Nairobi Embassy Interview Dates??

[KESA 18]

Does anyone know how long the Nairobi Embassy is currently taking to schedule interviews? We were approved by the NVC in April and are trying to get a sense for how long the wait is going to be (we originally submitted our I-130 back in Feb 2021, so this whole process has taken almost 1.5 years so far!). We're applying for a CR1 visa -- I'm the sponsor (US citizen), he's from South Africa but living in Kenya / applying through that consulate. 

[Hames’ 5]

You and I have are in the same situation I guess, i130 sent in Dec 2021, nvc approved in April, looking for a CR-1 as well, have  you gotten any info that you can share?

[KESA 18]

Nothing yet 😕 we reached out to the NVC and received confirmation that we're still in the queue. It's been almost 6 months now since we were DQ'd, so I'm hoping we hear back soon. It sounds like from these message boards that the COVID closures caused delays of up to a year, but they should be way further through that backlog by now so I'm hoping we'll hear back by 8 months (November/early December) at the latest!  

[Hames’ 5]

This is really frustrating😩, I always thought if one was a citizen it wouldn’t take too long to be able to bring your spouse to the US, I always believed 3 months max should do it…I also reached out to the embassy and they said they do not have my case and that it is at nvc and that the embassy cannot really do anything until nvc sends them the case…🤔I was like ok let me reach out to nvc then and tell them to send it then😏, sent a public inquiry form in July and it took nvc 2 months to get back to me 🙄and the answer they gave me was that the case is processed and they are waiting for the embassy to tell them when they are ready to accept my case so they can send it to them! 😤…so where does the buck stop??…why does nvc hold the case and wait for the embassy if the case is already processed?? Why not just send it to the embassy? this way if I have any questions I’d simply reach out to the embassy…I don’t know what fool came up with this system of doing things between nvc and the local consulates.

[Hames’ 5]

Hi, any progress on your case?

[Hames’ 5]

On 9/7/2022 at 10:31 AM, KESA said:

Nothing yet 😕 we reached out to the NVC and received confirmation that we're still in the queue. It's been almost 6 months now since we were DQ'd, so I'm hoping we hear back soon. It sounds like from these message boards that the COVID closures caused delays of up to a year, but they should be way further through that backlog by now so I'm hoping we'll hear back by 8 months (November/early December) at the latest!  

Hi any progress on your case? Have you heard back from the Nairobi embassy?

[KESA 18]

On 11/3/2022 at 8:11 AM, Hames’ said:

Hi any progress on your case? Have you heard back from the Nairobi embassy?

We still haven't heard anything... starting to seem like maybe they haven't worked through the covid backlog very much at all? Not sure why else it would be taking this long. One member on these boards said it took him 12 months to get scheduled during the pandemic, so I'm assuming it wouldn't take longer than 12 months to hear back / get scheduled (which for us would mean March 2023).

 

I can't believe it's taking this long though... I'm really hoping we hear back soon. The wait has bene really disheartening and frustrating to be honest. Only silver lining I can think of is that originally we were assuming we would get the visa in under two years, so would get a CR1 - but seems like it's definitely going to be 2+ years since we got married / applied, so now we will be getting the IR1 lol 

[Hames’ 5]

17 hours ago, KESA said:

We still haven't heard anything... starting to seem like maybe they haven't worked through the covid backlog very much at all? Not sure why else it would be taking this long. One member on these boards said it took him 12 months to get scheduled during the pandemic, so I'm assuming it wouldn't take longer than 12 months to hear back / get scheduled (which for us would mean March 2023).

 

I can't believe it's taking this long though... I'm really hoping we hear back soon. The wait has bene really disheartening and frustrating to be honest. Only silver lining I can think of is that originally we were assuming we would get the visa in under two years, so would get a CR1 - but seems like it's definitely going to be 2+ years since we got married / applied, so now we will be getting the IR1 lol 

Hi, I’m not even sure what’s going on at the Nairobi embassy any more, I mean they seem to be processing more ‘immigrant visas’…below is a data breakdown of IV’s that were issued between June-September 2022 - I made a comparison between diversity visas vs CR1, IR1 visas ( please note this is official statistics from the travel.state websites’ Monthly Immigrant Visa Issuance Statistics

 

JUNE  ( DV-29, CR1-4, IR1-55 )

JULY  ( DV-66, CR1-2, IR1-10 )

AUG  ( DV-208, CR1-1, IR1-9 )

SEPT  ( DV-1034, CR1-0, IR1-1 )

 

Looking at these numbers we can conclude that the Nairobi embassy gave ‘priority’ to green card visas for during past four months ( October statistics haven’t been published yet and I’m really interested to see the new data ). I can understand the rational given DV visa fiscal year ends in September and they were trying to process as many DV’s as they could before September ends. 

