We put in for expedite as future hubby being deployed very soon, that why our interview come up very quick

sam xxx

ah hah ! Carolyn's nephew was deployed last year.....

hope you make good use of the time

oh well that explains one of them but the dates are all over the place so I can't see a pattern... hum well if the Embassy staff are back from summer holidays and the students have got their visas then it might shorten.... cross fingers

thanks for that

alan

Hi Alan

The dates sometimes vary wildly for a number of reasons. Sometimes people return packet 4, but don't have all the paperwork ready eg police certificate. Some people specify a travel date and some don't. Some have weddings booked or they have sold their house.

The Embassy are pretty good at looking at each case individually and working with your dates. Our case was completion on our home, and they gave me an interview with one week's notice. Someone else might wait six weeks if there is no immediate need to travel.

Hope your case moves quickly now you are out of NVC clutches

I wonder if they would have me in the army ? they would have to wait for the attack until I found my glasses ! I have to go Nov 5 or 6 so i get medicare at 65 - NOT a good excuse ! - still might squeak it though and working on some pathetic plea right now.....

If you have got "post traumatic stress" setting in before joining the army..... Is that with or without the glasses?!?

It could have something to do with what they put for their travel date, or even left that question blank, when they returned packet 3.

The Embassy does take notice of that and try and schedule around it if possible.

Or possibly the packet 3 forms were sent in first, and then the checklist.

Actually, thinking back to my K1 days when I was young and optimistic and convinced everything would be alright, (2005), I do remember putting forward some ridiculous plea and 'jumping the queue' -something like Carolyn's cats were missing me and wouldn't eat.

I remember feeling bad for the rest when I got an early interview date

ok I will get inventive and tell them my biological clock is ticking or something - that should fox em.
Second thoughts they might conclude I was a danger to the public despite the medical results..

Don't think there is a need to put a reason, certainly I think it is important to put a date. We just put a date about 6 weeks after we returned packet 3 and got the interview a week before the travel date we put. We had no set plans to travel that day, it was just a target date in reality we went a week later.

I think if you don't put a date your interview is arranged around the available dates left when they have tried to accommodate others.

ah thanks for that - good tip - we don't want to go before november 5 as that is our 2 year anniversary and i want an unconditional card - but we don't want to go after november 6 as i won't have been in country 5 years when i am 65 and want medicare.. a very narrow window of 2 days...

They can't really accept that as a reason, but Carolyn will be unemployed by then and anxious to keep her resume up to date - so they might help with that as a reason.... we can only try...

I bet the interview date is 2nd November - then it will be a real decision as to whether we book the flights and car and hope the interview goes ok and the courier delivers on time

It's all anxiety isn't it ! Never mind, soon be over. Anyone got any idea how long to packet 3 after it leaves nvc ? ours left nvc yesterday.

alan

I stand to be shot down in flames for this comment but I'm sure I seen people say this.

It has been known for a conditional green card to be issued when the CR-1 has been issued before the 2 year anniversary even though the person has arrived in the US after the 2 years. This seems to happen becasue they look at the visa type CR-1 and not the IR-1 you get if you were married more than 2 years when the visa was issued.

I am sure you are right and 30% of people get a conditional green card issued when it should be unconditional- however I will be ENTITLED to an unconditional and it will be a mistake, so i will spend 3 months sending it back for a correction and then filling in lots of forms about how i 'lost' it. In the meantime i wont be able to leave the country and i will lose the return leg of my ticket.. I am so resigned to all this junk now that I will be shocked if they manage to follow their own regulations and US immigration law and do it right

I am quite prepared for that, on the basis that if they can do it wrongly - they will- sods law operates at all times- thats why I told Carolyn that I would only go and live in the States on the basis of an unconditional green card so they cant keep screwing my life up and I don't need any contact with them for 10 years by which time I will be so senile I won't care anyway.

I will chat to the guy at POE and ask him if he can put a comment on the file to say we are married 2 years and ENTITLED to an unconditional - I am 99% sure he will roll his gum, shrug, and say he cant add a comment and its nothing to do with him ...

So yes I am braced for another fight to get my ENTITLEMENT which is an unconditional green card if I enter after we have been married two years. No confusion, no gray area, no discussion, no complications, no case law, no ifs, no buts - its an ENTITLEMENT and I will make them do it eventually...

I will be amazed if they do it correctly but the issued visa type is superceded by the marital status on the date at POE. Yes i am getting tetchy - the whole thing is getting to me now...

