The fiance visa petition processing should be relatively quick. In the golden days (if there is such a thing in the world of immigration law), I could get a fiance visa petition approval within several months. Now it has slowed down to approximately six months, and this is just for the first stage when USCIS must adjudicate the petition. Then there’s no saying how long the National Visa Center could take to start the visa processing and send the case to the US Consulate. For most cases it can be be three to six months on average depending on the luck the beneficiary has with his or her background check. If there is a problem with the background check, and your client happens to share the same name as some unsavory character whom the US government has found to be a threat to our nation’s security, then all bets are off and the US Department of State becomes like “big brother.” There is absolutely no way to expedite the matter or get more definitive information on the delay.
So what is the silver lining to all this? Maybe it’s a true test of the relationship – for anyone who could maintain a long distance relationship with no guarantee of success must be pretty committed. Although the real challenge is maintaining a long relationship with little space from one’s partner!