In general, a person who wishes to immigrate to the United States must have a petition approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) before applying for an immigrant visa. Specific information about filing immigrant petitions is available on the U.S. Department of State website. Since the U.S. Embassy in Oslo has no USCIS office presence in Norway, the Embassy will only be able to accept and process form I-130 in exceptional circumstances as outlined below.
Examples of exceptional circumstances include:
- Military emergencies – A U.S. service member, who is abroad but who does not fall under the military blanket authorization for U.S. service members stationed abroad on military bases, becomes aware of a new deployment or transfer with little notice. This exception generally applies in cases where the U.S. service member is provided with exceptionally less notice than normally expected.
- Medical emergencies – A petitioner or beneficiary is facing an urgent medical emergency that requires immediate travel.
- Threats to personal safety – A petitioner or beneficiary is facing an imminent threat to personal safety. For example, a petitioner and beneficiary may have been forced to flee their country of residence due to civil strife or natural disaster and are in precarious circumstances in a different country outside of the United States.
- Close to aging out – A beneficiary is within a few months of aging out of eligibility.
- Petitioner has recently naturalized – A petitioner and family member(s) have traveled for the immigrant visa interview, but the petitioner has naturalized and the family member(s) requires a new petition based on the petitioner’s citizenship.
- Adoption of a child – A petitioner has adopted a child abroad and has an imminent need to depart the country. This type of case should only be considered if the petitioner has a full and final adoption decree on behalf of the child and the adoptive parent(s) has had legal custody of and jointly resided with the child for at least 2 years.
- Short notice of position relocation – A U.S. citizen petitioner, living and working abroad, has received a job offer in or reassignment to the United States with little notice for the required start date.
The list of examples provided above is not exhaustive. The U.S. Embassy in Oslo may exercise its discretion to accept local Form I-130 filings for other emergency or exceptional circumstances of a non-routine nature. However, such filings must be truly urgent and otherwise limited to situations when filing with USCIS online or domestically with an expedite request would likely not be sufficient to address the time-sensitive and exigent nature of the situation.
Petitioners who would like to file a I-130 application for an alien relative based on exceptional circumstances should e-mail the U.S. Embassy in Oslo at osloLPR@state.gov with an explanation of the exceptional circumstance. For a detailed explanation of what qualifies as an exceptional circumstance, please visit the USCIS website. Your e-mail should also include evidence of the exceptional circumstance in the form of an attachment (documentation of job transfer, military orders, medical emergency, etc.). If your request is approved, the U.S. Embassy in Oslo will contact you with further instructions.
If your circumstance does not qualify as exceptional by USCIS, then you must file the petition with the USCIS Chicago Lockbox.