Dang Eric... hope it smoothens out from here on out...

Tnks Scott!! I hope you guys had a great time in Las Vegas!!! Regarding the waiting time for the marriage certificate, since I have so much free time I call, wrote and visit the register Office of SF and manage to get a certify copy!!! So probably you could do the same? Now I am almost done with the AOS forms which we will submit this weekend. I don’t know if you have the answer for this, but since July only one fee is require for the Employment Authorization and the AOS, but the have to be send to different places, how dos that work?


CONGRATS NEWLYWEDS!!!!!

We have the same concern...it will be 4-6 weeks for us to receive our marriage certificate but we do have a copy of the completed marriage license. We have'nt started the AOS documents yet but we will keep you posted on what is necessary when we begin. Maybe someone can help us answer this question...pretty pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!

PS. Just caught up on all the latest and greatest news... CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL !!!!!
[/quote]

For Contra Costa County in California, it took 10 days after we got married that the County Registrar had our records.

Diana,

Thanks for the kind words I really need it. I feel so bad...i was not trying to get over. I thought that as long as it was final before they approved you it would be OK. When they asked for additional evidence in July after the May filing it was final (the decree was signed and filed prior to them approving anything). They asked for the decree and I gave it to them. They that was true, but it was signed after the initial filing date. I want to let everyone know that this is a situation to avoid. Again thanks Diana for your kind words.

God Bless all of you

Question... How much does my fiancee have to pay in Bogota the day of the interview? I have read that K1 visa only costs US$100. Is that true?

..US$131 or
..275.100 pesos

hi Guy,

Visa approved on last Thursday, no problems, we were done at 9:30 am!! at last after seven months!!...now, many things to do, I am going to leave for Seattle in a month and 10 days !!..

Could you please someone give me advises and tips about AOS? I got my birth certificate with the translation, what about apostille? what else do I need?

Thanks in advance for all your support!!


Yazz

Congratulations Yazz! Margarita still needs to get her birth certificate translated. Where did you get yours done?

thanks john

Congratulations Yazz!

No need to apostille any document you bring from Colombia.

Diana

Congrats Yazz!!!!

Sorry to hear about your situation Eric...hope you get noa2 fast. Hang in there.

CONRATULATIONS YAZZ !!!!!!

DON ENRIQUE CORREA TELF 5705594 in bogotá, he is very professional, has been the traslator of my company for many years, very cheap as well and accurate traslation, he did the traslation of my divorce decree for the initial petition!...

Yazz

Hey, congrats to all the Colombia club members who have recently been through and passed interviews. Everybody else hang in there it is worth all the waiting and hassle in the end. I have been gone for a while so if someone could help me out with a quick question it would be greatly appreciated. Is there a Colombia Club AOS info board or anything of that nature? We are getting ready to dive into that here pretty soon and the info here was invaluable for the first part of the process. Also if anyone lives in or near Tallahassee, FL send me a PM. There aren't too many spanish speaking people here and as interesting as I am, I am sure that Lina would like to talk to someone else occasionally.

Congratulations Yazz. Thank you for trail blazing for the rest of us.
Cameron

NVC Quagmire!

NVC has had our paperwork since the 11th of January. I have called twice a week to see if the paperwork has been forwarded to the embassy, and they keep telling me that it is in "Administrative Processing" and that this is normal, but there is no timeline for when it will be completed. I have thought all along that this was their canned answer.

Today, they said that not all paperwork goes through "Administrative Processing", but ours is. Again there is no timeframe for when this may be completed.

Until today, I thought this was a process that everyone went through and ours was only taking longer. Now it seems that ours is out of the ordinary and I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this for me. We missed the February interviews and now I am concerned that we may miss the March interviews as well.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Cameron

Many thanks to everybody!!!!!!!!

Yazz

Cameron,

Some people will go through Administrative Processing for whatever reason they find. In most cases it means there was a red flag based on either the petitioner's or beneficiary's names. What they do is run whatever information they found through the FBI to make sure it comes back clean before sending the case to the embassy. Unfortunately, this process can take a while and you just have to keep calling them until they say you're out of "Administrative Processing".

Diana

Thanx Diana,

They had always told me that this is a normal process that everyone goes through until yesterday. I am normally the calm one, but this upset me yesterday. I continue to try to calm Carina, but she is about to freak out!! jajajajajaj We will continue to be patient. I am so thankful for everyone in this forum. It is only a little speed bump, but it is encouraging to have the experience of this forum to rely on and to calm the nerves!!

