USCIS to Close Moscow Office

USCIS has announced the imminent closure of its office in Moscow. It will stop accepting new petitions on February 28, 2019. More details can be found in the USCIS press release found here - https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-close-moscow-field-office

This will most immediately impact US citizens living in Russia who wish to bring to the US their spouses or parents as immigrants.  Currently, there is a special expedited procedure for such individuals: because they are resident in Russia, they could submit their immigrant petition I-130 directly to the USCIS office in Moscow. This saved substantial processing time. Instead of submitting the petition with USCIS in the US, where it can take 6-12 months for petition review and another 3-5 months is lost because of the transfer of the file to the National Visa Center, the process at the USCIS office in Moscow would only take 1-4 months.  More details about this process can be found here - https://bridgewest.com/immigrant-visas/family-immigration/expedited-immigrant-visas-for-relatives-of-expatriates/   

Now, US expats in Russia will only be able to file I-130 petitions with the Consular Section of the US Embassy in Moscow in emergency situations. Otherwise, they will have to file their petitions with USCIS in the United States.