No offense to the I-129F vets here (well, not much anyway) but I think its bullsh*t that people make up dates to push their interviews through. All that happens is that honest people who wait in line and don't LIE on their paperwork get pushed further down the que. I mean, WTF people??

I have my visa in hand now so most of the stress is over, but I waited a good three or four weeks longer than many people with similar timelines to get my interview scheduled. Thats because I wrote the TRUTH on my correspondence to the embassy (thats what you sign to say you have given) - that I hadn't scheduled a wedding date (remember being told not to schedule a date??). And you know what? I could've done with those extra few weeks so that I wouldn't have had to sit on my now unemployed ### for an extra month.

I hope the embassy turns round and asks one of you people for some evidence to back up your date claim - it might pursuade some people to be a little more honest.

I think if you read things a bit more carefully, that nobody is suggesting lying so your precious cherry tree is safe pilgrim.
I said I would mention that my wife will be unemployed and wanting to make sure that her resume didnt have a gap - that is 100% TRUE So I am afraid your resentment is down to your lack of basic comprehension when you read English.
Putting an emphasis on something which is true in order to get a better date is not lying !

We have been married 2 years already so whats all this junk about wedding dates ?

Get a brain cell before you fire off at people. See I can tick you off without all the low class ### that you use

I wasn't specifically replying to you (hence no quotes) and I appreciate that your situation isn't as simple as just making up a date. However this idea of making up a date to push through an interview is a recurring theme in this and other, previous threads.

Just an opinion I needed to air. After all, I don't think a website such as VJ should be - to an extent - condoning such activity.

I think you need to climb off your high horse. If memory serves me correctly the question doesn't ask you if you have hard and fast travel plans, in fact the Embassy advises very strongly against making plans until you have the visa to hand, it asks when you plan to travel. To answer that question with an approximate date you hope to travel bearing in mind the advice the Embassy has given is quite sensible and is doing what they ask.

Most of us had dates by which we hoped to be on our way pray tell what is wrong with giving the Embassy that information, especially as they ask for it. If the Embassy only expected people to reply to that question when they had concrete plans in place having told people not to do just that I doubt they would even include that question in the first place.

By the way please point to one post in which anyone has said you should lie to the Embassy when answering that question.

The only time I was asked when I intended to travel was on the interview day. I'm sure it asks somewhere on the Packet 3 receipt when your intended wedding date is (I remember being surprised by this). I told the truth and said it was not yet scheduled. Any more recent interviewees remember this?



Making up a date IS lying - and there are plenty of people who have done it and posted about it. Its called making a false declaration.

ok but we are all here to figure our way through this and we are a community

What about James' short cuts which I used and which saved me two months ? I suppose I didn't push anyone back by doing that but I 'gamed' the system nevertheless.

I dislike queue jumpers myself but if x % are not that bothered about an early date because they are finishing a college course for instance, then why shouldn't someone who feels more urgent, press for an earlier date using whatever they have ..

Lying about an intended wedding date ? I am a bit argumentative and instinctively I would like to argue, but I suppose you are right - drat.
Yes you are.

But anything short of that I would push my case and put it in it's most advantageous way (yes to the disadvantage of someone else - obviously) ... It's not fair that stupid people get rejected at job interviews - or people with venereal disease through no fault of their own have an immigration rejection added to their problems, but thats the way it is.

I once stepped back and let a lot of mothers and elderly people board a plane in front of me and when I got on (yes I was actually on) they decided they had handed out too many boarding cards - I was told to get off as I was last on. Makes you think. Ethics eh ? difficult.

Ok you are absolutely right - and the truth is the truth - but there can be a bit of fuzz around the edges here, where pushing an otherwise weak case by exaggerating things doesn't amount to a bare faced lie...

We all know where the line is deep down inside...

Do we?

I can appreciate that people will try to push their case - after all, as you say, we're all trying to get through this and we've all got to do what we've got to do..

..and, I wasn't trying to point an individual finger. I don't want a VJ slagging match.

But the fact remains that there have been many instances of people on these boards having admitted to "inventing" wedding dates to try and push their case along. And I'm afraid that is just "not cricket" and is a false declaration. Come on? Have I experienced some kind of Total Recall thing or has that not happened?

The specific question is

When Do You Intend To Arrive In The U.S.?
(Provide specific date if known)

I returned my packet 3 end of September. My wife really wanted to be home in time for Thanksgiving, and we had told the people buying our house if all went to plan we would be gone before end of November and hopefully sooner. I was leaving work 8th November.

