soheil

FYI: I think your signature line is a bit off on the date for your NOA2.

Imagine if it was true

I decided to call the NVC in the high hopes that our petition would be in their system given it was mailed from CSC on Thursday. They had it!! We have our London number!

Congrats

thanks guys for correcting me I knew I have heard of this somewhere

Thanks!! This makes a lot of sense.

Well, actually, it doesn't make sense AT ALL!!! saying 5 months as your normal processing time in your website and saying 6 months on phone does not make sense to me at all! In fact, nothing in this "journey" makes sense to me anymore

Hey guys ...NOA2...my fiance just told me our status shows post decision activity on the site n was approved on the 13th.. No email or text... Finally dis stage is over... :D

Nice congrats

24 days(15 business days) from NOA2 text&e-mail until case number verbally given to me by NVC. And I called everyday..

Wow, 24 days is sure a lot !!! congrats though

As other members mentioned, the purpose of GC is to stay permanently in US, meaning that you should stay most of the year inside rather than outside. However, it is ok to have short trips as long as you don't violate the "permanent resident" definition. I have heard that the maximum allowed time for being out of the country is 6 months in a year and anytime above that will raise flags that the GC holder has not chosen US as their permanent home. However, you shouldn't interpret this as going back and forth every 6 months as this is again going to raise flags. Of course, other members will correct me if I am wrong.

One thing that your mom could consider, is getting something called White Passport or leave of absence permission or something like these I don't know the name to be honest. This is a permission to leave the country for 2 years. Again, I don't know the effect of this in your visa process, as it has an adverse effect in citizenship process, meaning that those 2 years would not be counted towards the 5 year citizenship requirement. I am really sorry about these may be wrong information, and ask other members with experience in this regard to correct me

Congratulations!

It may go fast from the NVC to your Embassy, to packet 3, but there is also a time from USCIS approval notice to NVC receiving.

For us, it took 55 excrutiating days from our NOA2 approval notice from CSC until NVC finally says "we have your case" , and gave it a case number.

WOW? 55 days for real?!!! that is 3 months!!! Have you contacted your congress people during that time? Man, hearing these stories really takes away all the last pieces of hope I have left

It takes about 3 days for the case to arrive at the embassy. So send them an email on Friday or Monday of next week to find out if they have it. If they do, they will send you the K Visa Instructions Package via email. Just follow the instructions on how to register on the link provided, pick your DHL destination, pay for the visa and pick your interview date. If you hurry, you might be able to make your appointment for August.

For more info regarding the process in Colombia you can check out the Colombia Club thread.

Diana

Yes it takes about 3 days from NVC to EMBASSY, but as other members mentioned, it takes A LOT MORE for USCIS to send them to NVC. And then they have to "process" it, although this is typically about 3-4 days. Based on the current timelines, VSC is much faster than CSC on sending the approved petitions to NVC. Their average now is about 2-3 weeks. Adding the 3-4 days for the embassy to receive your case, I would say after a month (and half maybe), you should expect the embassy to inform you about the interview date which completely depends on their schedule and significantly varies by each country and embassy.

I don't know the reasons that you might consider postponing your trip, but these are the current "normal" processing times as of today.

Wow.. today I recieved a letter saying that

"The State Department's National Visa Center recieved an approved I-129F petition on behave of your fiancee. This letter is to let you know that within a week the petition will be forwarded to the appropriate visa-issuing post where your visa interview will take place. The U.S. Embassy/Consulate General will contact your fiance when ready to begin processing his/her applications. etc.

I never even recieved a NOA2 Letter during the past 6 months since my NOA1 and the USCIS website still says my case is at "Initial Review".

I am happy, but a little worried that I never got confirmation on the NOA2. Is this common?

congrats

I agree with Kate&Javi. Call USCIS and find out what is going on. It is strange though that you got a mail from NVC about simply receipt of your case. We have not yet passed this stage, but as far as I have read on VJ they only send you a letter after their process takes place to inform you that they have sent your case to the consulate. This is the reason why everyone is calling NVC every day to see whether they have received the case or not. I'm sure that other members can correct me if I'm being wrong.

