US Immigration from South Korea

Hello, so we are waiting on my wife's IR1/CR1 visa interview at the US Embassy in Seoul. I have found the NVC stage to be much more opaque than the USCIS stage, with few data points to go off of. So I am posting this information here, in case it may be helpful for others.

So there is a Naver Cafe called Mijunmo ( ) that my wife uses. It is all in Korean though, and obviously focuses on the Seoul Embassy primarily. People there are pretty good on there about posting their timelines, including DQ dates, interview letter (IL) received dates, and actual interview dates. I do speak Korean, so I went through posts there from this summer and last summer to collate those timelines into a spreadsheet. I didn't record every single one cause it was a bit time-intensive hunting through the forums, but tried to get a good sample. I will attach a PDF of that spreadsheet here.

You can see for the past year DQ to IL wait times average about 30 days, and DQ to interview wait times average 80 days. However, do note that recently the Seoul Embassy is taking a lot longer. Many of us who were DQ'ed in May still have not received interview letters (roughly 90 days ago). You can also see in the spreadsheet that there is a lot of inconsistency in how cases are handled. Even though NVC does mostly go "first in/first out" as they say, there are times that doesn't happen. Also occasionally cases seem to get skipped over for later ones.

Seoul Embassy Interview Timelines.pdf

I recently got an RFE because when we submitted tax documents for my joint sponsor we submitted 2022 tax documents, she filed an extension for 2023 because she has such complicated taxes to do. My question is, if we can't get the tax documents for 2023 right now can she submit her significant assets INSTEAD of the 2023 tax return? Or do both need to be submitted?

The tax return probably will not be ready until October of this year.

Thank you in advance.

My partner was vaccinated twice in her home country before being approved for the K1 visa. Now we are in the United States and applying for AOS. Will she be required to get the third dose before our AOS is approved?

Thank you.

Is it still worth it to send in your I765 work authorization form with your I485 form? And the EAD would only be valid until the I485 is approved? The new fees are pretty high and I don t believe my fianc is going to be working anytime soon so thinking about spreading out the fees. She will be going to school in the meantime.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Hi everyone,

My husband and I moved 15 days ago and we updated his address on his USCIS profile the day after we moved. However, we do not have any pending cases currently since his ROC won t be until next year. When we updated it, the portal with View my Submissions showed request changed with a green check mark and a confirmation number but he did not receive a confirmation email. Also, I mailed my I-865 in about two weeks ago, so way before my 30 day deadline as sponsor.

So it s been 15 days and when I chat with Emma she always prompted us to wait. Since it s been that long, I chatted with her and then used the egov site to file an electronic AR-11 (I guess it s a different system but the same as the one on MyUSCIS) for my husband for his new address. He then got a confirmation email immediately.

Will this be a problem since we did file on his My USCIS the day after we moved but then we had to file using the other service after 15 days since it didn t seem to work on the online profile? Will this cause issues for us? Or are we covered because we originally did everything before the 10 days for him and the 30 days for me as the sponsor?

thank you for any help!