Pinkinsight

Just an update - I JUST logged in to USCIS out of curiousity to check if either my AP or Green Card status had changed. Crazy world, even though I rang on the 31st and spoke to someone at USCIS who told me nothing had changed (and basically everything I already knew through the USCIS website) it was approved on the 31st! I have post decision activity and my application was approved. So i can thankfully head home to Australia briefly to see my family!

You keep mentioning DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals?) I don't know how this would be relevent to me? I was originally part of the K-1 fiance visa, but processed my Change of Status Greencard application in April - which is what I currently have been waiting for.

In all of the documentation i have read for AP (I-131) it clearly states it can only be for 3 reasons:
a. Educational purposes include, but are not limited to, semester abroad programs or academic research;
b. Employment purposes include, but are not limited to, overseas assignments, interviews, conferences,
training, or meetings with clients;
c. Humanitarian purposes include, but are not limited to, travel to obtain medical treatment, attend funeral
services for a family member, or visit an ailing relative

It also has a sentence that you can NOT request it just for travel for vacation.

Quoted form the Application instruction:

Travel for vacation is not a valid purpose. You must NOT file Form I-131 with your deferred action request or your package will be rejected and returned to you.

Does anyone actually know if you can request to have your case sent to your local office and go through the interview process? I don't want to go through the waiver process because it clearly is months longer than those who actually got sent straight for interviews!

The OP did not state they had been approved already. They said they received the interview waiver letter. They will most likely be approved without an interview, but the approval has not come yet. Also, sometimes people get the interview waiver letter and then still end up getting an interview after all.

That is correct. I also did not even know about AP until about 3 weeks ago. That being said also, I should of had my greencard by now if I didn't get bypassed with the interview waiver.

I probably never would have applied for AP at the time of original lodgement either as both my Father and Nanna never had any health issues at the time. You can't apply for AP just for a holiday. The whole process to me is just infuriating. 3 months to get an answer for a request to leave is absurd. I requested my application to be expedited but who knows how long that takes either (or even if it is accepted as an expedite).

I too am another who received a letter regarding the "interview waiver possibility but also in the same letter can take 6 months from the date of this letter". My husband and I had submitted a very documented K-1 initially (as we have been together for 7 years) so I figured that surely we wont have to do the interview...by the sounds of it though, it would have moved quicker had we actually gone down the interview path!

I am so incredibly frustrated, I wanted to be able to travel back to Australia in November but sadly this will not be the case if it does actually take 6 months from date of letter making it Feb 2015 (9 months in total from initial submission). I feel like America is holding me hostage for the time being :/

Who did people try and contact regarding further information regarding their case? Is there any "extenuating circumstances" or applications for a request to temporarily leave the country without voiding your pending application? This has been the most painful, expensive and lengthy process I have ever been a part of!

Hello,
So I have been trawling all these forums to find a few answers (because we all know USCIS never likes to actually help anyone via email or over the phone). My now husband and I got married at the end of April. I entered on a K1 visa in January and obviously have been here ever since. We lodged our adjustment of status greencard paperwork and have been in the process of that for some time. The average wait time for approval is roughly 6 months. 3 months into waiting I received a letter stating we were eligible to bypass the consulate interview if we qualified (my husband and I have been together for 7 years and have plenty of documentation - so this was a positive). In the same letter it also stated that good old USCIS was backlogged and it could take a further 6 months from the date of the letter! This would actually make my expected GC arrive in Feb 2015 if it was 6 months from that letter.

I had scheduled to fly back to Australia in November for a couple of weeks to visit both my Dad and grandparents (as it was cheaper for me to buy a return ticket than a one way when I originally left). I know you can not leave the country while your GC application is in progress as you void your application, which NO ONE wants to happen. I haven't seen anywhere an option for "extenuating circumstances" to be able to have temporary leave. I don't even know if that is an option?

One important question I do have (and in my optimistic mind right now am praying is the case) - if we don't have to do the consulate interview (I have already done my biographic info MONTHS ago also) and get notification that my GC is approved, but not in hand (it is easy enough for my husband to express it to me while away if it does arrive) - can i leave the country? I read somewhere that you also get a stamp in your passport for GC, i thought it was just a card??? I have to renew my passport this month too...so potentially another spanner in the works.

I am just really desperate to go back to Australia and February is an extremely long way away for me and I struggle to find any useful information on this part of the process. Any experiences, information or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone else has been having issues with the www.ustraveldocs.com/au site? The error message says "Your request cannot be processed at this time. The site administrator has been alerted."

I need to create an account to pay and schedule my interview in Sydney. I am just a little frustrated at the moment.