We had no hard and fast travel plans, but in answer to that question I said we intended to travel on 12th November. It was the earliest date we intended to travel, if all things worked out. How is that lying I stated my intent and being mindful of the Embassy advice refrained from making hard and fast travel arrangements until the visa was delivered. We were help up a week by our buyer and that problem didn't arise until after I had the visa and said pick your completion date after 8th November. They picked the 20th.

As you have now decided we have advised people to make up dates where has that been said. All we have said is put a date.

Many people have tentative plans they are trying to following, to give some indication of your intent when specifically asked for it is not lying it is common sense. To be blunt if you didn't comprehend the question don't come blaming us because you think you were disadvantaged by not answering it. If indeed someone isn't in the least bit concerned about when they travel I agree leave it blank but that I would suggest would be a very small minority of people on VJ indeed. The other 99.9% need to advise the Embassy when they intend to travel to stick to tentative hopes and plans.

Now you are going to have to forget all about that concept. Americans have no idea at all what it means or have an equivalent.

Yes, I've seen that questio . There is also a reference to a proposed wedding date. Perhaps this is given on more recent paperwork..?



No, that isn't what I said. I said I didn't think it was something we should be condoning to the clear detrement of other VJers. To be clear - I'm not talking about giving the embassy an intended travel date. Of course this is fine as they do ask for this. I'm talking about making up a wedding date to try and push your case through when all the advice says "do not fix a wedding date". Look on pages 16/17 (and beyond) of this thread for evidence of people doing just that!



I have several pieces of headed paper saying I'm intelligent. Please stop presuming I can't read.

I think you are misunderstanding each other - Ruby is a K-1 applicant and referring specifically to the intended wedding date, which evidence suggests the embassy DOES accomodate when scheduling interviews. There were a few about a few months back who stirring up a hornet's nest about it.


I do see his point.


Though I think if you are "cricket" about your case you won't be able to help yourself getting a little upset at some of the stuff you read.

There is no where I could see in this thread where people have advocated making up dates or said they have done so. Certainly on the pages you mention people have put down intended travel dates and intended wedding dates so what, that is what they have tentatively planned so why shouldn't they put down dates. The Embassy advice is not to make plans you cannot easily change not to make any plans at all.

I don't believe anyone on here is condoning lying to the Embassy and it is disingenuous of you to suggest that we are. We are trying to make sure people are not inconvenienced by having to wait for interviews because they didn't give the Embassy sufficient information. If you think otherwise you are entitled to do so, I shall continue advising people to make sure they put a travel date on that form.

All advice given on here is available to all VJs to take or ignore as they wish. The only people who might be disadvantaged are those that don't use this board.

As an aside the person who told me to make sure I put a date on my form is a very close friend and was a professional colleague as well as being a senior Consular Officer at the United States Embassy in London.

Hey there is nothing like having a discussion where both people are right, that is always a good outcome among friends.

This has always annoyed me, too. Esp. when people who put bogus dates (or otherwise push for an 'early' interview') get interviews before people who may have legit reasons for needing an earlier date (sick relative, losing their housing or job, etc).

We are SO lucky to be going through London. Its one of the fastest consulates, and one of the most consistant when it comes to helping people make dates that they need to make. To otherwise push them to get you in and out faster than they already will - esp. if you have no definite need for it - seems selfish to me.

Not having a go at anyone in particular - just making a general observation about things I've seen over my time at VJ. (Which is a looong time, to be sure

A genuine question here - has anyone made up dates when contacting the Embassy? I know everyone has different circumstances and London IS very good at working around your dates, but there are suggestions that people fabricate dates and admit to it, and I don't remember seeing that?!?

As I said, just posing a genuine question.....

Tracy u 'ole timer u'

When i sent my P3 back never gave them any dates yet i still got a quick interview date...got P4 one week and my interview was like 6 days later....so i think it just depends on how busy they are.........i think

So I should miss my medicare date at age 65 because some air head fiance got pregnant and wants to get settled in and hang pink wallaper in the nursery ? Bit extreme I suppose but what is important and justified to someone else might not be important to me - its all too subjective.
As long as nobody is lying, then putting your 'reasons' in the best possible light is just part of our 'market' economy. Anyone who is laid back enough to wait for whatever date comes along can't be all that motivated.

It's like buying beer in an English pub - if you don't push through to the bar then you are not going to get served.
It's like a single gal going out for the night and putting lipstick on

What do I put on the form 'I am feeling really good and all my relatives are healthy so make sure you put me at the end of the queue otherwise I will feel horribly guilty'

This 'holier than thou' thing is one American trait that does annoy me and I reckon it came over with the pilgrims.

