I don't have personal experience with K3 (my wife came over on a K-1), but
the way I understand the process from reading this newsgroup is this.
Basically, if you are already married, you do two things. You file an
immigrant petition (I-130) and apply for spouse visa (K-3). Then, you have
a choice of either adjusting status in the US (via K-3) or processing the
I-130 at the foreign consulate. So, from your message, it seems like the
Warsaw consulate is ready to process your I-130. I don't really know the
advantages of one process over the other. Maybe people choose based on
which one happens first.
Check here for an overview of the process and more info:
http://www.visajourney.com/faq/k1faq.htm
You may also want to search the USCIS site for info on transferring your
case from Warsaw to the local office.
http://uscis.gov
Again, this is mostly assumption based on what I've picked up here. I'd
recommend doing a little searching for threads about K-3 and I-130. I
believe it's been discussed frequently.
- Eric S.
"Derrick Williams" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi All!
> I haven't been posting for a while, but I am happy to say my wife came
> to the US in August on a K-3 with my new step-daughter (K-4) and life
> has been great! The next step is for my wife to obtain a green card,
> and we had a strange experience which left us befuddled.
> We got a notice from the Warsaw Consulate that my wife was scheduled
> to come there for a green card interview. We thought, enh, Warsaw's
> too far, we're not really up to flying all the way to Poland from
> Conneciticut, why not see if we can have the interview here in the US
> instead? After some back and forth, I explain my situation and my
> wishes, and the consulate replies that it would be easier to go
> through the interview rather than adjust status, because all the
> paperwork was collected and ready, but we could fill out form DS-3098
> to transfer it to the US provided our local immigration office agreed
> to take on the case. After that, the documents and so on are sent to
> the US, and we're on our way.
> Or so we thought. After making a trip to the Hartford office in
> Connecticut, we waited 4 hours to talk to an officer (this was with
> InfoPass too), we show the officer Form DS-3098, expecting her to
> process it, but our hopes were crushed when she immediately begin
> shaking her head and saying that we had to adjust our status in the US
> that my wife had a K-3, and that we could not get a green card
> anywhere else. According to her, it would be 'illegal to go to Warsaw
> to get a green card'. She insisted that going to Warsaw was not an
> option and she was not going to transfer any cases to the us 'because
> it does not exist, you must get the green card here.' It didn't help
> that she didn't look up any of our information on the computer or look
> at any of our paperwork. After a few minutes of trying to ask her how
> it is that the US Embassy in Warsaw has a different story than she
> did, she got tired of us and told us she couldn't talk to us anymore.
> Of course we were unhappy, and I wasn't really impressed by the
> officer's attitude or professionalism (she made all kinds of
> grammatical mistakes in her speech), and it didn't help that she was
> condescending to my wife. After cooling off, we figured that if we
> have two contradicting stories, we'd just go with the one we like
> better. Maybe a trip to Warsaw wouldn't be too bad, one visit to the
> Hartford center is about the same length of time for a transatlantic
> flight (2 hours to get to Hartford, 3 or 4 hours to wait, 5 minutes to
> speak with an officer, and the trip back home), and although we'd
> rather not have to spend the money this trip to Warsaw, it isn't
> entirely out of our means now that the summer tourist season has
> passed.
> Now I'm having some doubts, could it be that the USCIS officer
> actually might have known what she was talking about? Would accepting
> the green card interview in Warsaw just lead us into trouble?
> Our situation is this: My wife got a K-3 from the US Consulate in
> Minsk, and arrived to the US. One month later (September) she got a
> notice from the US Consulate in Warsaw to arrive for a green card
> interview (before Poland joined the EU, Belarussians didn't need a
> visa to go to the US Embassy in Warsaw, and they then started
> processing some visas in Minsk in response). It is my understanding
> that if my wife goes through the interview successfully, then this
> card will be issued and she will be able to enter the US with this and
> we will continue on the process here.
> So what should we do, ignore the USCIS officer and schedule an
> interview for the green card in Warsaw, or turn down the interview and
> adjust status in the US?
> I've not withheld any information from the US consulate in Warsaw - in
> my correspondence with them I've disclosed that my wife is in the US
> on a K-3, so we are not sure if it was wrong to go to Warsaw for the
> interview, they would advise us that it is better to go there than to
> adjust status here, simply because all the paperwork is collected and
> ready there.
> Thanks again for all your help!
> -Derrick