April 2014 Filers

[Lena&Islam 9]

I got my NVC case numbers! OMG! was so glad to talk to a real person!

[Zedayn 485]

I am planning to send in my petition next month. A couple of questions for you....

1) Any tips on what I should do to prevent them from sending me RFEs? I want to go from NOA 1 to NOA 2. I don't want them to be sending me RFEs.

2) Did you have like an engagement cermony? If not what type of materials did you submit to proof that you and your fiancee are indeed engaged.

Thank you so much in advance.

1. Include everything that is required. You need to prove 3 things with this petition: You are a US citizen, you are both legally free and willing to marry, you have met each other in person within the last 2 years. You will need evidence to prove that you meet these requirements. As long as you send in what is required you are not likely to get an RFE.

To prove US citizenship, you must include a copy of your birth certificate OR a copy of ALL pages of your passport. There are other methods you can use as well, and they are listed in the I-129F instructions, but those 2 are the most common. (Page 4 number 5 of the I-129F instructions)

To prove you are legally free to marry, you need to provide copies of any divorce decrees if either of you has been married before. To prove you are willing to marry, you both need to include a letter of intent stating your desire to marry.

To prove you have met within the last 2 years in person, you need to include primary evidence such as: boarding passes, passport stamps, receipts, basically anything that can prove you 2 were in the same location at the same time (doesn't have to be in the beneficiary's country either, it can be anywhere). You can also include secondary evidence such as photos, itineraries, etc. The secondary evidence does not prove you met in person, it will only add support to your primary evidence. (Page 5 number 7 of the I-129F instructions)

You will also need to include a G-325A form for both the petitioner and beneficiary along with a passport size photo of each. (Page 6 number 8 of the I-129F instructions)

You can find the I-129F instructions here: http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/form/i-129finstr.pdf

You can also find the K-1 guide here on VJ to be helpful as well: http://www.visajourney.com/content/k1guide

2. The only proof you need that you are engaged is your letter of intent to marry. You both need to have a signed letter of intent.

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

I got my NVC case numbers! OMG! was so glad to talk to a real person!

[chiggins82 87]

I got my NVC case numbers! OMG! was so glad to talk to a real person!

Yay! I hope the rest of this goes nice and smoothly for you.

Congrats!

[Tee and Megan 10]

Positive vibes Tee & Megan. Time flies so fast and October is just around the corner.

Update us on your winter wedding plans

Godbless you both.

Thank you so much Nadeshiko! Sending you positive vibes as well!! We'll definitely keep you all updated as we move forward. Still so much to do, but now we only have 103 days!!! Keep us posted on your progress as well, won't you?

[Tee and Megan 10]

I am planning to send in my petition next month. A couple of questions for you....

1) Any tips on what I should do to prevent them from sending me RFEs? I want to go from NOA 1 to NOA 2. I don't want them to be sending me RFEs.

2) Did you have like an engagement cermony? If not what type of materials did you submit to proof that you and your fiancee are indeed engaged.

Thank you so much in advance.

Hello Nsh! Wonderful to hear from a fellow Southeast Asian filer!

1) I was worried about RFEs too, I definitely didn't want to get delayed because of a mistake. To avoid it, I labeled everything with pen and front loaded our application with evidence. Southeast Asian countries are typically known for being high fraud countries, so I didn't want to give them any reason to doubt that my fiance and I had met, love each other and are committed to our genuine relationship. If you'd like a list of what I sent, I'd be happy to give you one! Message me anytime. I also made three copies of everything. That way if any of the authorities handling our petition wrote back to say we forgot to send something, I had an identical copy and one copy on reserve to send them immediately. (Luckily that didn't happen, but you never know)

2) My fiance and I debated the engagement ceremony as well. It is a pretty important custom in Cambodia, and we probably would've gone ahead and had one if our financial situation had allowed. However, I sent them loads of pictures of when we got engaged (my fiance's brother took pictures as he proposed, which both mortified and gratified me at the time ) American style. I've heard some people say the engagement ceremony is a big deal, but I've heard others say pictures of it are sometimes mistaken for wedding pictures, which confuses the officers. My best advice would be to send them loads of other evidence of how you met, where you met and how long you've been together, particularly passport stamps, boarding pass stubs and, perhaps, (though they are secondary evidence) letters from people who knew you and saw you together in Burma. I don't know your situation, but that is what we did and we got through okay.