One minute it's 'I cannot tell a lie' and the next minute it is 'Baghdad is full of WMD's'
Nuclear
Chemical
Biological

jeez

I haven't seen it either so it's hypocrasy and envy in equal measures that is stalking these streets.

When I did K1, Carolyn did have a reason to have medical tests and was down about it and worried and I blew it up as much as I could on the covering letter and got a 1 month date when everyone else was 6 weeks.

I didn't lie but I emphasised the issue to see if they would recognize that and give us an earlier date... So there we are - a public confession !

Does that make me an immigration cheat and a liar ? Should I have my current petition cancelled ? Should I be extradited and given 10 years in jail in one of those big cages listening to people being sizzled on death row ?

This President has lied and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Americans

The last President 'did not have sex with that woman'


Compare that to my heavily emphasizing a genuine medical problem of a woman living alone in a cabin in the snow in Wisconsin !

Jeez unreal man! what a set of hypocritical puritan prigs.

Come on and get your pristine white halos off and get real... we are the little people fighting for our little place in the world while every American President since tricky dicky nixon is burgling/bonking and killing with no criticism from the schoolmarmish mother superiors who play mind games with us and tell us how flawed we are


alan

We are really off topic here! Would anyone mind if I put out a call to Mags or one of the mods to split a topic here -- sub-topic of "Giving dates to the Embassy"?

(But still I find this a really interesting topic in its own right. We put down we wanted to leave in August, and we got a date in June, which worked well for us.)

I dont mind! got carried away in the discussion!

Well you are going to have to define "make up dates", if you mean you can't put a date unless you have the tickets booked for that date I guess a lot of us would be so defined.

or do you mean we have plans we are hoping to be able to make, but they aren't hard and fast plans and that isn't making up dates.

Which side of the fence is your survey sitting

Okay, I've removed the off topic posts from the Interview Thread and moved them in here. There seemed to be two additional trains of thought involved in that thread and they came together quite nicely; hence my putting both of them in here.

Hope that's okay for you all!

What English pub do you go to?!? That pushing is more American bar than English pub. I found that the English bartender won't serve people who push their way through. Least the ones I know. And even during a football match I have never had to push my way through a even the most crowded of English pub.

I learned to be a lot more patient while I was in England.





PS: I agree with TracyTN.

Ole timer, indeed! I'm lucky I can still type...

Yeah, I DO think it depends how busy they are (which has seemed to be a 'time of the year' thing) - seems as if they slow down a bit during the summer and later in the year (more staff away on vacations?), but I'm sure some of that can't be predicted - meaning they just have more cases to process at one time instead of another.

We caught them in an extremely fast time - literally had packet 4 a mere four days after we'd put packet 3 in the post. But a mere week or two later, people began waiting weeks between returning packet 3 and receiving packet 4.

I don't think there's anything wrong with telling them you're in a time crunch if you truly are in one. (As we have seen, 9 times out of 10, they will accomdate you.) I also think there is nothing wrong at 'guessing' if you truly don't know a timeframe - but make that guess realistic (meaning don't say you plan to travel next week - maybe next month?) so that you don't take up an interview time that someone else may be desperate for. Don't call your congressman telling them how desperate you are for an interview when your wedding is still 4 months away. Try to be courteous to others and don't take what you don't HAVE to have.

London is speedy - probably one of the fastest consulates (if not the fastest). If they're not working fast enough to suit you, then it may be that you're just a bit too hyperactive and immigration will one day kill you.

Tracy are you sure you dont have one of those voice activated keyboards??

You know i'm just pulling yer leg dont ya

London is one of the fastest i agree.....even i was shocked when my interview date popped in the letterbox......the embassy had emailed me with my interview date.....but...i'm so glad i got a hard copy letter because they had made an error on the date.....a big one....3 weeks of a difference.

Why yes, I do! How could you tell???

Geez - 3 weeks difference! I can't believe they were that far off!

Yeah - 3 weeks!!! the email stated my interview date was November 22nd 2006!! get this.....the hard hard copy letter interview date was ~ Nov 2nd 2006!!!!!!!! what a blunder eh????

I didnt think they could make mistakes like that!! Just goes to show that even the embassy does make errors!

Deployment is a good reason for expedited processing. good luck

Most definitely! I don't think anyone here would have a problem with someone getting a fast interview date if they are in that situation.