Lena&Steve

My wife is now living in the US with her Green Card (LPR) under her married name. Her Russian passport is under her maiden name.She wanted to legally change that in Russia but apparently the paperwork and effort required to do so is mind boggling.

Given that TSA in the US wants her plane ticket under her married name and Aeroflot wants her ticket to match her Russian passport,

What is the easiest or most hassle free way for her to travel to and from Russian until she can change her Russian passport?

I'm sure this has been covered before so I apologize for a duplicate post, but I was unable to find the right combination of magic words to get a good answer.

Thanks everyone.

We had our AOS interview in February 2014 (from a K1 visa), and it was definitely not what I was expecting. I thought I had a fairly good understanding of the kind of information required as far as proof of relationship goes and what kind of relationship questions to expect, but we had nothing like that. My wife was asked a few questions about very basic stuff like date and place of entry into the US and when and how we met, maybe 6 questions total. But then she was asked the questions from the DS-160 form: the prostitution, drugs, terrorism, communist party, visa fraud, murder and gun running questions. These we had not prepared for at all because I had never seen it mentioned that people were asked these questions. (By 'prepared for' I mean her English is passable but it really would have helped to have gone over the questions in her native language). We were not asked to show any proof of relationship but after the interview we were told we could add those items to her file if we wanted to. We were told we had been approved at the interview but that she needed an updated I-693 even though the only vaccinations she was missing were for those diseases she had had in childhood and the 'blanket waiver' box had been checked.

Anyone else with a similar experience?

Just an FYI. You may want to call USCIS and make sure you talk with a Tier 2 officer. With us our case was sent to the NRC in error (this does happen - it their long term records storage center). The case sat there for 7 weeks before I could finally get someone to locate it and take action. If someone isn't proactive about finding it. it could sit there forever. I made dozens and dozens of calls. NVC didn't have it, USCIS said it was shipped (it was, just to the wrong place). Ask the Tier 2 where your case was shipped. This may not be your situation at all, but it is a possibility. Best wishes for quick processing!

We too have NOA2 of July 10th. Nothing at NVC. Lots of success stories on VJ, but actually only 55% of couples with NOA2's the same week as ours have been "received" or logged into the NVC system. It certainly feels like forever though.The unfairness of the system is very frustrating.

I called DoS today and they suggested USCIS. I got to a tier 2 (they called me back, 107 min wait) and they gave me a tracking number. I should hear back on/before Aug 29th about where our file is located. I'm hoping that just having someone search will be enough of a kick in the pants.

And Aug 29th would be just a few days shy of the magical 8 weeks. Still, I very much hope they find your case and can give you a good and reasonable idea of when it will be processed. And I have they do this is a couple days and not a couple weeks.

Good Luck!

It's a compilation of CSC, VSC and TSC. More info here: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/447413-nvc-slowing-to-a-halt-in-processing/

R.I.P. NVC.

Since July 27, 177 NOA2's have been approved. The number of those received by NVC is 4, which is 3% of the cases. In June that number would have been around 35%. July numbers dropped like a rock. August numbers don't exist. See my other post for the data.

R.I.P. NVC.

Since July 27, 177 NOA2's have been approved. The number of those received by NVC is 4, which is 3% of the cases. In June that number would have been around 35%. July numbers dropped like a rock. August numbers don't exist.

NVC has slowed processing almost to a halt for K-1 visas. I came across this information in the VJ database by noticing that for some countries for those people who had a NOA2 date from the second week in July, less than 10% were getting a date from the NVC that their file had been logged into the system. Digging into the data in the database I found the following: people with an NOA2 in mid June saw 15% of cases received within 7 days, 40% within 14 days, 55% within 21 days, 65% within 28 days so roughly 35% were still waiting after 28 days. However for people with NOA2s from mid July those percentages received had dropped to 5% by 7 days, 20% by 14 days, and 30% by 21 days. For people with NOA2's after July 25th only 10% of cases have been received. For NOA2's after July 27th, no cases have been received by NVC. (according to the VJ timelines). Graphed out this data is pretty dramatic but I couldn't figure out how to include the graphs.

Does anyone know anything about this? I know we started getting the "8 weeks" mantra from the people at NVC, but why?

For those of you curious about the data, I've included it so you can make your own graphs.

Just FYI:

Our NOA2 is also July 10th. I have collected some data from the VJ database and this is what I found:

Percentage of cases received by NVC reported as waiting time from NOA2 to NVC:

7 days :: 28%

14 days :: 71%

21 days :: 92%

28 days :: 96%

35 days :: 98%

So by 5 weeks 98% of the people have had their cases received by the NVC, putting us in the bottom 2% of the population. This information is limited though. It is based only on the VJer's from their timelines (643 couples) so only represents a small portion of all the cases the NVC gets; the data is for NOA2's from April through August, and is only for the CSC (although I believe the VSC and TSC data would be similar).

Thank you all very much for the comments. You confirmed my own beliefs on the subject. I have no problem being told that I wasn't in the NVS system yet, but that wasn't the situation. I was told by the agent that I had given the incorrect receipt number and that I needed to call USCIS to get the correct one. Simply stated, this is a lie.

I received confirmation of my NOA-2 via email. I waited two weeks to call the NVC and was told by them the receipt number from the NOA-1 was different from the receipt number from the NOA-2 and that they couldn't help me. Is this correct, are the numbers different? I am currently on an extended visit to Russia and I cannot get my mail to get my I-797. Is there any other reasonable way to get the NOA-2 receipt number?

Most of the members on VisaJourney have opted to do the paperwork themselves. There are forums available which discuss the pluses and minuses of hiring an attorney. As you can tell from the EasyVisaWeb video, you will still be doing all the work of collecting the information and making sure it is accurate. I don't know what kind of support they provide but personally I was concerned to see that in their video they were filling out some information incorrectly and listing an address as 'stupid drive' doesn't engender confidence. I am also not sure what an embassy attorney is or which embassy the attorney is with. I do hope your experience is a good one. There are plenty of friendly and helpful members on the VJ forums who collectively have a lot of experience. Please browse the forums and ask questions. You will find that you are not alone in this process. Best wishes to you.