August 2018 I-129F Filers

[Etek&Ahududu 43]

Hi all - congrats to those who have finished this process, and best of luck to those still wading through it. We finally got our approval and my fiance flies to New York tomorrow. Here is our complete timeline, if it's helpful to any of you still waiting. Getting an appointment at the embassy took much longer than we expected, in particular. We checked hourly for several weeks before something opened up. I couldn't find a secret WhatsApp group for Turkey, alas. 😄 Also, we worried for a whole year about the fact that I (female petitioner) am 19 years older than my partner (male beneficiary). Everyone said it was a "red flag," and it never came up ONCE, not even in the interview. Go figure.

 

3 August 2018: I-129F package sent

9 August 2018: NOA1 notification

17 August 2018: NOA1 hard copy received

11 January 2019: RFE notification 

18 January 2019: RFE hard copy received (requesting separate letter of intent to marry from beneficiary) 

25 January 2019: RFE response sent to USCIS

28 January 2019: RFE response received by USCIS 

7 February 2019: NOA2 date (no notification or website update)

12 February 2019: NOA2 hard copy received 

18 March 2019: Case # assigned @ NVC

26 March 2019: Email from NVC that petition being forwarded to embassy

28 March 2019: P3 email from embassy (no paper packet sent)

31 March 2019: DS-160 submitted

3 May 2019: Interview appointment scheduled & P4 email from embassy (no paper version sent)

14 June 2019: Interview date (approved!)

19 June 2019: Status changed from AP to Issued

21 June 2019: Passport/visa delivered to local postal office and picked up

27 June 2019: Flight to U.S.

[Shiran 1,134]

2 hours ago, Etek&Ahududu said:

27 June 2019: Flight to U.S.

Awesome, and congratulations! Have a safe flight, I hope the new airport is amazing. I've flew through Ataturk couple times now, but not seen the new one yet.

Hope you have painless PoE at JFK.

[Tidus992 47]

On 6/26/2019 at 2:17 PM, Shiran said:

Awesome, and congratulations! Have a safe flight, I hope the new airport is amazing. I've flew through Ataturk couple times now, but not seen the new one yet.

Hope you have painless PoE at JFK.

We went through JFK on the 16th of June, it was painless, there was only one screener with a line of over 100 people, he was very professional and didn't show any frustration.  Overall wasn't bad.  Few questions, stamps, didn't go into another room I went to get the luggage and she was right behind me a few minutes later.  Checked the i-94 and we are in the system.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Tidus992

[BirdSong 39]

Also approved as of last month! Fiance booked ticket and will be here in October! Congrats to everyone! We did it!

[reneenumbertwo 35]

It's been a long time since I posted but I was an August 2018 filer.  My partner came from Nigeria in April 2019 and we married the same month.  We filed for AOS in May 2019.  We received our NOA 1 on May 23, 2019 but haven't heard anything else.  We thought he would have had the biometrics appointment by now.  We live in Central PA and our biometrics location will be in York, PA.  Does anyone have any advice?  We've called USCIS once and got no answers.    I don't know if this type of delay is normal.

[Shiran 1,134]

19 minutes ago, reneenumbertwo said:

It's been a long time since I posted but I was an August 2018 filer.  My partner came from Nigeria in April 2019 and we married the same month.  We filed for AOS in May 2019.  We received our NOA 1 on May 23, 2019 but haven't heard anything else.  We thought he would have had the biometrics appointment by now.  We live in Central PA and our biometrics location will be in York, PA.  Does anyone have any advice?  We've called USCIS once and got no answers.    I don't know if this type of delay is normal.

Suggest you post and follow in this thread 

Congrats on your marriage. I would be calling USCIS and ask for Tier 2. You are right your biometrics should've happened long time ago

[AhmednDanyal 6]

On 2/2/2019 at 3:05 PM, Jorgedig said:

Fascinating!  Thanks for compiling this, @Greenbaum

This is amazing info. So the US citizen petitioner has their background checked before noa2 approved. When exactly do they run all the beneficiary background checks? Here in California too or once it gets to the embassy before the interview ? And because my fiancé is from Pakistan once he’s approved at interview he’s approved ? Or does it take longer after the interview ? 

[SalishSea 16,748]

18 minutes ago, AhmednDanyal said:

This is amazing info. So the US citizen petitioner has their background checked before noa2 approved. When exactly do they run all the beneficiary background checks? Here in California too or once it gets to the embassy before the interview ? And because my fiancé is from Pakistan once he’s approved at interview he’s approved ? Or does it take longer after the interview ? 