Blessings to you and your journey!!

[Nikikita 3]

I got my NVC case numbers! OMG! was so glad to talk to a real person!

That's great!

My experience with my NOA1, NOA2 and NVC case number was all screwed up as I moved and mail took almost a month each time to shuffle back to my new address.

Hope the next steps go quickly and you don't run into P3/P4 issues like I did (which I will explain in next post!)

[Nikikita 3]

TIP!!!

Hi everyone, some of you may know that I have been having some issues with moving on from P3 to P4...

Essentially, Fiance mailed P3 5/20 but up until yesterday (more than a month later), we still had not heard back from the embassy. (and from what I understand P3 to P4 should be relatively quick.)

Fiance mailed through a courier and unfortunately did not add tracking (he thought buying insurance included tracking), so after waiting impatiently for the first three weeks, I started posting on these boards to see if anyone had any idea what was going on. I received sympathetic responses to not so sympathetic responses doubting whether or not P3 was actually sent in...

Now, after emailing multiple people at the embassy and Fiance running around China for over 6 hours yesterday, we know what happened and can continue!!!

The embassy never received our information, even though the courier service says they delivered it!

So what happened?

The courier service unfortunately delivered to the security office instead of the reception desk. Security had no idea what the package was and put it aside on an office desk somewhere, assuming that someone would pick it up eventually....

MORAL OF THE STORY-- Make sure to make it very clear to your courier service that they need to deliver your documents to the reception desk!! (Save yourself the stress and extra month of un-needed waiting!)

If my Fiance didn't happen to live in Guangzhou where the embassy was located, I don't know if we ever would have figured this out. Sure, we could have sent another copy to the embassy, but I still would have been uneasy about our information floating out there somewhere, and still would have wanted to know what happened.

He spent over two hours with the courier service insisting that they find the signed slip and give him a copy, then travelled another 1.5 hours to the embassy where reception told him Sorry, but they never received the packet because they would have stamped the slip, and goodbye. Thankfully, him knowing me very well, (and that I would have a very hard time accepting this answer) pushed on and after more than an hour, they figured out whose signature was on the slip (security) and our P3 is finally being processed!

This is all on top of frustrating emails, phone calls to the embassy (where we were just told that they will contact us when things are approved but cannot say if they received it or not) and occasional arguments...

I only hope that from my experience, no one else will have to experience this again!

[Tuzi and Niu 5]

Nice job with following up on the consulate and delivery service. Glad to hear that you got the P3 sorted out!

[Nikikita 3]

Nice job with following up on the consulate and delivery service. Glad to hear that you got the P3 sorted out!

Thanks! But still have not heard back from them yet... Just sent another email in today to check in.

Did you guys schedule your interview yet?

[Tuzi and Niu 5]

Thanks! But still have not heard back from them yet... Just sent another email in today to check in.

Did you guys schedule your interview yet?

No, interview hasn't been scheduled yet. We're waiting until the ustraveldocs website starts to have August time slots since I want to be in Guangzhou with my fiance to provide support, even though I know I won't be able to enter the consulate with her.

Hopefully your P4 will come soon and you will be able to schedule your interview. Good luck!

[Firebug 5]

Hello fellow April filers,

First of all, allow me introduce myself - I'm Honeysuckle, the beneficiary from Austria and my fiancé is the US citizen.

We find this thread very helpful; the advice and information given here are accurate. Added to this, the people here are much more accommodating and very positive. We are really grateful and happy to join you on this thread.

In any case, we received our NOA2 three weeks ago or so - the USCIS informed us that our case was sent to NVC. Yesterday, my fiancé called the NVC to follow through. After an hour of waiting on the phone, he finally spoke to someone and he was told that our paperwork was sent to the US Consulate in Vienna on June 30th.

I've started to put together copies of documents and evidence that we sent to USCIS. I have a copy of everything except for I-325A and the letter of intent. Due to our excitement and haste to send our I-129 package, we had forgotten to make a copy.

I've read various comments regarding this; some people said they were asked to present copies of everything whilst other people said they didn't have to. So, I hope the latter will be the same for me. Fingers crossed.

