natalie.le

Got my interview scheduled notice by text! I checked the documents tab online a day later and it is scheduled for 10/29. I see a bunch of people in the June 2018 N400 filing group have already finished their oath ceremonies, so all of us in July are not far behind...

July filer here! Just saw this thread. And just finished biometrics yesterday. 

I just received the approval notice in the mail today! For some reason the receipt EAC number was different than what I previously got, so I never even got a text notification. The original receipt number showed up as CRI-89, but this new number does indeed show I-751.

I see a few June filers in the timeline who have gotten approval. I hope that your time will come soon too. 

I got a message this afternoon that my green card was being produced!

Congrats on everybody who got approved! How are people celebrating this almost 1.5 year journey?!?

yep, got the waiver today in the mail.

EAD in production today!

Although it was before being outside of normal processing times, I was wondering if the site just hadn't updated our status...because I've seen many others stating this was the case for them. I called and asked for a Tier 2. He wasn't the most polite person I've dealt with, but he did confirm that our status changed to ready to schedule for an interview, and told us the interview could be scheduled anytime between now up through April. I'm praying this eliminates the possibility of the dreaded potential interview waiver!

Why is the interview waiver a dreaded thing?

Hello everybody, also a December '14 filer here. Just replied to an RFE and did biometrics two weeks ago. Now for the long wait...

Blue slip is what they give out to ask the interviewees to bring missing documents or additional proof (birth cert, letter of intent etc). On my interview day a lot of girls didnt speak english and still got approved. Good luck!

You can go to the consulate review section here on visajourney. A lot of people have reviewed and recorded the questions asked.

There's a recommended adult immunization schedule from CDC. I think they have a link from the hcmc consulate website. Theres also a vietnamese forum called webtretho, people there said there was some paper posted on some door that specified which vaccines you need but i didnt see any when I was there in nov 2014. I was born in 1987 so according to the ds-3025 form i recieved afterwards, i only needed Tdap, MMR, varicella, and influenza. But i actually need hep a and b for school here in the US so i got them anyway.

If you want to make sure, I would suggest going straight to the quarantine center and ask. They're extremely busy so phone doesnt work well. Go around 11am in the morning when its less busy so they're less grumpy .

The thing is even though hep a/b is not compulsory on cdc's document and not recorded on my ds-3025, it seems from the webtretho forum that a lot of women my age were given hep a/b by the quarantine center. And even though i already had a Tdap shot, the quarantine center still gave me a tetanus shot which later i found out was not recorded in my ds-3025 form, ie it actually wasn't needed? Weird and shady.

We updated with the greencard to show new status as permanent resident instead of visa holder. Updated again to change to US citizen.

Hi Nich-Nick, how do you "update"? By going to SS office and re-applying?

Try checking with the embassy. When i went for my interview, i didnt have the required police record but they gave me a blue slip and i can bring the missing documents back when i have it. The downside is having to go through all the security check and long line. See if you can reschedule to a preferable date coz sometimes interview dates are all full.

Ok update: so i declared that i have packaged dried fruits and got into line A to screen. They then allow me to bring the packaged fruits and the powder medicine but confiscated the pills with chicken ingredients. I removed the boxes with the chicken image. These pills come in a white ball container. But these pills are apparently very popular coz the customs officer recognized it immediately without the original box. So no to those pills. What a bummer argh.

I have

1. about 1kg of powdered herbal medicine in a normal pastic bag, not the sealed, packaged kind.

2. Six boxes of another type of herbal pill. This has fomal package. But the medicine is said to contain black chicken. There's even a giant chicken on the box!

Am i allowed to bring these into america? Since i dont have any label for item #1 and chicken is not permitted so item #2 is iffy? Have anyone had similar experience before?

Thanks so much for your input!

I would go to the UStravel website and look at the available dates. Sometimes dates run out really fast like right now its Jan so I think 2 months is a good amount of time for the Pkt3 to arrive and gathering your documents.