Cameron

Thanks Lucho,

I am so ready for her to be here with me...I'm hanging in there

God Bless

heys guys, what has been the experience for recieving the visa? How many days after the Visa is approved? And where are you guys having them delivered? To your hotel? I will be heading down there on the 14th of this month and our interview is the 19th. I have a flexible return date, I am looking to arrange my visiting time in Bogota. I found a great website to give me some ideas on what to do. One of the things I am going to do is head out of town to the North to visit a Race car track. What I am asking about is how long is your guys experience with recieving the visa? Many Thanks, Derrick

I was wondering if anyone has heard this. A poster in another forum has said that there is a new procedure at NVC that everyone now goes through administravite processing at NVC and once cleared, packet 3 is sent out from NVC and only packet 4 will be sent from the embassy. Another person posted that this is now the procedure and that it is the way of all the consular offices. I have attached the posting below.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105301

Cameron

hi quick question so I was looking at your timeline and it says that the 4th of december you received packet 3 and the 5th you had the appointment what did you do to receive an appointment right away. I sent my packet 3 last week. please right back thanks

He must have used the shortcut, which is faxing packet 3 to the embassy. There is a lot of info in this thread regarding the shortcuts. Hope you find the k1/k3 guide I wrote up a while back. I'm not sure on what page it is on, but it should be here.

Here is the most recent shortcut guide... http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...t&p=1329162

Lucho...thanks for helping Yenifer with that info...we are heading to our local SSO today

Anytime bro!

Cameron,

That process is for CR1/IR1 visas where we have to mail the NVC all the documents to the NVC. K1 & K3 visas are still processed the same way.


Diana

Thanks Diana,

As usual, you are on the ball. I confirmed this with NVC. I was also told today that our case has never been in "Administrative Processing", that it only takes 2-4 weeks to process and we are now reaching the end of the 4 weeks and we should receive notification that it has been forwarded to the embassy soon. The 12-15 previous operators had said we were in "Administrave Processing". So, who knows!

Cameron

Here is a heads up for folks.

Paola's son went for his interview Feb. 5. We had all the required docs, followed all the rules ect. He was denied. They said we need to provide proof that he is her son. We have to have a DNA test done. Cost.............$850.00 plus the hassel of having to return to Bogota............more $$$$ driving 100, miles here to have the test done. I can not find where this is required so that one would know ahead of time. I have not read from anyone on this site that has had to do this. It may be a new thing. She is named as the mother on his birth certificate, not good enough. They say he could be her brother, therfore they want the DNA test.
On the positve side Paola has recieved her work permit and her Advanced Parole. I am thinking of sending her down to Colombia and get all this cleared up.
Has anyone traveled on the Advance Parole? Did you encounter any problems with re-entry?

Man, the embassy never makes things easy for you guys do they? Sorry about this latest bump in the road.

How Old is her Son? My Step Sons go on the 14th. Their dad is going from here to be with them at the interview. Holy cow this scares to poo out of me now. Were you there with the son? Or was a family memeber there?

Sorry to hear this Buck. I have read many of your posts, and it seems that if they can find a way to screw with you, they have screwed with you! I have not seen anything like this and I don't understand it either. I do know two other cases, one the mother was approved and the 8 year old daughter was denied, and another mother and daughter were both approved, but then the daughter was not allowed to board the plane until it was verified that the father was allowing the daughter to leave. Even though they had the letters that were presented to the embassy. I am hoping to leave with my 19 year old step-son soon, so I will watch your progress closely. Thanx for the heads-up.
Cameron

We have left the Quagmire!! Today NVC told me that we have been forwarded to Bogota. I will confirm again tomorrow and begin to monitor the arrival to start the short-cut. It has been so long, that we will need to go back and change the dates on all of our Packet 3 information. Jajajajajjajajajaja. Thanks Diana for keeping Carina calm and holding my hand!
Cameron

Hello everyone in Colombia Club.
I am faith11, l have a question for you if there is anybody who can help me, l´would be great.
Our interview is on march 13 and we are preparing for the big day.
l am worried about something here.
My husband who is the petitioner didn´t work from june 2005 to august 2006.
Currently is working and he meets the income required.
He got his letter from work, his paystubs and the income taxes from 2004, 2005 and 2006.
He is has been working for this company since august 2006.
So my question is do we need a cosponsor?
Please help.
Thanks Faith11
God bless you.

When I first started this process I had a discussion with an attorney and he told me that if an embassy has doubts about the paternity or maternity of a child they will sometimes require a DNA test.

I have discovered that birth certificates in Colombia are not exactly rock solid so it is understandable why the embassy does not accept them as the final word.

I am guessing here, but the red flags might be if the address history of the child does not match the parent's and/or if the difference in age between the grandmother and the child is small enough that the grandmother could actually be the mother. For example; grandmother 45, mother (beneficiary) 25 & child 7. If the grandmother was the child's mother that means she would have given birth at 38 which is entirely possible.