It has been a bit of a while since I touched base in this forum again. Mostly because i sent off every bit of my paperwork including medical as soon as I got my NOA2 paperwork in August.

I have been in the US visiting my fiance for the last 2 months. I could have gone for my consulate interview already, had I not been overseas. We had to submit some paperwork to extend the period of our NOA2 due to them normally expiring within 90 days of issuing - which was going to be while I was away! I have now got my consulate interview for the 26th November though..YAY!

Unfortunately the visa consualte payment site keeps giving me an error message

It is super frustrating as I need to pay through this site to secure my visa interview! This is for the Sydney consulate - not sure if anyway else how come across this issue?

In complete contrast though, my fiance and I paid our deposit for our wedding venue for April 23rd! Exciting!

Hi, we recently got NOA2 here in Australia- I am the beneficiary. I'm just wondering how much I can prepare at the moment.

I have ordered my police check, I'll probably have that in 1.5 - 2 months or so.

Am I able to get my medical done now or should I wait for the embassy to send me information?

My fiance also has her father as the co-sponsor. Once he has filled out his form, is it sufficient for him to simply photocopy his last tax return? Will that be good enough if that is all he has?

Also, it says on the K-1 flowchart that we have 6 months to enter the US after the visa is granted. Is that still valid?

Regards

Your Medical is valid for 6 months. So you can organise it now if you wish. You do however need your CASE NUMBER otherwise your medical is void. If Sydney is your consulate the number will start with SYD.....

Yes you have 6 months to enter after your visa is granted. This is still valid.

You also have 4 months from your Petition Approval (NOA2) to get all your paperwork in to the consulate, interviewed and approved. I got a little stuck with this as it took a month to get the email with my Packet 3 details and case number from NOA2 date. I am overseas for 2 1/2 months, so i have requested a petition approval period extension as the 4 month period expires while I am away.

If anyone runs into the same issue as me regarding needing a time extension due to certain circumstances regarding your petition 4 month approval period I got this email from the Sydney Consulate - which was such a massive relief!

Thank you for your recent inquiry.

To revalidate your petition, please have your U.S. citizen fiancé provide you a letter, requesting that your petition be extended to a further 4 months from the approval date of the I-129F petition. This letter must be dated and signed by your fiancé.

The letter from your U.S. citizen fiancé(e) should state their intention to still marry you within 90 days of your arrival into the U.S. with the K-1 visa and that you both are still free to marry.

Please scan and email a copy of this letter to SydneyIV@state.gov

If your request for revalidation is approved your application will automatically be extended & you will not be notified, however, if it is denied, only then will we contact you within 5 business days to you to advise you further.

Thank you

U.S. Consulate General, Sydney

Immigrant Visa Unit

(CC)

Note: You should never pay for travel arrangements (e.g., airfare, hotels) without having a visa in your possession. The U.S. Consulate General accepts no responsibility if you do so. Generally, it will take 5 business days to print your visa and prepare your document package after your interview; however, we are unable to guarantee the issuance of a U.S. visa before a fixed travel date. You risk significant financial losses if you ignore this advice.

**** Please include your case number in all correspondence ****

Please think before you print. Do you really need to print this email?

Just in case others run into the same issue as me, there is some relief knowing you can extend the period easily! I am so thankful!

Thank you for your recent inquiry.

To revalidate your petition, please have your U.S. citizen fiancé provide you a letter, requesting that your petition be extended to a further 4 months from the approval date of the I-129F petition. This letter must be dated and signed by your fiancé.

The letter from your U.S. citizen fiancé(e) should state their intention to still marry you within 90 days of your arrival into the U.S. with the K-1 visa and that you both are still free to marry.

Please scan and email a copy of this letter to SydneyIV@state.gov

If your request for revalidation is approved your application will automatically be extended & you will not be notified, however, if it is denied, only then will we contact you within 5 business days to you to advise you further.

Thank you

U.S. Consulate General, Sydney

Immigrant Visa Unit

(CC)

Note: You should never pay for travel arrangements (e.g., airfare, hotels) without having a visa in your possession. The U.S. Consulate General accepts no responsibility if you do so. Generally, it will take 5 business days to print your visa and prepare your document package after your interview; however, we are unable to guarantee the issuance of a U.S. visa before a fixed travel date. You risk significant financial losses if you ignore this advice.

**** Please include your case number in all correspondence ****

Please think before you print. Do you really need to print this email?

Hello, I thought I would post this in here. I thankfully received this from the Sydney Consulate regarding an extension of the petition approval period as I would be overseas for several months an unable to attend my interview until AFTER the expiration of the petition 4 month period. It may be a relief and help to others in the future:

Thank you for your recent inquiry.