Similarly we’ll also be ‘upgrading’ from CR1 to IR1 by the end of the year, Nairobi seems to be processing more of the IR1’s so hopefully this is a good thing. 🤞🏾🙏🏾
 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Hames’

[KESA 18]

On 11/18/2022 at 9:06 PM, Hames’ said:

Hi, I’m not even sure what’s going on at the Nairobi embassy any more, I mean they seem to be processing more ‘immigrant visas’…below is a data breakdown of IV’s that were issued between June-September 2022 - I made a comparison between diversity visas vs CR1, IR1 visas ( please note this is official statistics from the travel.state websites’ Monthly Immigrant Visa Issuance Statistics

 

JUNE  ( DV-29, CR1-4, IR1-55 )

JULY  ( DV-66, CR1-2, IR1-10 )

AUG  ( DV-208, CR1-1, IR1-9 )

SEPT  ( DV-1034, CR1-0, IR1-1 )

 

Looking at these numbers we can conclude that the Nairobi embassy gave ‘priority’ to green card visas for during past four months ( October statistics haven’t been published yet and I’m really interested to see the new data ). I can understand the rational given DV visa fiscal year ends in September and they were trying to process as many DV’s as they could before September ends. 

Similarly we’ll also be ‘upgrading’ from CR1 to IR1 by the end of the year, Nairobi seems to be processing more of the IR1’s so hopefully this is a good thing. 🤞🏾🙏🏾
 

Thanks for sharing these statistics! I hadn't seen these before and it's nice to have some insight into what's going out at the embassy lol 

 

Looks like you were right and the DV's dropped significantly in October and the IR1's picked back up to 15 (no CR1s that month though). Hopefully that's a sign that they're ramping back up and November and December will get back to the 40-50+ levels they were at before they started prioritizing the DV applications... 

 

Agreed - hopefully now that we're IRs that means we're towards the end of our waiting period🤞 although my guess is the only reason they don't process many CR1s is because there's so much backlog and this stupid process takes so long that unless you have a very good reason to expedite that gets approved, it must take almost everyone over 2 years to get to the interview stage, so by the time everyone's interviewing they've automatically converted to an IR1 😂

Edited December 7, 2022 by KESA

[Hames’ 5]

54 minutes ago, KESA said:

Thanks for sharing these statistics! I hadn't seen these before and it's nice to have some insight into what's going out at the embassy lol 

 

Looks like you were right and the DV's dropped significantly in October and the IR1's picked back up to 15 (no CR1s that month though). Hopefully that's a sign that they're ramping back up and November and December will get back to the 40-50+ levels they were at before they started prioritizing the DV applications... 

 

Agreed - hopefully now that we're IRs that means we're towards the end of our waiting period🤞 although my guess is the only reason they don't process many CR1s is because there's so much backlog and this stupid process takes so long that unless you have a very good reason to expedite that gets approved, it must take almost everyone over 2 years to get to the interview stage, so by the time everyone's interviewing they've automatically converted to an IR1 😂

I recently had a chat with someone who had their case documentarily qualified in December 2021 and they just had their interview in early November 2022 ( last month ) so we should be getting close, I see us both getting interviews in march 2023 based on this person’s experience. Since we both got dq’d in April. 

Edited December 7, 2022 by Hames’

[KESA 18]

8 hours ago, Hames’ said:

I recently had a chat with someone who had their case documentarily qualified in December 2021 and they just had their interview in early November 2022 ( last month ) so we should be getting close, I see us both getting interviews in march 2023 based on this person’s experience. Since we both got dq’d in April. 

Okay, good to know. I got DQ'ed 1 month earlier (March 17th) so hopefully I'll hear back in February then? I'll let you know if I get any updates! 

[Hames’ 5]

9 minutes ago, KESA said:

Okay, good to know. I got DQ'ed 1 month earlier (March 17th) so hopefully I'll hear back in February then? I'll let you know if I get any updates! 

If you got dq’ed in march then you should get an interview for February, meaning the notification should come next month ( the embassy gives you a little over a month to prepare for the interview ).

[Hames’ 5]

Hello, have you received your interview appointment?

[KESA 18]

9 hours ago, Hames’ said:

Hello, have you received your interview appointment?

No, still haven't heard anything 😕

[Hames’ 5]

2 hours ago, KESA said:

No, still haven't heard anything 😕

We’re you DQd in march or April? I just checked your timeline and it says April 29th…