Expect a long background check (AP) process for Pakistan.  There are loads of threads here on VJ about it.  

[AhmednDanyal 6]

9 hours ago, Jorgedig said:

Expect a long background check (AP) process for Pakistan.  There are loads of threads here on VJ about it.  

Even if his resident country for 13 years is UAE and we are going through Abu Dhabi ? 

[Fumero 26]

On 2/3/2019 at 3:53 AM, Jorgedig said:

My husband (then fiancé) came over from NZ for 3-4 weeks after we filed.  In fact, he was here when we received our NOA2.  He definitely still had ties to NZ that he had to return for.....leased house, car, kids, jobs etc.  Of course he also had a return ticket.  I don't think they really delved into it too much when he arrived for that trip.  

@Greenbaumis there a link on steps to apply for tourist/ visiting visa because I am thinking of applying to go visit my fiancé when boarders are open and international flights begin here in Nigeria. Because right now I don’t really know how long our K1 application is going to take before I get an interview with everything going on right now with the immigration process.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Fumero

[SalishSea 16,748]

42 minutes ago, Fumero said:

@Greenbaumis there a link on steps to apply for tourist/ visiting visa because I am thinking of applying to go visit my fiancé when boarders are open and international flights begin here in Nigeria. Because right now I don’t really know how long our K1 application is going to take before I get an interview with everything going on right now with the immigration process.

There are no steps to apply for a B visa.  The online application costs $160, and is available on the website for the US consulate in Lagos.

 

Lagos is a high fraud embassy, so you will need to show ample intention of returning home to be given a B visa.

[SalishSea 16,748]

On 10/4/2019 at 5:03 AM, AhmednDanyal said:

Even if his resident country for 13 years is UAE and we are going through Abu Dhabi ? 

Yes.  It is because of Pakistan's poor record-keeping and compliance with US requirements when it comes to criminal and civil records.

[Fumero 26]

On 6/30/2020 at 7:49 PM, Jorgedig said:

There are no steps to apply for a B visa.  The online application costs $160, and is available on the website for the US consulate in Lagos.

 

Lagos is a high fraud embassy, so you will need to show ample intention of returning home to be given a B visa.

Thank you

[Greenbaum 12,258]

On 6/30/2020 at 2:05 PM, Fumero said:

@Greenbaumis there a link on steps to apply for tourist/ visiting visa because I am thinking of applying to go visit my fiancé when boarders are open and international flights begin here in Nigeria. Because right now I don’t really know how long our K1 application is going to take before I get an interview with everything going on right now with the immigration process.

 

[Greenbaum 12,258]

On 10/3/2019 at 10:01 PM, AhmednDanyal said:

This is amazing info. So the US citizen petitioner has their background checked before noa2 approved. When exactly do they run all the beneficiary background checks? They will run a BG on the beneficiary when you submit your I-129f, Petition for Alien Fiancé(e) but not as involved as the USC.

Here in California too or once it gets to the embassy before the interview ?  For the beneficiary they will check your local PC as a deeper BG Check.    

And because my fiancé is from Pakistan once he’s approved at interview he’s approved ? Or does it take longer after the interview ? See below

He'll go into what is called AP on a "refused" status after the interview which everyone experiences. Here is a more informative explanation.

 

If you have applied for US Visa and received 221g Administrative Processing for your case, you would have checked your visa status on CEAC website. When you check the status, you used to see status of “Administrative processing”, but that would have changed to “refused” from March 3, 2020. Many users have reported and its verified as well that most of the 221g Cases status has changed to “Refused”, even when there was no real update on their ‘Case Last Updated Date’ or anything has changed. One key thing to note is the text under it has changed. It reads like below now.

 

“A U.S. Consular Officer has adjudicated and refused your visa application. Please follow any instructions provided by the consular officer. If you were informed by the consular officer that your case was refused for administrative processing, your case will remain refused while undergoing such processing. You will receive another adjudication once such processing is complete. Please be advised that the processing time varies and that you will be contacted if additional information is needed. For more information, please visit TRAVEL.STATE.GOV or the website for the Embassy or Consulate at which you made your visa application. For more information, please visit U.S. Consulate General <Consulate name>”

 

Pay close attention to the bold text, it basically tells that, if you were given Administrative processing, then it will be processed in administrative processing. 

 

No one can say how long you will be in AP. Some are days and others are upwards to a year and sometimes beyond. UAE is much quicker than Pakistan so avoid interviewing in Pakistan if you can. Good luck and stay engaged.