To revalidate your petition, please have your U.S. citizen fiancé provide you a letter, requesting that your petition be extended to a further 4 months from the approval date of the I-129F petition. This letter must be dated and signed by your fiancé.

The letter from your U.S. citizen fiancé(e) should state their intention to still marry you within 90 days of your arrival into the U.S. with the K-1 visa and that you both are still free to marry.

Please scan and email a copy of this letter to SydneyIV@state.gov

If your request for revalidation is approved your application will automatically be extended & you will not be notified, however, if it is denied, only then will we contact you within 5 business days to you to advise you further.

Thank you

U.S. Consulate General, Sydney

Immigrant Visa Unit

(CC)

Note: You should never pay for travel arrangements (e.g., airfare, hotels) without having a visa in your possession. The U.S. Consulate General accepts no responsibility if you do so. Generally, it will take 5 business days to print your visa and prepare your document package after your interview; however, we are unable to guarantee the issuance of a U.S. visa before a fixed travel date. You risk significant financial losses if you ignore this advice.

**** Please include your case number in all correspondence ****

Please think before you print. Do you really need to print this email?

For anyone else who comes across this thread - I got a positive response from the Sydney Consulate!

Thank you for your recent inquiry.

To revalidate your petition, please have your U.S. citizen fiancé provide you a letter, requesting that your petition be extended to a further 4 months from the approval date of the I-129F petition. This letter must be dated and signed by your fiancé.

The letter from your U.S. citizen fiancé(e) should state their intention to still marry you within 90 days of your arrival into the U.S. with the K-1 visa and that you both are still free to marry.

Please scan and email a copy of this letter to SydneyIV@state.gov

If your request for revalidation is approved your application will automatically be extended & you will not be notified, however, if it is denied, only then will we contact you within 5 business days to you to advise you further.

Thank you

U.S. Consulate General, Sydney

Immigrant Visa Unit

(CC)

Note: You should never pay for travel arrangements (e.g., airfare, hotels) without having a visa in your possession. The U.S. Consulate General accepts no responsibility if you do so. Generally, it will take 5 business days to print your visa and prepare your document package after your interview; however, we are unable to guarantee the issuance of a U.S. visa before a fixed travel date. You risk significant financial losses if you ignore this advice.

**** Please include your case number in all correspondence ****

I am so relieved to have stumbled across this thread. I am in a similar situation of being slightly paniced about the 4 month period expiring. I need an extension as i will be overseas in the US for 2 months - we have all our paperwork and i was just going to put a cover letter on the "ready to be interviewed" form about my situation. I am so glad that extensions are possible! I couldn't bare to go through the petition stage all over again!

Oops, I just replied to your original post. No, you shouldn't have to go through the petition stage again as long as you have made some contact with the embassy. As you said you've got your medical booked and forms ready, so I would assume you should be fine.

Although I would recommend asking in the Australia forum as they will have more experience with your embassy.

Thanks so much for your recommendation. I have contacted the Sydney Embassy and waiting to hear back their suggestions. I will pop a cover letter in with my paperwork too before i ship it off.

It is a little reassuring to hear there is a possibility of leaniancy regarding the time frame at least!

Pinkinsight is Australia not UK.

In the UK you simply take a new letter of intent from the petitioner along to the interview.

So I wont have to go through the petition stage again? That is a slight relief. I will just be persistent.

A new letter of intent - so that means my fiance (American) will have to write a letter he intends to marry me again? I think we were going to have one of those regardless in our packet 3 docs just in case.

I am just curious to know if anyone has any details on this possibly. I need to extend my "visa approval period". In my packet 3 information it says i MUST have my consulate meeting and have my visa issued within 4 months of my Petition approval. What is so rubbish is I got my NOA2 approval dated 8th July, I didn't receive my Packet 3 email until August 9. They ate up a month in delivering me my email that states this information and i am still yet to come across this info anywhere (so i couldn't have been prepared to know this). I leave for the US in 3 1/2 weeks and don't return until after the 4 month period has lapsed.

I have contacted the consulate and sent a few emails off. I am waiting to hear back. I just want to know if anyone knows if there is a possibility of the visa approval period being extended? I would only need it extended by a month tops. I can easily go to an immediate consulate interview upon my return... but it just feels like this process AGAIN has come back to bite us

I have everything ready, about to submit all my "interview ready" paperwork, have my medical tomorrow and my police report is being delivered directly to the consulate. I just think with the paperwork processing periods there is NO WAY they are going to process my paperwork and give me back my paperwork after a consulate interview before i leave on the 6th Sept :/

It has been a stressful day with a few tears finding out that after waiting months and months for a petition approval that it may be botched up due to being overseas to see my fiance

I am just curious to know if anyone has any details on this possibly. I need to extend my "visa approval period". In my packet 3 information it says i MUST have my consulate meeting and have my visa issued within 4 months of my Petition approval. What is so rubbish is I got my NOA2 approval dated 8th July, I didn't receive my Packet 3 email until August 9. They ate up a month in delivering me my email that states this information and i am still yet to come across this info anywhere (so i couldn't have been prepared to know this). I leave for the US in 3 1/2 weeks and don't return until after the 4 month period has lapsed.