Anyhow, I guess it doesn't matter now. You got 2 good news in one letter: NOA2 and receipt by NVC :dance:

Congrats, I just called nvc and got my case number this morning. Hang in there. Prayers for others.

Congrats

I don't want to be a douche and bring up the whole "CSC maybe faster than VSC but sucks at sending petitions to NVC" thing again, but "CSC maybe faster than VSC but sucks at sending petitions to NVC"

Does anyone know how can one become an adjudicator? I really want to be one, so that I can see the whole thing myself and know what the heck is going on there!!! every time I here Service Center, I think of a magical and secret black box that has some inputs, and some outputs, but NO ONE knows what's inside

USCIS has done everything so far to turn the engagement period , which should be one of the nicest moments in our lives into a hell!

agree

First of all, welcome to VJ

Regarding the wait time till your approval, based on the speed of VSC (Vermont Service Center) you should expect your NOA2 (approval notice) within 6-7 months, if everything goes normal. And by normal, I mean that since you haven't seen each other for the last 3 years, as others mentioned, your application does not meet the "met each other within the last 2 year" requirement. Therefore, you will probably get an RFE (Request For Evidence) for showing proof that you have met each other, and since you have not, sorry to say, I don't think that you will get an approval. One thing you can do though, is to explain them the reason that you have not met each other. The only reason that they accept, is having an obligation because of your religions.

Oh so no wait for hard copy? Ok. I got this number from Scott's post :

Is that the number you called everyday? If so.. then I tell my fiance to do on his Monday.

Yes, that's the number tell your fiance to call everyday they will probably tell you that you should wait 15 days until they get your case, but ask them to check your USCIS receipt number...hopefully, one day they'll have it

Since VSC is going to take forever and the London Embassy will tack on a another 2+ months and I refuse to let them put a damper on my life...

I think Julian is just going to come on over for a visit and stay until his interview, or rather, if he comes now, he'd have to go back in time to complete his medical so it can be sent to the Embassy in time for the interview.

Before we seriously consider just doing it this way, can anyone think of a reason this would be a bad idea? The only thing that comes to mind is an RFE, so we might wait until our approval or RFE in case they need something from over on his side of the pond and then fly him over.

other than that... both of us are just ready for a date to look forward to and since that's taking for *$#$&@$ ever...

That is a really good idea Mary. It would definitely help to ease the pain of this process. I myself, wanted to go to Iran for a month (I have to get back before school starts ) to see my fiancee, but decided to wait till our NOA2 exactly for the same reason you mentioned. But now, seeing recent processing times regarding the next step (NVC), I have decided to wait until our case completely goes out of US. Besides this, I can't think of any other reason as to why you shouldn't do it

I'm not a bad or jealous person, but SERIOUSLY?!!! 43 days?!!!!!!!!!!

Just heard back from Sen. Merkley's immigration staffer. (I contacted the staffer around 1:30 PM yesterday, sent in the inquiry and got a response just 10 minutes ago...efficient!!)

Our petition had been sitting in the CSC mailroom since it was approved and was mailed out to the NVC yesterday. It should be there sometime next week. Of course, it will take the NVC time to get it into their system, but here's hoping that doesn't take a month as well.

For my fellow UK petitioners and beneficiaries, she noted that, "Due to the presence of the Olympics, visa operations at the U.S. Embassy in London will not be at full capacity during July and August. Unfortunately, since visa officers will be diverted to other duties during the Olympics you might experience a delay in the scheduling of your fiancé’s K-1 visa interview."

We had already figured his interview wouldn't happen until September, so I'm hoping this keeps moving forward.

Congrats on finally going out of CSC

I wonder what effects would the Olympics have on the US embassy in London? After all, people are trying to GO to London, not coming out !!!

I gave them my receipt number every day. They would look it up and say "oh you have another few weeks call back later". Then one day I called and I gave them my receipt number and they asked for my birthday and my fiancee's (and our names). Then they told us they had received it. Now when I call in every day I have to give them my case number, our birthdays and our names.