A DNA test in Bogota costs about $250 and it takes a while to get the results. It does not seem to be required very often so it probably does not make sense to get one in advance of the interview.

Buck...this really SUCKS...but it makes sence what Bill says (good info Bill) and hopefully it will ONLY be $250 instead of $850!!!!

We wish you the very best and I know it will work out for you and your family...hang tough bud...you're in our prayers

I have a similar situation. I was going to school for the years before 2006 and never met the income requirements. its only since the beginning of 2007 that I finally got a full time job! I asked my lawyer before I started the process and they said that there was no problem.

This years taxes (2007) would be sufficient to process the application. They don't require more than one year of meeting the poverty requirement and for 2007 I am well over the poverty line. Although most petitioners take taxes for the last 3 years that is just to be overly prepared. Im taking the last 3 years taxes (2004-2006) and my taxes for this year (2007). I still have to process my taxes but W-2's could also be sufficient.

Let me know how it goes!


Diana B

Congrats Camron!!!

Finally on your way! Im sooo excited for the two of you!! Good Luck!

Diana B

No, I was not there. We wrote a letter and had it notorized giving Paola's mother permission to represent him. He is 13 years old. That is OK to do.
It seems this is another thing that the CO in the embassy can decide. I have come to learn that while this is not very common, the CO has the authority to request the DNA test. Even if Paola was there with him, the CO could or would have requested the same. I do not see any way to prepare for this ahead of time unless you went and had the DNA test done. That would be fairly expensive. Many people from this site have brought over children and I have not read where they have had this problem. I would not worry to much about it and if it comes up............well, you just have to deal with it. The embassy is the boss at that point. I will post the updates as they happen. It looks like about a minimum of 6 weeks before we can schedule another interview. I am assuming the second interview will be the same as Paola. Present the results and the visa is granted, no real interview. The CO told Paola's mother that everything else was in order and no problem.

You only need to show your tax information for the previous year, that's all they require. We on the Colombian thread tend to overprepare and encourage one another to do so to avoid problems, so we took 3 years of tax info. If you don't have all of it and are currently over the povertly line, then you're fine as long as you can back it back with current pay stubs and employment letter.

Diana

Thank you Diana B,
That is another good thing about this site. When something out of the ordinary happens, your mind will start to imagine all kinds of things. Someone in this forum will have information and restore your confidence and get you through to the next obstacle!!
Cameron

Camy, I can relate to the mind making things seem worse then they are. LOL>LOL. The good news is................you, we have this site. Plenty of folks willing to share the challenges and the way they overcame them. More good news. Unless you try to hide something, have all you docs and have patience you are almost gaurenteed to recieve the visa, even if not in your time frame. Even more good news, having your loved one on another continent is the hard part. After you get the visa and you are togeather, all of this becomes a memory. The AOS process is not even close to as stressful. Good luck to you!!!!

A bit of an update.

The reason that we need to get the DNA test done is that it is common for the child to be given the last name of the father. In Paola's case, her mother was not married, but gave her the last name of the father and the mother. So, she has a first name, middle name and 2 last names. The first name in her last name is her father's and her last, last name is her mothers last name. Whew!!!!!!!!!! LOL. Elvin, her son was not given the last name of the father, but rather the same two last names of her. The CO see's this as having the same father. It all makes sense I guess.
The info I got says the DNA test performed in Colombia is not acceptable. The US Embassy in Colombia wants the test done by a AABB member here in the US.

Thanks for your response, l feel better now, we should be fine with that.
He got all the paystubs, the letter from the job.
l will keep you informed.
Thanks.

This is beginning to worry me now. Bella has 2 children and each has the same identical last names as she has and there is no father on the children's bc's. Has anyone else who has been through an interview had this same situation?

