US Immigration from Germany

Hi everyone,

I figured there might be some people who are also in the process of putting their package together already ahead of the holidays.

Hopefully it ll be smooth sailing for all of us. Please share any timelines, thoughts, prayers as we navigate this extremely joyous process.

Our 90 day window opens 01/19/2024 and plan is to have everything ready to go before this weekend, so we will only need to add latest bills/statements in January and print out some pictures pretty much. We are planning on mailing the whole thing out the very day the window opens. We'll be moving states at the end of February so I'm kinda anxious about receiving all the important letters from USCIS in those 6 weeks ahead of us leaving here.

Out of curiosity, is there anyone who s travelled somewhat extensively in the last two years? How have you organised (or are planning on organising) evidence in relation to this - i. e. boarding passes, hotel resis, booking confirmations etc. pp. We have 17 trips we took together since getting married so really it is quite a lot. Still going back and forth on this as we re not trying to overwhelm USCIS with potentially unnecessary information.

Looking forward to getting this out of the way though honestly. It s going to be a busy few months for us in between USCIS stuff, a last little on-island holiday, shipping all our belongings and cars, some extended hotel stays and a 15hr journey with a very hyper kitten.

Hey I m from Germany and didn t have to do a road test to get my Wisconsin drivers license. Went there today and got the receipt and I should get the drivers license in the next couple days in the mail.
Is it normal that they don t confiscate or void my German drivers license? Do I get to have two drivers licenses now?

Hey Guys!

I have a friend who is a US citizen living in china and he is planning on bringing his girlfriend to the US.

Now I'm wondering what is the better option. I know with the CR1 you have the green card much faster than with a K1 visa.

But how fast are CR1's approved in China currently? Does the country of origin play into that or are CR1 visas equally fast approved no matter where you are from.

Thanks!

Hello!

I am going nuts over here as I cant seem to get any information elsewhere. I am really sorry if this isnt the correct topic oris not worded right,etc. This is my first time using this website aside from occasionally browsing it to read about others experiences. I also apologize in advance for any typos and grammar errors. It is 2 am over here and my keyboard is all messed up.

My situation is as follows:

I am currently in America as my partner and I had planned and bought the tickets well before we received the approval. I actually got the note for first approval the day before leaving. I would have canceled the visit (because it was/is a long visit I will return to Germany on the 28th dec) but my partner and I searched the us gov website and learned that this shouldnt be an issue as the embassy works with you to schedule the interview and will extend the approval time if necessary when the interview cant be held in time. I tried to call the embassy within the week of landing to confirm the information straight from the source but they just redirected me to the website and a machine voice system with the exacat same information. Aside from that everything else worked out was fine. My family helped me by sending me any personal info I needed to fill out any other papers from over here. It did take a bit longer overall.

Now to the issue at hand:

I have applied for the I-129F Form. Approved.

Was send the approval note from the usembassy Frankfurt in Germany with a valid date until the 22nd December. So literally this coming Friday.

I filled out the DS160, received the approval email and all. Went to the website https://portal.ustraveldocs.com, paid the 251 Euro fee and schedule the appointment.

The website then said:

"Ihre Anfrage zur Terminvereinbarung wurde empfangen und wird berpr ft. Sie werden eine E-Mail erhalten, sobald Ihre Anfrage genehmigt wurde."

(Your request to schedule an appointment has been received and is being checked. You will receive an email once it has been granted.)

Sorry, I dont know if this forum allows german or is english only.

It has been nearly 2 weeks now without me getting any confirmation email from the website. So I am sitting here without an interview date nor affirmation that the payment went officially through. But our approval notice from the embassy runs out this Friday!

I checked the status update on the ustraveldoc website: no status at all (I am assuming that means the request hasnt even been seen yet, much less is it being checked).

I also checked my cases status on the us gov website: Ready for the interview once scheduled! With the last update being in October from when I send out the DS160.

If my interview request is finally reviewd but the embassy approval note has run out, wont my request be immediately tossed out entirely/denied?

I am going insane. I tried emailing the websites support. No answer so far. It has been a week. Even though their website said they would reply within 2 workdays..

I emailed the embassy support team (granted the email was send out friday evening so I do not expect an answer by now of course, but my nerves are destroying me right now).

Tried calling the embassy itself (dumb idea I know, but I just didnt know what else to do anymore). The website itself only has a machine voice system to answer. Whether you call or use the live chat, it is all the same. Not helpful to me at all.

In their FAQ they claim with my method of payment I should be able to schedule within 4 hours after payment.

We used my partners credit card since my debit wasnt accepted. I wasnt sure if that would be fine as the website said clearly the fee has to be paid in Euro. But my partners bank let him specify to send the money in Euro. The website gave us a confirmation number for the payment that we had to put in the form to request the interview and it worked with no issue.

Now I am sitting here. Wondering what to do. I tried searching for a request form to prolong the approval note send by the embassy but didnt see anzthing so far. But I might have just been careless due to me getting frantic. Did I oversee the obvious? Did the payment even go through? Should I have used the original cases number as it was sent to me from the nvc or the one with the embassy case number in the interview request form? Did I do something wrong that delazed the confirmation?

Again I am very sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, a silly question or anything like that. I just dont know where else to ask anymore.
Let me know if this isnt enough information on my end. Any information and tips would be appreciated.

I just hope I didnt waste all the work and time and frustration my partner and I already poured into this process, just because I was too complacent and didnt immediately requested an extention of our approval note time.

Thank you very much in advance for reading/replying

I got my receipt notice for I-485 and it starts with IOE.

According to my research that means its being processed online.

Does that mean its being processed faster or is USCIS just doing that with any I-485 they get at a lockbox.

I saw that the processing time as of right now is 14.5 months so just trying to figure out how accurate that is.

Thank you for your help!