Thanks

Hey I got a question, when we go by our "NOA1 date" do we use the date that we recieved the hard copy at home(feb 16) or the email? because my case status says this on the uscis website

"On February 13, 2012, we received this I129F PETITION FOR FIANCE(E), and mailed you a notice describing how we will process your case."

i know its not a BIG deal but want to be accurate to help everyone else.

I agree with Marry. I think since emails and texts and also mails can be delayed by various factors, it is better to use the official date printed on the letter. Like we got the NOA2 email on July 6, but the printed date on the letter is July 5. And I saw the actual mail on July 9 since I was away that weekend

Well, #######. I just got an email from USCIS. I have an RFE I seriously don't know what it could be for- I submitted all the pages of his and my passports, photos, emails, flight itineraries, receipts, the right check, and all the right documents. I guess I'll have to wait for my letter Does anyone know how long it takes to get the letter and get through the RFE process?

that's just not good I think it usually takes a couple of days to get the RFE letter and once you submit the required documents, you can be sure that your case is gonna be approved really soon...I have seen people getting approval within a week or two after responding to their RFEs. So be prepared to gather the documents needed and know that once they get them, you'll have your NOA2

That's just not true. I already have my case number. They gave me a case number the same day they received the package from NVC. I would give them a call again and ask a different person. After calling them now for about 25 days every single day, I have noticed about 3-4 times I was connected to someone that just wasn't very smart at all and did not know what they were doing.

Just some other info that might help people:

- NVC number is 603-334-0700

- When they get your case, they will assign a case number. You will not get an email or any other form of communication that they received your package. You must call them to find out.

- When they send your case to the embassy (about 5-10 business days later I think), they WILL give you communication that they sent it to the embassy. But it's going to come in the form of a letter sent through regular mail (not email). They ask for your email addresses, but they do not send you any email updates on your case (I keep hearing they do and they don't....but I finally talked to a girl last night that seemed pretty smart and she said they do not send emails...only the letter).

- When your case is sent to the embassy, you can find it on DHL tracking. Details on how to do this are in the NVC forums.

Nice info

I too keep calling them everyday (although it's been only a week from our NOA2). Some of them don't even bother to type my USCIS receipt number, as soon as I tell them it's been only a week! Even when I ask them several times to check it on their computers, they type it so fast that I feel that they are not really typing it and just listening to me and laughing in their heads Could you guys please tell me how is your experience with them? Is being asked for the USCIS receipt number the only way to check your file or they would need names and birthdays?

And now there's a thread by someone whose I-129F was approved within 43 days. How does that even happen? I guess that proves once again that there's no rhyme/reason to this process.

It's been four weeks today since our petition was approved, but our case has yet to make it to the NVC. I'm still going to remain hopeful that he'll be here by October, though.

4 weeks ?!!!

Just called NVC again at 7am EST--they said that they had received our file (FINALLY--23 days since NOA2)but did not process it at all yet and there was no NVC case number yet. But, they also said that it would be 20 business days until our file would be processed and we'd receive a NVC case number? Can 20 business days possibly be true??? That would be over 40 days from our NOA2 date. Have any Feb filers out there successfully received their NVC case number yet??

WOW, 23 days? I don't think the NVC processing itself is going to take 20 days! They don't really do anything! Just look at these timelines and you can see that it is usually taking 3-4 days:

K1 Visa Timeline (scroll down to see the NVC dates...see the next pages as well )

of course, I am really happy for having our petition approved, and I wish the same thing to all of you my friends. But, you'd think that getting NOA2 is the end of this frustrating game, but it is just the start of another waiting game

On a side note:

am I the only one missing Joy (afoyoswa) here ?

Thank you !! I thought we will got our NOA2 by next week or according to Visajourney on July 14th. CSC has been speedy up with NOA2, hopefully with NVC as well. As I read here so many members from CSC got their case number more than 22 days

But let me enjoy this happiness of approval first then be stress out later

Your fear is true! I think CSC employees must be so happy about being faster than VSC that they have totally forgotten about sending the approved petitions to NVC the average now is above 25