US Immigration from South Africa

Hi there. I'm hoping someone will be able to answer my questions.

Background: we applied for the K1 visa in August 2024 and USCIS approved our petition in January 2025. USCIS sent our application to NVC and we're currently waiting for NVC to get back to us.

I know that a police clearance certificate is needed for the embassy interview stage, can anyone from South Africa who is currently going through this process please advise how long it takes to receive the police clearance certificate.

Also, will the interview be conducted at the embassy in Pretoria or will it be done at the consulate in my city (Cape Town)

Finally, can someone please provide a list of all vaccinations required. I've heard and read that some are required while others aren't depending on your age.

Much appreciated!

I recently filed for a reentry permit for a parent. The last time I did this, I filed the form and it took about 2 days to arrive and the payment was processed a day later - this was back in 2023.

This year on 2/15 I filed the application, USCIS received it on 2/18, but no payment has been processed, and I ve received no electronic confirmation (I filed a G-1450). Was wondering if it s taking longer lately OR my more paranoid mind thinks I made a clerical error with a date or didn t sign something. So just wanted input from the community on their recent I-131 submission timelines.

thanks!

Hey all, welcome to tax season:

Quick rundown of our situation, because I'm used to years of filing single so not only do I have the added pleasure of filing jointly now, but I have to factor in my husband's EAD/income. So here the situation: when my husband came to marry me on a K1, his employer offered to suspend his employment until he was authorized to work again. All pay was frozen and he used the hiatus to assimilate to life in the US, which allowed us to adhere to US law and wait on him earning income until his EAD was issued. He was approved for EAD at the end of November and with card in hand, contacted his employer and resumed remote work on December 1st.

So to summarize, he worked for a foreign employer on foreign soil from January-first week of September, suspended work/was unemployed September-November, and then was re-employed by his foreign employer with US authorization for the month of December. Questions:

1) Given the complexity of the situation (add to it that I am part-resident of two states in 2024 due to a move/change in positions), should I look into hiring a tax service? If so, are there tax preparers who specialize in international taxes as a whole, or specific countries?

2) If it's a filing that's completely doable by a person used to filing their own taxes, then what should I be looking for from my husband in terms of forms/documentation? Are there resources on the forums, because I have no idea what to search for. To this regard, if anyone has links to similar threads, hook me up.

If anyone is curious, I am a wage earner and have always qualified for free filing through third parties provided by the IRS. However, depending on what we have to file, we may or may not qualify (if it's just the one month from US soil, we're good. If I have to consider what he made back home for the whole year, not so much).

TIA.

Hey all! Been on the forums here since around the time of our first K1 NOA2 (yes, we had two) back in March of this year. I'd say we're long overdue for a little introduction:

I'm Heather, the main arbiter of the hplusj account and the USC. My now-husband, Jon, is from South Africa. He arrived here on Friday the 13th of September because September 11th is clearly cursed and his flights kept cancelling. We live in Iowa, though right around the time of our NOA2 (literally my first piece of mail) I moved from Minneapolis down to the Des Moines metro. I work in the hospitality industry and, once that EAD shows up for Jon, he'll probably jump right back into software development.

We did things the hard way with a K1, and it is what it is. Things like delaying our wedding would've been smart but we're suckers for sentimentality and wooo, is that a costly endeavor. When I mean costly, I don't necessarily meant the cost of the K1 (although that's certainly not cheap either). What it also cost us was understanding from our loved ones, and a sense of normalcy. Jon and I had a lovely micro-wedding in Vegas in an olive grove (pics below) but our family and friends really struggled to wrap their heads around a wedding invitation which had several time zones printed on it. Imagine the feedback we got: letters that read, We're so happy for you but we just can't make the journey when we had paid over $500 for a production team to livestream, in an attempt to include them!

Anyway, the wedding was quite the adventure (so much to say on that, but let's not bog down an intro), and we're glad to be on the other side. At the time of this post, we just got the text from USCIS notifying us that Jon's NOA1 for the AOS/EAD are in the mail. It's on to the next steps, getting just a bit closer to citizenship!

We are so glad to be here, to contribute our journey and hopefully help others along the way. Thank you for this site, it's been a godsend!!