Skyler and Silvia

Thanks for the feedback. We'll likely just wait then.

My wife's conditional residency ends August 31 so it's time for us to file to have conditions removed. However, our apartment lease ends on the 24th of this months and we are closing on a house on the 19th (assuming nothing goes horribly wrong between now and then). Obviously we will need to file the change of address once we move, but as I'm filling out the I-751 I'm wondering what address I should put in. We'll do an address forward with the post office from our apartment address so using that should get any responses to us just fine, but are we close enough to the move that it would be better to put the new address on instead?

Finally got the Waybill # today, which means it should only take a day to get to the DHL location. The place we chose has hours open tomorrow, but I suppose it's too much to hope that the package will be delivered there on a Saturday?

It should really only take about 2-3 business days if being delivered within Bogotá. However, this is Colombia we're talking about and they had 2 holidays last week so I'm thinking they're trying to catch up. Also, I've heard of people who have had to go to DHL in person and their visa envelope was sitting there all along even though there was no waybill number issued.

Diana

She has tried calling DHL and been told she can't do anything without a waybill number. I suppose she can go to the actual location and try.

So the visa was approved at the interview on 3/26, but still no sign of a waybill number. She has called the embassy to ask without success and nothing is updated online. Any tips or further information we might be missing? She is in Bogota, so everything I've seen posted here is that it would be 4-5 business day.

Seems the printout was sufficient. K1 Approved today!

We went to the interview today...K1 Approved! I will fill in more information soon, but wanted to share the good news

Finalizing our information for the interview tomorrow morning, and I'm a little skeptical about the Police Certificate. My fiancee went to the site and entered her information, and just got a page with a lot of text including (in bold capital letters), "NO TIENE ASUNTOS PENDIENTES CON LAS AUTORIDADES JUDICIALES". Is printing this page sufficient, or am I missing something? It seems to be far from an official document which has me nervous.

No, the BGT number stays the same all throughout the process. And since you can get a copy of the Instructions Package from the embassy's web site, there's no need to wait around for them to contact you for anything.

Good luck!

Diana

Fantastic, that's what I thought but wanted to confirm! We can just print out a copy of the interview confirmation page for her to take to the interview, yeah?

Thanks for all the information you and others have posted! This process would have been tremendously more difficult and frustrating without it.

Does the BGT number change between NVC and the Embassy? I jumped the gun a little and scheduled the interview as soon as the NVC gave me a BGT#. The package is sent down to the Embassy and should arrive in plenty of time, but is the BGT# going to change or is it possible any other snags may occur because of my over-eagerness?

Friends, have faith. I just talked to NVC and they have sent our package down to Bogota and assigned us a BGT#. Using that I've been able to schedule the interview and the end is in sight (*knock on wood*).

Since about a month in to the waiting I had been in contact with my Congressman's office. They reached out to USCIS to verify confirmation, and were told it was taking 5 months to process and couldn't do anything until then. The day it hit the 5 month mark, however, the Congressman's team was able to get the CSC to pull my file and assign it to an adjudicatory. A week and a half later, it was approved. A week after approval, the NVC received it and sent it on to the Embassy yesterday.

I believe my representative helped quite a bit in part because my fiancee's family will be in Utah for a religious gathering at the beginning of April and we wanted to try and get married while they were here since they wouldn't have a chance to attend otherwise. I know we aren't completely there yet, but with a bit more patience and prayer (definitely believe there has been some Divine Intervention helping us out!) I'm hopeful we will be able to get married while her family is here.

Moral of the story: things are moving and eventually you will get to the end.

Our NOA1 came on Sept. 21 for CSC...and NOA2 came last night while I was on a plane! (Had to resist the urge to stand and do a dance in the aisle when I got the email)

Do you need your BGT # before creating an account at http://colombia.usvisa-info.com?

We have the same date

So do we.

Congrats to Vermont! And to think, I was excited that I was at CSC because it was processing so much more quickly....

I've been working with my Congressman's Immigration staff, and just received this today (some sentences redacted by me):

"I called the California Service Center where your case is pending...The normal processing times have not changed due to DACA and they anticipate it will be sent to the floor for adjudication in the 5 month normal processing time... Each officer receives a large stack of cases to adjudicate and it can easily take 1-2 weeks (sometimes longer) for them to get through the stack."

So right now it's looking like we can expect ~5.5 months from NOA1 to get NOA2 for the CSC.

We're making plans that can easily be changed to different dates, although it was always going to be a small ceremony regardless so that helps.

The CSC just doesn't seem to have many processed recently (especially compared to VSC) as far as users on this site go. There's only been 2 in January and a handful in December. I wonder if there is anything unusual going on there or it is just happenstance.

I about had a heart attack reading the first couple of replies to this post! Can a mod edit out the misinformation? I'd hate for somebody to unnecessarily panic if they didn't read all the way through the thread or got confused.

Jacque67 -- I'm off to see him in 2 weeks time - already have so much to save for in the US but i couldnt go the while process without seeing him!

now preparing big time to be questioned at the border and hoping to be let through without a fuss. I shall report back to everyone how it goes! Really nervous that they will give me a grilling or not let me through :/

Vermont filers I think we're looking at approval some time in march...any reason to be more optimistic than that?? perhaps with no RFEs??

Don't be too worried. My fiancee just visited a couple weeks ago from Colombia and didn't face anything trouble.

My fiancee called me a few hours ago from JFK letting me know she got in without issue. The only questions they asked were "Why are you visiting?" ("Vacation") and "What do you do for work?" ("Finance"). If I find out more details later I'll post them, but from what I gathered in our brief conversation the officer was very friendly and there was no hassle.

My fiancee is heading up here tomorrow night (should arrive Friday morning), so fingers crossed that the plethora of information she is bringing will be enough to convince the officers at JFK that she really is only visiting for a week! This thread has been great as far as tips and such go.

For K1 visas, many VJ members have said that they've been able to book their appointments within a couple of weeks after paying the visa fee.

Diana

Awesome, that's better than I expected!

A minor question that I've been wondering: how far out is the earliest available interviews generally when you get online to schedule? Is it usually booked up for a month? 2 weeks? 2 months? We have a lot of flexibility and should be able to schedule an appointment as soon as possible once we are to that point, I'm just curious how long to expect for there to be open interview slots.

NO

There is no such thing as a free secretary.

Good to know. Is there a link or anything you can provide to the laws governing this? I always try to get down to the root and understand as much as possible.

One other question for the board in general:

She is currently employed by a company in Colombia that only does work for other Colombian businesses. Since there are no US companies involved is she able to continue working for them remotely? Assuming they are game for it.

I apologize if this has been addressed, but my Google-fu didn't yield any results that fully answered my question.

My fiancee and I are currently running through the K1 Visa process, and when she arrives I understand it will take 2-3 months to go through the EAD process. Since we both have quite a bit of entrepreneurial spirit, we've been talking about possible small/home-businesses to start together. Since I work full-time, she would primarily run it. I've got a couple questions:

If she doesn't draw a salary at all, is it alright to work without authorization (essentially volunteer work)?

Would the company need to be owned solely by me, or could we each have ownership of it?

Are there any limitations on the type of business (LLC, S-Corp, etc.) that can be created?