Should I try and transfer my case to another embassy? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, Immigration Lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. From time to time, we've had clients ask us about transferring their case to another embassy. They believe that their embassy where their case is pending is backlogged, or is closed like especially now during Corona, or that they just think that they might have better chances of getting their case decided in a speedy fashion by sending it to another embassy.
In our experience, this does not always go so well. The way that I always like to view it is that when you file your I-130 and you file it with USCIS, you're basically putting your case on a big ocean liner like the Titanic or the Love Boat, some big boat, and that boat starts heading sail first to the National Visa Center, and then it's going to change and go to your embassy. So, if that boat has changed and is now pointed at Cairo, it's going to be really hard to switch that boat and transfer it to Athens, Greece or to Amman, Jordan. It's really slow.
So, there may be certain reasons if your embassy is flat out closed or if they're having major problems, you might want to transfer your case but, in many instances, it's better just to stay the course. We would do these on a case-by-case basis, but I'm usually going to recommend that you not try to transfer your case from one embassy to another. We had someone who was wanting to change her case from Abu Dhabi to her home country in Serbia. That didn't make a lot of sense because both embassies were closed and just that simple act of trying to transfer it can slow down the case by months and months. So, I even had a potential client who I talked to on the phone who transferred her case to the embassy in Casablanca, Morocco which is one of the worst embassies around. You're playing with fire when you think about transferring your case from one embassy to another. So generally, we don't recommend it.
If you have problems with your case at an embassy or if you need help getting your case through the National Visa Center and through an embassy, give us a call at 314-961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us on our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. And if you liked this video, we ask you please share it out on social so that we can spread the message, and if you like it, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you get updates whenever we make videos just like this one. Thanks a lot.
