ChuckM

My wife received a letter today that our interview may be waived, but due to delays not related to our case, it may be 6 months before any decision is made.

My wife received the same notice this morning. We applied at the end of April and had biometrics on May 30. When I check the case on line through www.uscis.com, the case is still at the Acceptance level and says that it is being handled by the National Benefits Center.

How can they make this decision if it has not at least gone through the Intial Review? I also thought that AOS cases were handled by the local offices and not the NBC.

It is a little fustrating, at least we have the EAD and Advance Parole, but it would be nice to have this next step taken care of in the long journey.

Our interview was originally July 12, 2012 in Ankara. In Ankara the only way to change the interview was by mail. I sent two emails in the days leading to the interview. I received a response that someone would contact me within 5 days each time. Nothing happened. Finally two days before the interview was scheduled, I sent a third email to the embassy and one email to my US Senator. About 1 week after the interview was originally scheduled, I finally received notice from the embassy that they rescheduled our interview. The only problem was that they scheduled it for 6 months later. My wife and decided we would just wait it out and finally had our interview in December. Not sure if any of this can help you, but we did change our interview successfully, but we had to do it by email.

Good Luck

It is not necessary and in some(most?) instances, the petitioner is not even allowed in the Embassy. I went to the interview with my then fiancee and was stuck waiting in the cold December rain in Ankara.

When you start working you are also earning the necessary credits to be able to collect. For instance, if I just started to work and have never worked before, and was permanently disabled one month after beginning to work I would not be eligible for SSA benefits. You become eligible after 40 credits, I cannot remember off the top of my head how long that takes. So you start working now, you start paying now, and eventually you will become eligible to collect.

I joined my wife in Ankara for the interview. I had all of the paperwork with me, she only needed to bring her passport and her Shanasnameh (birth certificate). I brought all the information I sent with the K-1 Application, everything I sent to the Embassy and additional documentation from that point to the interview. I was not allowed to enter the embassy, my wife said that at the intake, someone went though all of the information she brought with her and selected a sample of the information and told my wife only to bring this to the interview. This included all the pictures and travel records, but only a few of the email phone records. The interview was mostly based off of the pictures with my wife describing our travels together, Istanbul and Dubai. The only problem was that since my wife had blank pages on the shanasnameh, she did not translate those pages, like marriage and children. We needed to go get these translated that day and return to the embassy the next day with the complete translation. This cost an additional $70. I think my wife had the shanasnemeh translated originally in Iran for less than $20. If you or your fiance have any questions, please let me know, I am glad to help. The whole process was such an experience.

My Iranian wife interviewed in Ankara on December 2012. She did not have to go through AP and received her visa a few days later. We stayed in Ankara an extra week hoping that that would be the case and it was. When we were in Ankara, we met one other K-1 applicant(female) and 2 DV (one male, one female). The K-1 applicant also received her visa in a few days, the DV female when to AP and received her visa in about a month. Sadly the male DV applicant is still waiting.

We did not use an attorney, We applied for a K-1 visa in Nov 11. There were no problems with our visa process, I just followed the guides here on VJ. I did most of the paperwork in the US and my wife mailed or otherwise sent me the signed documents that were needed for the interview. The only delay was we were scheduled for an interview with about 6 days notice and there was no way my wife could have attended the interview in Ankara. We expected(hoped for) a September interview in Ankara, first date was in July, but rescheduled in December. Ankara is not a pretty place in December. If there is no problems with paperwork and your documentation, I think doing it yourself is fine. I always thought my biggest problem would be the fact that I am not Iranian, and this did come up in the interview. The interviewer had my wife speak in English where other Iranians on K-1 interviews with her could speak in Farsi.

Chuck

Last December my wife had her interview in Ankara, her birth certificate was translated, but we were missing some pages of the translation. She did not translate them because they did not have any information listed on them. Her Birth Certificate also lists things like marriage, birth of children and even her death. At the interview, she was told she was approved, but it was pending us submit the completed translated birth certificate. We found a translator and returned with the completed copy to the Embassy the next day. Then 5 days later she received her visa. I suggest you figure where you can get the "long version" of your birth certificate and have a plan to obtain it, hopefully it will be like our situation where we easily obtained the necessary information and we were really only delayed by one day.

Chuck

No, it can be included in the same packet as the I-485(AOS). I am also sending the Advance Parole(I-131). No idea if my wife will use it, but if she needs to return back to Iran for something, I want to be prepared. If you read the instruction closely on the I-765 and I-131, there are instructions specifically for filing these forms with the I-485.

