Doug&Winnie

Just about everyone gets this. Based on the discussions I had with the case officer it was:

the first AP is the immigration unit doing the paperwork for approving the visa

the first ready is a notice that they are finished and the paperwork is being sent for visa issuance

the second AP is the visa issuance people doing their own paperwork

the second ready is that the visa has been issued and is currently being processed for delivery

once you get that second ready, it should be sent out within a few days, although we received our visa before any of the various websites that allow you to look up the status said that it had been sent out.

She's here now. We're going to get her into some classes over the winter so she can get a GED. After that if she wants to go to college or get a part time job during the day is up to her - we're living in a college town that's short of daycare options for working parents, and since she likes taking care of small children that might be a good option for her. The education gap doesn't bother me much, other than I'll be bringing some popular science books home for her to read so she can understand better what I do and what various colleagues who come over for dinner are talking about.

I would call Eva Air and ask to make sure. I bought a 1 way ticket for Wennie on PAL using priceline, and have airline ticket cost: $350, ticket taxes and fees: $209.70. Philippines Airlines states on their website that the travel tax is not included in their tickets and must be paid before checking in. The extra $21 you paid in taxes isn't enough to make up the 1620 peso travel tax.

i was interviewed July 11, so i hope they are now working on our case. do you think it really helped when your senator send an inquiry to them?

No idea if it would have been processed that week anyway, but it can't hurt to try to get your senator to inquire on your behalf.

I wasn't able to be there for the first interview, and apparently they didn't like the way wennie couldn't answer some of the questions without having to look it up in the documents (my salary for instance), and her ability to speak english gets worse if she's stressed, as she was by the end of the first interview. When I called to talk with the consular officer after, he said they were concerned about the education level difference (apparently getting a Ph.D. makes some consular officers think they can say whom you're allowed to marry). After talking with the consular officer on the phone for about 20 minutes he said he thought it would be approved given the information I supplied, but it still took a month to get through administrative processing. They wouldn't say way, I called about once a week to inquire, and was only told "we're still filling out the paperwork".

yes.

We had a first interview on July 8th (2013), second interview on July 22nd (they seemed to find it odd that a US man with a Ph.D. would want to marry a Filipina who never went to college), and then administrative processing until last week. The visa was finally listed as issued on Aug 29th, coincidentally 4 days after I got a senator to send in a query about the reason for the delay in approving the visa.

I've heard of people mentioning that before, but never had any problem purchasing from the USA when I bought through the airline. Maybe its because they have offices there and accept payments directly. What airlines were you trying to book through?

I bought it with miles through AA - they could make the reservation but I had to call their ticket agent in Manila to pay the fees and get it ticketed.

Only restriction I found was that I could make the reservation online, but had to call up a Philippines based agent to purchase it (some law about having to purchase the ticket in the Philippines if the travel originates in the Philippines).

update: I got an email back that said since they have already forwarded the case to the Manila embassy, the NVC cannot do anything about the incorrect birth date. In the subject line of the email, however, the included the embassy case number that I had spent this week trying to get them to change the birthdate so that they could tell me. Not sure if this was someone being sneakily helpful, or bureaucracy as usual.

Yeah, I checked on the I-129F and G-325a and both agreed with her passport and birth certificate, so it's almost certainly a data entry error. I've sent off an email with a photocopy of the bio page of her passport per their request so they'll fix it, but they said it would take upwards of 20 days to fix it, which means another month delay before we can schedule the interview.

Finally had the K-1 petition approved by USCIS two weeks ago (filed on july 19th), called the NVC late last week and they informed me that the birthdate that I was giving for the beneficiary was incorrect and that if the one they have in their system is wrong I would need to send in a photocopy of Wennie's passport or birth certificate and that it would take up to 20 days to make the change. In the meantime, because I can't tell them the birthdate that they have in their system, they won't give us the embassy case number that we need to schedule the personal interview.

I've sent in the copy of the passport now to both NVC and the Manila embassy, anyone know if there's anyone in the embassy who can be contacted directly about problems like this?

220 days

They serviced my decision in 231 days (more depressingly, nearly 20 million seconds) - hopefully this means they're working again and the rest of you don't have long to wait.

Congratulations! I would have thought that was coincidence. A Senator's aide is unlikely to have worked that quick!

Out of interest, you said that you didn't receive an e-mail but has the USCIS website been updated and showing your approval?

I didn't check the website over the weekend as the email from the aide said it would take up to 10 days to be serviced - first notice I had of it was when the notice of action appeared in the mail yesterday. The website does now show it as "post decision".

July 19th NOA1 with CSC, just got approved (officially was approved on March 7th, but for some reason they didn't email me so I just got the letter today).

It was approved the same day I got a senator's aide to send a request for expedite, not sure if that was a coincidence or not.

Very quick update: got home today, and found a letter from USCIS in the mail. It contained an I-797 Notice of Action, informing me the petition was approved and being sent to the appropriate consulate. Nowhere on this does it state that it is a NOA2, but I'm assuming it is.

Date on the notice: march 7th, same date as the email from the senator's aide. Not sure if that is a coincidence or if the expedite was really that fast (I'm guessing a coincidence or it was scheduled for that week to be reviewed in any case). Why they didn't email me last week with the notice of approval I'm not sure.

I have a July 19th NOA1, 2 weeks ago decided to contact one of my senators (Sherrod Brown of Ohio) to see if I could get any help. After filling out some forms, I was contacted by the senator's staff member asking to summarize the problem so that she could forward a request to USCIS. Here's what I sent:

On thursday I was sent a reply:

Hoping this is real, and might be the breaking of the logjam at CSC.