Hi all, anyone know the average wait time for an AIT interview for the I-130 (green card) application to the US?
Once the I-130 is approved, the applicant needs to wait for an AIT interview. But I cannot find any information anywhere about how long the wait time is. I know in some countries it’s as short as 3 months, in other countries it can be up to 2 years…
Thank you!
Hey there - congratulations on applying and bringing another member into our tribe.
So if you want it done as fast and painless as possible then get a lawyer. If you want I might have the contact of the one I was referred to.
I didn’t use a lawyer myself (couldn’t afford it at the time) and it took us 2 years from application to interview. Granted this was during Covid so…might be different today.
So your first step id say is get a lawyer.
And ask yourself - will you and/or your alien relative want to live stateside or abroad? It’ll be one or the other until the process is completed.
You say you’d want the interview at AIT so I assume you’ll want to stay in Taiwan?
Keep us posted
What kind of I130?
I had first preference and it took 7 years.
I think waiting around that long is normal.
Just so you know, AIT interviews are “shall issue”, meaning if there’s no reason for them to deny you they must grant the immigration visa, so there’s some advantage there. If you do it within the US with adjustment of status, those are not shall issue.
Good point.
I’m referring to the spouse i-130 that was faster than the others
Spouse I130 have no wait time, they are fairly fast. But it results in a conditional green card.
It took us two years 
2 years is “fast” when it comes to immigrating to the US.
But do think about it, it’s a commitment, they expect that. Your quality of life may actually go down, or you could make it like Elon musk. There’s fewer safety nets there.
Haha good point
Thanks for the reply! This application is for my wife. (I’m a US citizen). We are currently living in Taiwan, but for work reasons, I may have to move to US at some point this year. We’ve already waited 13 months for the I-130 approval, so we shooould be close…but we just aren’t sure how much longer we need to wait for the interview, once the I-130 approval passes.
When you say 2 years from application to interview, do you mean from the I-130 application to interview? Do you remember how long the wait time was to schedule an interview once you already had the I-130 approved?
If you have a lawyer, that would be great - I’d love that contact if you have it! Thanks so much.
Yes, I’m applying for a Spousal I-130. Sorry I didn’t make that clear in my original post. What do you mean by a ‘conditional’ green card? I had read it was a standard green card.
In 2022 it took 2-3 months after approval to get the interview. Total was about 14-15 months after submitting the initial application. I think there’s a section on PTT where you can find people laying out their timeline, take a look there.
I mean most of the application is just establishing that the marriage is real, as fake marriages are quite common and so they’re going to be vigilant about that. However AIT seems fairly free with granting applications, so it shouldn’t really be a problem. I don’t think a lawyer is needed, just don’t lie to them.
Conditional because spousal green cards are normally conditional, and you’d have to get the conditions removed after something like 2 years of living in the US. I think conditional is for those who are married for less than 2 years, probably to prevent marriage fraud.
AIT approved mine and I definitely wasn’t expecting to get it at all.
I’ve contacted my old contact - let’s see what happens.
And a lawyer can speed things up not just the I-130 but also through the NVC and gettin the final interview.
Well for us we had been married for two years and were on our second kid so….
But the interview my wife accidentally got the customs agent to do it when we went to the states to visit my family. My wife told the officer that we planned on moving in the states (it was true but it got the agent to ask a few questions and that counted as the interview.)
She passed but again we were a few kids deep etc
Oh that’s a relief! I had heard it might take longer than 2-3 months to get an interview scheduled. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what’s PTT?
Thank you! If you happen to have that contact info, I’d greatly appreciate it. Would be very helpful to have a lawyer speeding things up. My wife and I also have a kid together, so that should help the credibility.
https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/index.html
Your spouse is Taiwanese, they should be familiar.
You can also check visajourney.com
Can you get your employer to send you an email requesting that you move back to the US? Or an offer letter for a soon date with it stating it’s for in office work at a US location?
This was during Covid (after the US had opened up but Taiwan was still locked down) and I was able to successfully request an expedited application due to my employer wanting me stateside (and submitted an email from him stating as such)
I want to say it was about 3-4 weeks after submitting the expedited application they got back to me, and an additional 3-4 weeks before the interview got scheduled
The most recent I heard was that it takes only about 1 year these days to get the interview. But there is some variation.
I am curious if you can get a K1/K2 type visa and just do adjustment of status while in the states?
Yeah if this is on the table I’d recommend doing this.
Or bringing her with you to the states to visit…and if everything looks good etc then you can decide to change her status there.
That way even if it takes a while you’ll be stateside.