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Teacher 8, many thanks for the following question -

I am applying for Green Card for my parents now, who are in the US with me (for a little over 6 months by now). We started the application on Oct 20 of 2016. Both of them have their finger prints done, I-130 and I-131 are pending, the status of I-485 is "waiting for interview to be scheduled".

My question is: can we switch from I-485 to Consular Processing? My parents have been living in the US for a little more than 6 months now and they wanted to go back to China, since they really miss home. But we do NOT want to give up the application and they do want to be able to go back to US some day. So would it be possible for us to use Consular Processing instead of waiting on I-485 interview?
 -Yes, but it will waste a lot of money and time. Especially, your parents need to go to the US Consulate in Guangzhou to apply for the immigrant visa. So, my suggestion is that they may just go to the local USCIS Office to apply for the emergency AP to travel to China (bring their I-131 receipt notice and I-485 receipt notice, no fee). They can stay in China up to 364 days (less sthan one year)  in China with AP.

Of course, if they want to give up I-485 and apply for the immigrant visa in China, then you just need to file I-824 to request USCIS to forward the I-130 to National Visa Center for processing for them to apply for the immigrant visa in China.

many thanks to Teacher 8!