Interview is in ho chi minh but you can now do medical exams and vaccination in hanoi, as stated in the instruction. Maybe call to see if they deliver.

Maybe she can call the quarantine center and ask to be sure. I know that you'll have to bring thr vaccination documents to a doctor in america to transcribe to some form certifying that she's completed all the vaccines so in theory it doesnt matter where she gets those shots. Check aroubd the forum as well. Best of luck!

Going through the K1 process here in Vietnam, there're a few things I thought we could have done differently. If you are in a rush and want to minimize waiting time, read on:

1. Police record number 2:

As soon as you get approval from USCIS, I suggest you start applying for this. It will take 3 weeks or longer to process and you don't need any documents from the embassy to apply for this.

2. NVC:

Two weeks from when your application is transferred from USCIS to NVC, you can start calling NVC to get your HCM number. Call in the morning US time when they just open so you don't have to wait for hours on the phone.

Once you get your HCM, you can check on CEAC website to see when your application leaves NVC for US Embassy in Vietnam.

3. DS-160 and UStravel:

I would argue that once you have your HCM number, you should start submitting DS-160 form and pay the visa fee so that you can see the available interview dates on USTravel website. We didn't pay the visa fee but only rely on the earliest interview date available (29 Oct 2014), which was a mistake because it turned out that other people were taking up all other dates in Nov without us knowing. So now we're stuck with 29 Oct 2014 which is really early for us because we do not have all the documents ready (the police record 2 to be specific). Today they just opened interview dates in Dec but that's too late for us so we will just stick with 29 Oct and see how it goes.

If you want to get the visa asap, keep this in mind because the interview dates get snatched up fast/are limited. There are only about 8 to 10 dates and only about 2 slots available for each date in Dec.

4. Medical exam and vaccination:

After getting your package 3, do your vaccination first at HCM quarantine center even though on the US Embassy website said go to your medical exam first. The medical exam people expect you to have your vaccination first and if not you'll have to come back to the medical exam again to submit the vaccination form.

You can go to the quarantine center the day before and get a queue number so you dont have to wait too long for your turn the next day. I was perplexed at first because I was one of the first tens to get there and I still get a number 79 and had to wait for 3 hours for my turn. If you dont have any record, they will draw blood and do test but we think it's more simple to just get all the shots again beforehand. I started to get my vaccinations about 6 months ago (Hep A&B takes 6-7 months for 3 shots, MMR, Tdap, Varicella).

Once you get the yellow vaccination form, go for the medical exam. Having gone to Cho Ray, I think you should go to IOM. At Cho Ray if you do some additional tests (eyes, ultrasound etc) you will have to go to another department in the hospital, or worse, a clinic outside. In this case you have to compete with all other patients from outside and it's just a long, agonizing wait. If you have had surgery or other hospitalization documents, bring them along as the doctor might need it.

Also at the moment, you have to submit some 3x4 photos but they have to be international 3x4 size, which is bigger than the normal 3x4. Go to the shops in district 1 coz they're more familiar with those sizes.

They can send the medical exam result back to your address so even if you're not from HCMC, you dont have to worry about whether you have allocate enough time to wait in HCMC. I did my exam on Tue, submitted vaccination form on Thu and got the result delivered to my house in HCMC the following Wed. It could take more time if you're from other provinces.

Will post more if there's any thing interesting from my interview. Cheers!

Interview dates in December are now open.

That's most likely the HBV shot. You get 3 shots for HBV which are placed at 1-month and 6-month or so interval. I think she can definitely have the the third shot in America I've read about it on forums.

The quarantine office has Tdap vaccine as of 15 Oct.

My&truong, check your ceac status. Ours said ready on 3rd oct. We got our package 3 on 11oct. Use the inquiry form on the embassy website to ask them.

Meanwhile, you can do the police record number 2. You dont need the invitation letter to do this and it'll take 3 weeks or more.

Thanks xxxyyyzzz, we're checking everyday. Hopefully they'll open it soon because there's no way we'll have all the documents ready by 29th oct...