I hope this helps. I should have mine in the mail by mid-week. I need to get some more pictures on Monday. My wife is so bored at home right now and wants to begin working as soon as she can so I want to get that work authorization soon.

If you have any questions please let me know and I will see if I can help.

so the I-765, Application for Employment Authorization is to be send in separately right? Not included in the AOS packet right?

Here is the guide I am using from the VJ website

AOS Guide for K1

can you send me the link to these instructions? ...im confuse myself too

I am getting ready to send of the AOS for my new wife. We need to include 2 passport pictures for the i-485, but the instructions for the I-131 and I-765 also ask for pictures and other information such as copy of the I-94 to be included with these applications. Do I need to then send a total of 6 pictures and multipe copies of the supporting forms for each of the I-485, I-131 and I-765 forms?

Thank you

I was at this embassy on December 10, waiting outside while my fiancee was inside for her interview. There were so many people waiting with me. I am saddened by this, but also thankful that there were not more injuries and death from this attack. I hope this does not disrupt the business of the embassy and that those with interview next week will be able to be seen.

I finally heard back from my inquires to the Ankara embassy about rescheduling your interview. They originally gave us only a 6 day notice which was not enough for my fiancee to travel from Tehran to Ankara. Now we have a date for December 10, Plenty of time, too much time actually but we will take what we can get. My question has to do with the date of the validity of my petition letter(NOA1). The original period was March 18 to July 18 2012. I did apply to the embassy for the extension, which would move this to November 18, 2012. Now our Appointment is still outside this period. Is this something we need to be worried about moving forward or is this normal?

Thank You

She does not need a visa to travel to Tehran, but her family will not allow her to travel by herself. She would need to leave tomorrow and since I cannot travel to Ankara to be with her uncle cannot travel with her right now, she cannot leave. Her parents have both passed and her uncle is "responsible" for her.

I can get an appointment as early as tomorrow, the problem is that she is now in Tehran and cannot arrange to travel with such little notice.

After a long wait for everything I just received an email from the Embassy in Ankara that we have a date for our interview for my Fiancee. It is July 23, 6 days from now. There is no way she can get to Ankara make an appointment for the medical exam and be prepared for the interview in just 6 days. What do we do? I figured that we would have a few weeks (3-4) to make our arrangements for the interview, but only 6 days is crazy. I am planning on traveling to Ankara to be with her for this. Is it easy to change the Interview date?

Salam,

Thank you all for the replies, I sent the letter for the extension today anyway, I am only out the shipping fee to Ankara, my Fiancee will resend me everything again, with the same size paper for all the forms.

When I filed the K-129F, my documents were all letter, the ones she signed were all A4, other then making it a little pain to put the packet together because of the different sizes there were no problems and everything was approved quickly, we were lucky enough to be together in Dubai on March 21, celebrating the Persian New Year, when we we received the NOA2. Now we just have to get the Packet 3 things done, and get this interview, so we don't have to both travel to a third country to see each other, I am not Iranian, so it is a little difficult for me to go there now.

Thanks again for the help.

Yes, She is using DHL, and it was still 8 days. I will contact the embassy to see about extending it.

I filled out the forms and emailed them to her, the DS 156, DS156K, DS 157, & DS230, She then printed them out. signed them and returned only the signature page to me, so if I print the rest out, the first pages will be letter, the signature pages will be A4. I knew not to sign part 2 of the DS 230, but unfortunately she did not understand, when I said only sign page 2, also means not to sign page 4.

I asked about the date, because my NOA1 says it is only valid from 3/19/2012 until 7/18/2012. I am not sure if she send me the information over again from Iran, that I will have the time to get it to Ankara before the 18th. If there are no delays we can make it, unfortunately, there also seems to be delays in even the express mail from Iran.

My fiancee just sent me the information for Packet 1 for to prepare for the visa, She only sent me the signature pages and not the whole documents. She also signed the DS-230 Part II. What do I do? Can I send the information like this, with Packet 1 Information the signature pages on A4 paper and everything else in letter size. We have to have this to the embassy by July 17 so we do not have much time. I wanted her to send everything to me so I can check it over and I will send to the embassy.

What will happen if we miss the July 17 date that is the NOA2?

My fiancee and I are filling out the ds-157. She worked for a company that is no longer in business and therefore does not have a phone number. Is there a proper way to answer question 12 with a situation like this?