Has anyone already been to the interview? If so, could you be so kind as to share your experience?

Also, does anyone know how to DELETE or remove a reply from a thread? I'd like to remove the reply I wrote to one of the threads as I believe the idea I've shared has done more harm than good.

One of the commentators of "that" thread is frustrated and angry that each time he/she sees someone (specially a TSC filer) gets approved or someone has some good news to share, he/she gets even more angry. I can totally relate. Whilst I think it's only natural to show one's happiness, it feels odd specially when you see other people going through an extremely miserable time. So, I consider it's best to remove myself from that thread and delete my comments.

Many thanks and all the best to everyone,

S & B

[Maritah 77]

Also, does anyone know how to DELETE or remove a reply from a thread? I'd like to remove the reply I wrote to one of the threads as I believe the idea I've shared has done more harm than good.

One of the commentators of "that" thread is frustrated and angry that each time he/she sees someone (specially a TSC filer) gets approved or someone has some good news to share, he/she gets even more angry. I can totally relate. Whilst I think it's only natural to show one's happiness, it feels odd specially when you see other people going through an extremely miserable time. So, I consider it's best to remove myself from that thread and delete my comments.

Many thanks and all the best to everyone,

S & B

Hi Firebug and everyone,

IMHO, and please I ask to anyone dont get offended about my comment its just in the way that I see it after belong to this forum a couple of months, I think its a mistake think that everybody will be happy cause you share your good news / got expedited/ got NOA2, etc, and thats because its a fact that some people are frustrated and pissed off cause the waiting or the delay in their process.

It is unfair? of course, but remember this its a place full of unknown people that dont care about your advances If they fall behind, If somebody have the need to share it, I suggest talk with closers friend around you in RL not in the virtual one. In my particular case, when I get the NOA2 I'll just mark it in my timeline for the statistics in the website.

Best regards and good luck in your procedure.

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

Hello fellow April filers,

First of all, allow me introduce myself - I'm Honeysuckle, the beneficiary from Austria and my fiancé is the US citizen.

We find this thread very helpful; the advice and information given here are accurate. Added to this, the people here are much more accommodating and very positive. We are really grateful and happy to join you on this thread.

In any case, we received our NOA2 three weeks ago or so - the USCIS informed us that our case was sent to NVC. Yesterday, my fiancé called the NVC to follow through. After an hour of waiting on the phone, he finally spoke to someone and he was told that our paperwork was sent to the US Consulate in Vienna on June 30th.

I've started to put together copies of documents and evidence that we sent to USCIS. I have a copy of everything except for I-325A and the letter of intent. Due to our excitement and haste to send our I-129 package, we had forgotten to make a copy.

I've read various comments regarding this; some people said they were asked to present copies of everything whilst other people said they didn't have to. So, I hope the latter will be the same for me. Fingers crossed.

Has anyone already been to the interview? If so, could you be so kind as to share your experience?

Also, does anyone know how to DELETE or remove a reply from a thread? I'd like to remove the reply I wrote to one of the threads as I believe the idea I've shared has done more harm than good.

One of the commentators of "that" thread is frustrated and angry that each time he/she sees someone (specially a TSC filer) gets approved or someone has some good news to share, he/she gets even more angry. I can totally relate. Whilst I think it's only natural to show one's happiness, it feels odd specially when you see other people going through an extremely miserable time. So, I consider it's best to remove myself from that thread and delete my comments.

Many thanks and all the best to everyone,

S & B

It would be a good idea to have an updated original letter of intent from both of you for the interview, don't worry about the I-325a copy.

Your fiance can mail you an updated one and you can submit your own updated one at the interview.

As to your comment on the thread, you can't delete it.

Not everyone will like your comments on a public forum, such is life and should not be a concern.

Best wishes !

[Firebug 5]

It would be a good idea to have an updated original letter of intent from both of you for the interview, don't worry about the I-325a copy.

Your fiance can mail you an updated one and you can submit your own updated one at the interview.

As to your comment on the thread, you can't delete it.

Not everyone will like your comments on a public forum, such is life and should not be a concern.

Best wishes !

Greetings Ebunoluwa,

Many thanks for your kind reply. I will surely follow your advice.

Likewise, I wish you and your fiance(e) all the best and a speedy approval.

Best regards,

S & B