I have contacted the consulate and sent a few emails off. I am waiting to hear back. I just want to know if anyone knows if there is a possibility of the visa approval period being extended? I would only need it extended by a month tops. I can easily go to an immediate consulate interview upon my return... but it just feels like this process AGAIN has come back to bite us

I have everything ready, about to submit all my "interview ready" paperwork, have my medical tomorrow and my police report is being delivered directly to the consulate. I just think with the paperwork processing periods there is NO WAY they are going to process my paperwork and give me back my paperwork after a consulate interview before i leave on the 6th Sept :/

It has been a stressful day with a few tears finding out that after waiting months and months for a petition approval that it may be botched up due to being overseas to see my fiance

Correct -- the consulates can extend the time in 4-month increments. If you're concerned, contact the consulate and tell them your time frame.

(Organizer hat on)

*** Thread moved from K-1 Process forum to the Embassy/Consulate forum -- topic involves that phase. ***

OMG that is such a relief! I have contacted the Sydney consulate several times through a couple of methods and am just waiting for them to get back to me. Will i have to file anything for an extension? Or it's just a matter of the Sydney consulate noting it?

Note: i have no idea why this topic posted twice!? Apologies.

I am so close to tears it isn't funny (and not in a good way). My partner and I have been waiting months and months to see each other and due to how backed up and long the USCIS was taking I booked a 2 1/2 month holiday months and months ago to go and see him on the 6th Sept - 20th Nov. The problem now is - our petition got officially approved on the 8th of July but we didn't get our case number etc until last week and in the packet 3 info it says:

Please note that you MUST be interviewed and have your visa issued within the four-month validity of your petition.

None of this information above was anywhere that i came across on the visajourney site previously. Everything is so unpredictable and with time frames etc. Everything is so hard to plan around and now I feel like I am completely stung with the happiness of being approved turning to sadness because it could be a waste of time.

Does anyone know if there is extenuating circumstances where you can adjust this? I will technically be 4 months and 14 days when i return and I must have my interview at the Sydney Consulate as that is where my paperwork has been shipped and assigned.

I am freaking out now that waiting over 5 months for my petition was a waste of time and may have to do it again!

We received the hardcopy letter from NVC today with my case number!!!! My fiance only rang on Monday to see if we had a case number and if NVC has received our paperwork (as on some threads people had been waiting over a month only to have NVC say they haven't received any paperwork).

At the time they said they had received the paperwork but couldn't tell us the case number yet, but the NVC transit letter is dated the 1st of August! So it must have been assigned (as it's printed on the letter) but the phone person couldn't help! #######!?

It was a 2 week turnaround for us from NOA2 date notice of transfer to NVC, to NVC sending our paperwork on to the Sydney Consulate and issuing our case number. At present out paperwork is in transit to Sydney!!!

It is all very exciting! it's such a nice change of pace from sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting with the USCIS for something to happen.

I am just relieved i can do my medical before i go overseas!

Then in that case it doesn't matter about my statement I can't see nationalities on my phone.

I had my medical done last Friday. You won't get the interview date if you didn't complete the medical yet. It's a pack 3 requirement so go ahead and schedule. You don't even need a NVC case number in Germany. The uscis case number is just fine

I would be careful, with different countries i think is different requirements. I know Australia was adamant that you need to have your CASE number from NVC (not your USCIS number) to proceed with a valid Medical otherwise it was void. Medicals are valid for 6 months though.

I guess the best thing you can do is just go through Australia post with mail redirection from your previous address. I did it as backup. It is pretty cheap for 6 months.

We received our notification of our paperwork being shipped (from texas) on July 22. I have heard varying things so I got my fiance to call August 5 (2 weeks is usually the minimum wait time for transferring) to get any sort of confirmation our paperwork had been received by NVC. It had been received at NVC that day and they had been confirmed it being there in the system. We didn't get any notifications etc - we called and got this info from NVC (not USCIS). He enquired when we could expect to receive our case number and their response was just "shortly". So that could mean anything really.

I really do think it varies from when your paperwork is being sent from, time of month approved etc as to when it finally gets received at NVC and continues on its visa journey. You really need to wait a minimum of 2 weeks at the earliest for paperwork to be transferred.