File transer

[jaundice_p]

I have been residing in South Korea for more than a year.  I want to look into moving my application from Accra Ghana to the South Korea office.  I am curious if this will affect how long it will take to further process my application. It has now been 13 months.  I had my Member of Parliament contact immigration.  They said we were in queue for an interview.  I have met a few people in South Korea, who had their papers completed within 5 months.  I don't want to go all the way to Ghana for an interview(although, if they CANNOT transfer our file, I will go).  Does anyone have any advice on whether or not we should try to have our file transferred to the South Korea office?  What are the "special circumstances" that would warrant a file transfer?  Does anyone also know how long it will actually take to transfer a file to another office? Thx for any assistance.

[RobsLuv]

You are only eligible to have your file transferred to South Korea if you can produce documentation showing that you were authorized to stay for a period of at least one year when you were first admitted to South Korea.  Simply having lived there for the past year does not make you eligible.   

Secondly, even if your file could be transferred, it might not be in your best interest to do that.  If you are in a queue for an interview, that means an interview will be required whether your file is processed in South Korea or Accra Ghana.  It might be that an interview queue in South Korea would be even longer than the one in Accra Ghana, plus you'd probably go to the bottom of the waiting queue after a transfer.  You've already waited 13 months . . . I don't think a transfer is going to help you get a faster processing time.  Bottom line, whether you're processed in Accra Ghana or in South Korea, you're going to experience delays in processing to the outside limits of the posted timelines when you don't have a simple, straight-forward application . . . which you don't because an interview is being required.

[jaundice_p]

Thank you for your insight. That makes a lot of sense. We've been notified of the interview now, which would hopefully speed things up now.

We have both been authorized to stay here for more than a period of one year.  My husband(I am sponsoring him) has actually been here for one year and 3 months.  I have been here for two years and 4 months.  Both legally and on contract. So, I think what we might do, not to have a pessimistic attitude, but if it doesn't work out as we hope.  We may reapply through Korea (instead of appealing), as we are already here and we do know of a few cases that were not as long going through Ghana.