Bill, all I can tell you is that this is what we have been told. The father was not listed on the b-cert. This is common in Colombia. He has not been seen since he was told he was going to be a father. I was concerend about this in the beginning since you need permmission from the father to take the child out of Colombia. We got a certificate of abandoment. We submitted all of this at the time of Paola's interview. I know the embassy reviewed these doc's. The CO at the time of interview said all was good to bring him at a later date as long as it was within one year. Then Paola was required to submit another doc. We did, she went back for the 2nd interview, asked about her son and got the same response, all was good, just so long as it was within one year.
Elvin goes for the interview and now the CO has requested the DNA test. Arguing with them is futile.
The DNA test is scheduled with a company here in the US that is a member of "AABB", American Association of Blood Banks. Paola has the test done by a specified doctor here in the US, Her son has it done by a specified doctor in Bogota, (the same ones who do the med exam for the visa). A kit is sent via FEDEX to the doc in Bogota. The doc gets the sample, sends it FEDEX back to the testing lab in the US. It is tested, sent off to a another lab for verification and then sent to the US Embassy in Bogota. Total cost, including shipping fees...................$890.00 US.
The company we are using is member of AABB. The name is Boston Paternity. The lab is Chromozone lab. They do lots of DNA tests for immigration, have worked with the embassy in Bogota many times and gaurentee results and delivery.
I am running out of funds, but this must be done and I do not trust much that comes out of Colombia as far as doc's, time frame and accuracy. So far most everything that we have had to get out of Colombia has been a major hassel and have had to have it done over and waited a long time to get. I guess if Paola lived in Bogota, it would be better. She happened to live in Buenaventura, a S**t hole. To get her to Bogota is a 12 hour bus ride or a 2 hour car ride to Cali to get a one hour plane ride for $250.00. Add on to that hotel food and taxi rides, every mistake or new twist is expensive. I am banking on the hope that having a US company do this is my least expensive option.
I will be sending Paola back to Colombia to get her son. That will avoid the hassel having to go through all the hassel of obtaining permission for me to take him out of the country.

Thanks for the info Buck. I appreciate very much the time you took to provide the details. Since we have a situation similar to yours (in relation to the child's birth certificate and a common last name with the mother), I am trying very hard to understand this and determine if we will run into the same thing when we have our interview in 3 weeks.

Since we do not hear much about DNA testing here, I am guessing that something unique raised a red flag with the CO. Does the grandmother appear young enough to be the boy's mother? If so, since she went to the embassy with the boy for his interview perhaps the CO noticed that. The common last name and a youthful grandmother might have been enough to cause the CO to double check the maternity.

Whatever happened, it is definitely bad luck for you. This DNA testing process sounds very expensive and time consuming. However, using the US lab seems like the best course of action. I hope it goes smoothly for you.

As to Colombian documents and procedures I share your frustration.

In regard to the certificate of abandonment, we tried to obtain one but finally gave up. In our case it was just too difficult to obtain and I was afraid it would create more problems than it solved. The good news is that I have personally asked 3 different DAS emmigration officers if a father's permission is required for a child to leave the country if there is no father on the birth certificate and they all said no. Bella has also made the same inquiry at the DAS office and received the same answer.

Best of luck!

WOW!!! I find it so amazing that 2 people can ask the same question from DAS and get a different response. We were told that the child cannot leave the country without the fathers permission, even if he is not listed on the b-cert. We were told that we definently would need to get the cert of abandoment. As it turned out for us, that was very easy to get and only took 3 days.
I really do not know what to say about the DNA test. The lawyer we hired in the very beginning and are still using said this was not the norm. Why us? Who knows? How to find out if it will be required? I don't know. I was pretty careful and thought very thuro (sp) getting all the doc's in order. Things change and the CO can request it if they feel there is a problem. Same as with Paola, we had everything prepared and got blindsided, and needed another doc that has been a requirment, but did not fall under our circumstance, or so we thought.
The grandmother is 55 years old, Elvin is 13. That does not seem out of the norm to me. Paola is 30 years old, also not out of the norm in Colombia for a 30 year old women to have a 13 year old son. Many have children at a much younger age then that. I have seen and heard of many young girls having kids when young.
I hope that this will not become a normal thing for folks to have done in the future. The embassy and immigration here can be difficult to understand and to deal with. Reading this board, one can see the number of changes that come about in a short time. Information can be sketchy and hard to inturpet correctly. Laywers do not seem to be of much help unless you are having a immigration problem here in the US.
I will post any new info I get and the progress and results as they come along.

Another note: Just because this has happened to us, does not mean it will happen to you. However, it could happen with you also. It pays to be prepared, AHEAD of time!!!! As with the other issues that have come about, this forum gets the correct solution. It seems to cause a stir and then becomes the norm. When new folks come along they benefit. Togeather we are a well informed group. I will try my best to find out why, or what the CO saw that caused the need for the DNA test.

Yeah, wow. I guess I have something else to add to my worry list now. One of us was told the wrong thing. You are covered either way since you have the certificate of abandonment but we don't have one and were told by ICBF that it would be almost impossible to obtain since Bella never made any attempts to collect child support. I guess I will ask again when I go down for the interview at the end of February. Bella and the kids will not come to the US until the end of March so I guess we will have some time to try to solve the problem if we get a different answer from DAS this time.

Meanwhile, there must be some people who took children without fathers on their birth certificates out of Colombia recently. What was your experience? Did you have any problems with DAS? Did you need to present a certificate of abandonment?