K1 Visa Approved--Not Shipped Back, No Updates

[ber12c3 0]

Sort of desperate for advice/help in our situation. My fiance was approved for the K1 Visa on November 6th. We had to take the passport back because we did not understand that they would need it to process the visa, and we had a trip scheduled. They told us no sweat and that we could mail it back and it would take 7-10 days after they received the passport to process our visa. We mailed it back on November 13th, with a confirmed receipt of the passport on November 14th. We checked by the embassy in Paris on November 25th and 29th. Each time, they stated they had received the passport and that they could not explain why it was taking so long. They weren't waiting on anything. There was nothing we could do. The available information on the visa tracker says "administrative processing". It won't tell us any estimate of processing time. Everything I find online says that approved passports should take no longer than 2 days. Has anyone else been in this situation? I feel terrible. I have no idea if it's going to take 5 days or 80 days. Now I'm wishing we had just canceled our trip and not taken their word on it but hindsight is 20/20 :(

[debbiedoo 2,339]

AP is normal and in most cases can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. Where is the beneficiary from and where did you travel to? That may be a possible reason, although with AP often times there IS no reason. it takes as long as it takes.

[Hank_ 9,173]

2 hours ago, ber12c3 said:

Sort of desperate for advice/help in our situation. My fiance was approved for the K1 Visa on November 6th. We had to take the passport back because we did not understand that they would need it to process the visa, and we had a trip scheduled. They told us no sweat and that we could mail it back and it would take 7-10 days after they received the passport to process our visa. We mailed it back on November 13th, with a confirmed receipt of the passport on November 14th. We checked by the embassy in Paris on November 25th and 29th. Each time, they stated they had received the passport and that they could not explain why it was taking so long. They weren't waiting on anything. There was nothing we could do. The available information on the visa tracker says "administrative processing". It won't tell us any estimate of processing time. Everything I find online says that approved passports should take no longer than 2 days. Has anyone else been in this situation? I feel terrible. I have no idea if it's going to take 5 days or 80 days. Now I'm wishing we had just canceled our trip and not taken their word on it but hindsight is 20/20

I agree with you regarding "in hindsight" ...  your visa application got put on hold because of the missing passport.

 

Just because the embassy received the passport on day X doesn't mean they will process the visa and have it issued 2 days later.   Your additional traveling can cause the embassy to review this info.   It can be a couple weeks before the visa is ISSUED, they were not sitting with your case file on someone's desk waiting for the passport to be returned.   Just be patient.
 

[ber12c3 0]

10 minutes ago, Hank_ said:

I agree with you regarding "in hindsight" ...  your visa application got put on hold because of the missing passport.

 

Just because the embassy received the passport on day X doesn't mean they will process the visa and have it issued 2 days later.   Your additional traveling can cause the embassy to review this info.   It can be a couple weeks before the visa is ISSUED, they were not sitting with your case file on someone's desk waiting for the passport to be returned.   Just be patient.
 

I wasn't anticipating 2 days. They told us 7-10 days to reprocess the visa. The form we were given to return with the passport stated 10-12 days. This was the framework they gave us.

Now that both of those time periods were not valid, I'm reaching out to see if anyone else has been in this position and has more information. I'm reaching out because I couldn't find anything online. It would be nice to know if I should expect something by January? By June? 

I would hope it would be understandable or you could have some empathy for how it feels to be told one thing and have no idea, no frame of reference of how long it is in actuality.

This website has been very helpful for providing those timelines up until this point. And if they had told us it would say take 3 months, it would be much easier to as you put it "just be patient". 

[Hank_ 9,173]

Business days ... weekends and holidays don't count.

[SalishSea 16,770]

11 hours ago, ber12c3 said:

We had to take the passport back because we did not understand that they would need it to process the visa

You did not realize they would need the passport to put the visa in???

 

Keep in mind that this time of year has many holidays for the US embassies.  Delays caused by applicants may also cause their cases to be considered as a lower priority than cases that are ready to go.

[SmallTownPA 71]

5 hours ago, Jorgedig said:

You did not realize they would need the passport to put the visa in???

 

Some countries allow for visa's that are not affixed to a passport.  You can get a visa to Vietnam via email.  You print it out and they scan the bar code.  You still get entry/exit stamps in the passport, but the visa is a piece of paper you print out.

[SalishSea 16,770]

18 minutes ago, SmallTownPA said:

Some countries allow for visa's that are not affixed to a passport.  You can get a visa to Vietnam via email.  You print it out and they scan the bar code.  You still get entry/exit stamps in the passport, but the visa is a piece of paper you print out.

Okay.  No US immigrant visa is ever not affixed to a passport.

[SmallTownPA 71]

4 hours ago, Jorgedig said:

Okay.  No US immigrant visa is ever not affixed to a passport.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

 

A K1 is a NON-IMMIGRANT visa, and ESTA allows for entry into the country without a paper visa in the passport.

 

So yeah, there are lots of people who have non-immigrant visa's and nothing in their passports.

 

Is there anything else I can help you with??

 

 

[SalishSea 16,770]

17 hours ago, SmallTownPA said:

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

 

A K1 is a NON-IMMIGRANT visa, and ESTA allows for entry into the country without a paper visa in the passport.

 

So yeah, there are lots of people who have non-immigrant visa's and nothing in their passports.

 

Is there anything else I can help you with??

 

 

ESTA is NOT a visa.  K-1 is affixed to the passport in 100% of cases. 

 

Is there anything else I can help you with?