Approved!!! Reflections on our K1 Journey

[Rick&Maeve 8]

We filed our I-129F petition on 10/21/13 w/NOA1 on 11/01/13 & an initial NOA2 on 11/24/13. I waited 2 weeks and then began calling NVC about my status. All I was told every time I called was "it can take up to 8 weeks for the NVC to receive the petition from the USCIS." It wasn't until after 8 weeks had passed that I was able to get more than the scripted "give it 8 weeks" response from the NVC reps.

By this time it was cause for concern and this is where things started getting silly. My initial NOA2 for 11/24/13 stated "forwarded to consulate" on the form. I didn't pay this much mind because I knew the petition has to go through the NVC before it reaches the consulate. The lower level reps at the NVC and USCIS on the other hand didn't. Several of the lower level reps that I spoke with were telling me that my petition had accidentally been mailed to the consulate due to the wording on my NOA2. So I asked to speak to a tier 2 representative at the USCIS and they told me that the information I was receiving from the the lower level reps was incorrect and that they would look into it. I called the tier 2 representative back two weeks later and they told me they had mailed out a new NOA2 which I received 2/19/14. After this happened, things finally started moving along and a couple weeks later the NVC finally received my petition on 3/04/14.

I called the NVC the day they received my petition, they asked me for my date of birth and other normal formalities, then told me they received the petition and were processing it and to call back the next day. I called back the next day and in the process of processing my petition, the NVC entered in my wrong date of birth, preventing me from gaining access to my case. They told me I had to email them a scanned copy of my passport so that they could correct the mistake. After two weeks of receiving no response from NVCinquiry@state.gov, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I asked this several times before but the lower level reps told me there was no one I could talk to but after two weeks of this I had just about had it, and I clearly stated that I have no idea where my petition was and it's all on the account of a clerical error made on their end not mine.

This time I got to speak to a supervisor at the NVC who looked up my email over the phone, pulled up my passport, gave me my case & ID number and told me that my petition had arrived at the embassy on 3/13/14, which was a week ago so I'm worried that I might be behind. On 3/26 I get an email that a call in letter was mailed out and the call in letter arrived on 4/9. In hindsight we should have took that call in letter email to the embassy the following Wednesday, instead of waiting for it in the mail because by the time we received the letter, we only had two weeks to get the police records and medicals done for our upcoming interview on 4/24. Fortunately the medical report was able to be processed within a week and the police report was available the next day.

As far as the interview was concerned everything was short and sweet. We were asked the basic questions How did you meet, When, where does he work, Why didn't you get married in Ghana and it all took 5 minutes. The visa officer was very friendly and gave her the blue slip and told her to pick up her visa next Friday. The visa was available the following Friday, hassle free and we are finally at the end of our K1 visa journey!

I wan't to thank reneegh724 for her quick responses helping me sort out the confusion with the NVC when I was concerned the USCIS lost my petition. I'd like to thank Curry and Cherry for all there support and words of encouragement before for the interview. I'd like to thank Tosh Love for sharing her experience and I wish her a fast and hassle free approval very soon.

Best of wishes to future K1 filers and my advice is to first read the guidelines then advance search your topic before posting to get the best results. I learned a lot by doing this and reading posts by JimVaPhuong, Ebunoluwa, TBoneTX, Dwheels76, NigeriaorBust, Penguin_ie just to name a few so I really can't thank this forum enough and the mods that keep it up & running.

I hope that this post can help someone alleviate some of their anxieties about their K1 visa journey and if my post was too long to read, long story short, don't listen to what the lower level reps tell you, always request to speak to a supervisor or a tier 2 rep at the USCIS.

It's truly a tragedy when two people who love each other are unjustly denied their right to live the rest of their lives together. That's why I want to sincerely thank Visa Journey for helping our dream of living the rest of our lives together come true!

[TJTIE2012 42]

Wow!!! Best wishes in moving forward !!!!

This process is VERY stressful nothing makes sense.

[Lenny&Sanna 115]

congrats

[Gboree 70]

Hello, congrats on your successful interview.
what evidence did you present for the interview?

[Girl from Celebes 588]

Congrats!

[Pitaya 2,577]

~Moved from K-1 Process to K-1 Progress Forum~

[Dashinka 25,735]

Congrats!

[jkelly07 120]

congrats,

[Rick&Maeve 8]

Hello, congrats on your successful interview.

what evidence did you present for the interview?

We mostly communicate through Google Chat & Hang Out so I was able to print out each individual day from within the app as a PDF with the Google watermark identifying it's authenticity. I took each of these days and minimized them to fit 8 per screen shot so that you could still see the date, a few sentences from the start of the conversation with number of pages in PDF. So basically I was able to illustrate one week of communication per page. I was only able to fit 3 skype screen shots per page because that's as small as I could minimize the app. Yahoo messenger was a little more complicated because the print outs went to text without watermarks so I just took screen shots of our chat history within the Yahoo messenger app. I put all that in 1 section for frequency of communication. I created another section for chat transcripts were I took one 500 word conversation per week and copied and pasted it from the app into text starting from beginning of when we met to present. I also took screen shots of our call record on Tango( I don't recommend using tango because the screenshots within the app are barely readable). Of course both of our phone records. As for retrieving phone records from Ghana, make sure to start collecting MTN now because they only give you up to 90 days of calls and they need a letter and it takes them roughly 3 days to get it to you. Emails of correspondence between our families to one another including my sister and mother. Screen shots of video calls with my family on Google Hangout and Screen Shots within Tango. Stuff we mailed back and forth to each other on birthdays and holidays. Screenshots of text messages to my family in planning our wedding this summer along with wedding details. Bank statements identifying bank withdrawals in Ghana while I stayed. Passport stamps, hotel receipts flight tickets. I included 3 years of tax transcripts along with 6 months of pay stubs, a letter form my employer stating current salary on company letter head. All original documents including my birth certificate, NOA1, NOA2, NVC letter, Call In Letter, Print out of the DS-160 along with her police report and completed medicals.

I followed the guidelines in organizing my evidence and used atco fastners attached to durable plastic dividers. I placed all the information in a 3 inch binder with zipper. When it was all said and done I provided close to 3 inches of evidence, but I also carefully organized everything by the month with tabs so that probably made up 25% of the bulk. I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars printing out thousands of pages so I had really had to find creative ways to screenshot my apps and minimize them to fit on one page. I recommend google chats over all the other apps. I still haven't found a good app that can handle the terrible network bandwidth in Ghana. Tango was the most reliable for connectivity and Skype was the worst. Google hangout is Hi Fi and you will need full bandwidth that day to run that app and it will eat up your data plan fast. Yahoo messenger was pretty low fi for video and voice calls, and maybe the best out of all internet call apps but I just didn't like the way yahoo messenger collected chat history.

I hope I didn't confuse you too much, It's really something that is unique to each individual but this is how I went about it.

[Gboree 70]

Thanks for getting back at me on this and as I speak to you I am also gathering our evidence for my wife's interview. hopefully I should be able to organize them into categories like you did yours. once again, thanks for sharing

[Tosh Love 77]

Congratulations! and Akwaaba on your arrival.

[American Woman 75 21]

That was one hell of a red-tape nightmare you guys went through - but I'm glad it has a happy ending. Congratulations!

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

Congratulations :joy: :dance: and happy reunion !

[TBoneTX 47,358]

Thanks for your story and your nice words. Wishing you a smooth rest-of-the-process.

[Curry and Cherry 1]

Congratulations! I wish us the best on the rest of our journey