Follow-To-Join… when to pay IV and submit DS260

[Tiredbutpatient 0]

I…

am very frustrated with the process. My brother petitioned for me and my family in 1997. During the pandemic a visa was made available- I retained legal counsel, and paid and submitted the DS260 + IV fee…

 

well, my legal counsel never told me how/when to set up an appointment and my visa lapsed. 
 

i was able to appeal the decision and my “place in line” was reinstated. 
 

After a lot of tedious back and forth with NVC I was able to submit my DS260 + Fees + civil documents. 
 

my wife and daughter are “follow to join,” my brother does not have the income now, to bring us all over, his family has grown since… 1997. 
 

i was under the impression that I wouldn’t need to pay IV fees or submit DS260’s for my wife and daughter until after I immigrated to the US. 
 

i keep on getting notices from CEAC to pay IV fees for them, when I send public inquiries I get useless responses,”just wait we’ll send a message to your ceac mailbox.”

 

can someone steer me right?

 

we’re so close… I’ve submitted d everything correctly since June… and I’m still in a back and forth. 
 

my civil documents show as approved, but no one’s looked at the Affidavit of support. 

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

Are your wife and daughter actually listed as follow to join in your DS260?

[Tiredbutpatient 0]

24 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

Are your wife and daughter actually listed as follow to join in your DS260?

Is this pesky little question what’s dragging the entire application out? I had checked YES because she will be immigrating under me as a principal applicant…

 

but I guess the devil is in the details. 
 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Tiredbutpatient

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

Possibly it is. I believe the instructions say (I don’t have time to check right now) that yes to that means within 6 months. It’s some defined time, anyway. Otherwise it should be immigrating later, which is follow to join. 
 

 

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

That said, according to the NVC website all you need to do to change to follow to join is what you appear to have done seeing as the beneficiaries are listed as FTJ. That leaves me out of ideas, sorry.  

[JeanneAdil 6,303]

 

OP said  "my wife and daughter are “follow to join,” my brother does not have the income now, to bring us all over, his family has grown since… 1997."

 

and who will sponsor u (fill out the I 864) and show the proverty guideline income that is needed to support the I 864?

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

16 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

 

OP said  "my wife and daughter are “follow to join,” my brother does not have the income now, to bring us all over, his family has grown since… 1997."

 

and who will sponsor u (fill out the I 864) and show the proverty guideline income that is needed to support the I 864?

It seemed clear to me OP was saying brother can only do AOS for one immigrant now which is why only he is going to start with. There is already an i864 submitted as per NVC snapshot.

[Tiredbutpatient 0]

1 minute ago, SusieQQQ said:

It seemed clear to me OP was saying brother can only do AOS for one immigrant now which is why only he is going to start with. There is already an i864 submitted as per NVC snapshot.

Yup- correct my brother can only sponsor me. 
 

Idea is to start working asap and complement his income to bring over my wife and daughter. 
 

So…

 

am i back at the emailing NVC public inquiry to ask them to “unblock” my DS260 to update it, and see if THAT does it? 
 

interesting thing: I swear I had placed my wife and daughter as follow to join. 
 

this last review they where switched back to “accompany,” that makes me think they looked at my ds260- say my wife listed as “immigrating now,” and switched them from follow to join to accompany. 
 

some research on my end says that if I where to answer “no” on that question a follow up question would populate saying… are they coming in later?

 

stupid application, how is someone supposed to guess what would populate of you said “no…”*sigh* 

 

 

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

2 hours ago, Tiredbutpatient said:

Yup- correct my brother can only sponsor me. 
 

Idea is to start working asap and complement his income to bring over my wife and daughter. 
 

So…

 

am i back at the emailing NVC public inquiry to ask them to “unblock” my DS260 to update it, and see if THAT does it? 
 

interesting thing: I swear I had placed my wife and daughter as follow to join. 
 

this last review they where switched back to “accompany,” that makes me think they looked at my ds260- say my wife listed as “immigrating now,” and switched them from follow to join to accompany. 
 

some research on my end says that if I where to answer “no” on that question a follow up question would populate saying… are they coming in later?

 

stupid application, how is someone supposed to guess what would populate of you said “no…”*sigh* 

 

 

To be fair, I believe that (now vs later options) are described in the instructions for that section. It has to be immigrating later for follow to join.

[Tiredbutpatient 0]

5 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

To be fair, I believe that (now vs later options) are described in the instructions for that section. It has to be immigrating later for follow to join.

Interestingly enough- new development. 
 

my application shows as accepted, same for financial documents, even though they also sent a request for more W-2s and 1099’s for 2021. 
 

?? how is it accepted but also needs more documents?…

 

Usually how long after everything accepted would I hear from NVC about an appointment. It is absurd how I need to wait 2 months between ask NVC inquiries and still not get any sort of response. 

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

Well the wait time for appointment depends on the embassy you’ll be interviewing at. Many of them have backlogs from covid, and in a few cases they even had backlogs before that. So it could be anything from a couple of months (best outcome) to over a year before you get an interview, depending where you are.

[Chancy 6,233]

16 hours ago, Tiredbutpatient said:

?? how is it accepted but also needs more documents?…

 

Did you get the CEAC inbox message and NVC email saying that your case is Documentarily Qualified (DQ)?  If not, your case will not be queued for interview, even if you see "Accepted" status for the documents on CEAC.