As a result, these people are going
to lose their visas. These lawsuits are coming as groups. We had the Milligan lawsuit for K1 visas,
where you can actually individually sue. At US embassies or consulates, We've been doing this
at a law firm as well. The purpose of mandamus is to force the government to act, that is to force
them to issue the appointment and force them to schedule you for an interview. Because otherwise,
you qualify, you are documented qualified, you haven't done anything else that will make you
ineligible for a visa. And now they're refusing to issue the visa, whether it's because of the
travel ban, and they're saying, Well, you're not eligible because you're one of those countries.
Filing a writ of mandamus is an effective way as well. It is definitely a last resort. The way I
see it, if you try all these other things that we mentioned before trying to expedite trying to use,
you know the different inquiry processes or to move your case to a different consulate.
If nothing helps you, you do have the option to sue them. It's important to talk to an attorney
to determine if you qualify what are the circumstances of your case, but a writ of mandamus
can help you get out of this process of being stuck in this limbo of waiting, we definitely
recommend it for the people that qualify. So those are the six ways to try to move your case, to try
to expedite, to try to find creative ways to move your case from one embassy to another. Hopefully,
this information was helpful. Let me know in the comments what you think if you have any
questions if you're stuck, if you're frustrated, and this whole process, want to hear from you,
and see how we can make even more content, even how we can make even more videos to try to address
those questions. So thanks for watching. If you're here for the first time, Don't forget to subscribe
to our channel, click that notification bell. Give us a big like to allow YouTube to recommend
this video to more people just like you. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in our next video.