jonfei9

Biometrics during interview depends on the country.. Indian applicants have to complete biometrics at least a day before interview. Check with your consulate. There is no fee for Immigrant applicants ... NVC Immigration fee is $325 from September 12.

Thank you so much for your input! Just in case we will take twice the amount of IV fee with us for the interview - our case was expedited and we need to pay IV fee at the interview.

I heard that during interview applicant does fingerprints - does applicant need to pay biometric fee during the interview? And how much is this fee by the way? What are the other fees we need to pay at the interview?

Also those who paid IV fee with NVC - please confirm if the amount if $325.

I think the delay between AOS fee and IV fee is ok, looks like NVC is preparing to invoice your IV fee very soon - I called NVC several times about our case, which has been expedited, but still was awaiting for someone to actually ship it out and I spoke with NVC Supervisor Sylvia, who was incredibly helpful and generally a very nice person and she helped a lot with shipping of our case promptly. From my very recent call experience with NVC I can tell that NVC picks up phone faster than it used to be a week ago - looks like thing are speeding up.

I am in the different boat now with the expedited processing, but still wanted to share my news if you find it useful.

Hello Im in australia and my husband is in US. We are putting together our packages. We understand everything needs to be sent together. My question is about the originals like police certificate and my photos that NVC website require for IV package. Am I supposed to mail them to hubby along with the other things on the IVdocs and then he puts it all into one big package withGod AOS docs and send them together? I only ask because when I was looking at the interview section of NVC website it talks about me having to take photos to the embassy and also take my police certificate. I'm honestly abit confused. We got married in US so hubby will be sending an original of our marriage certificate even though he already did this during USCIS stage. Should I get him to send a copy of the marriage certificate to me aswell for interview?

Send every original (excluding your passport) and your photos to your husband and he will put everything in one package and send it out to NVC. At your interview all your documents will be forwarded from NVC to Embassy, but still take your picture with you and your passport. You will also need bar coded documents confirming your appointment.

My update is very similar to jaiyen17' update - AOS fee showed up as paid, but IV is not invoiced yet. At this time our case has been expedited at NVC so we will no longer deal with NVC, but instead will deal directly with USEM. At this time case is still at NVC and has not been physically shipped to USEM. At this time our expectation is that we will pay IV fee during the interview and we will have to work with ESEM so that they allow us to file DS-260 online prior to the interview.

jaiyen17, I feel exactly the same way about sending original documents to NVC - there is a chance that originals will be lost either when I ship to NVC or when NVC ships them to Embassy. Despite that I will still send my originals to NVC, because not sending them over gives NVC the right to send me checklist, because NVC clearly has stated they want originals. The only thing I would recommend is that right after the interview at Embassy make sure you check on the spot that you have received all the originals back.

I expect DS-260 open up within 1.5-2 weeks, really hoping it will happen sooner. We are in the good spot at this time, because USCIS has considerably slowed down adjudication of I-130s recently and this gives a breathing room at NVC. In about 6 months or so USCIS will likely speed up after it dealt with dreamers and probably there will be another slowdown at NVC.

I have not heard anything about my expedite request and calling NVC today, but unlikely to hear anything helpful from them, because all they can say is that Embassy decides expedite requests and NVC has no knowledge when decision will be made.

At this time given recent trend of processing at NVC and Embassy I expect visa in hand (no expedite) sometimes in Dec 2014 - January 2015.

After my AOS fee showed as paid, I used the Document Cover Sheet to send both the AOS and IV packages together as instructed by an NVC operator.

A few days later I received the email stating my documents were received and to wait 60 days for review. That was 32 days ago.

I haven't received any checklists as of yet.

I don't anticipate receiving the archaic "false" checklists since both packages were sent and received together.

I know someone else here who did the same thing about a month before me and has received his case complete with no issues.

Have you used Cover sheet from the welcome letter? Have you used AOS and IV cover sheets too? I have welcome letter cover sheet, but I also got another one after I paid AOS fee.

jaiyen17, I believe our IV fee will be invoiced within first half of the next week, but no later then next next Wednesday. Per joni's link to NVC process it clearly says to pay all your fees, wait for 5-6 days and then submit all documents in one package. As for translations I am sending translations for all documents that are not in English and this will be official translations, not copies - why do you want to send a copy of translation? By the way I did translation and certification of Petitioner's document myself and never had a problem at USCIS (this case and older case) or NVC (older case).

Canya2, personally I would have waited till I have all my documents before sending the package. Have you spoken with NVC? I would recommend sending them an email and calling if necessary.

My news are - I paid my AOS fee and now waiting to be invoiced IV fee. Interestingly we have requested expeditious processing, but have not yet heard the outcome. I hope to hear something very soon, because if I don't know the outcome of expedite request then I don't know if I need to send documents to NVC or not...

Sounds good, hope everything goes smooth for us. By the way for USCIS I actually translated and certified all documents myself without any problem. I am going to include copies of all original documents that NVC is not going to retain, but for I864, w2 and all other good stuff that NVC retains I probably don't need to. Wish you good luck for the rest of the process, lets keep in touch since we are almost on the same schedule.

Thank you for the link! Are you preparing for submitting the required documents soon? I am obsessing now about photocopies - say I am sending the original birth certificate and translated/notarized photocopy. Do I also need to make a photocopy? Or say I am sending W-2 form - does NVC still needs another photocopy of the W-2 form? Common sense tells me that NVC probably needs photocopies of the original document only, because the original will be returned to me, but at this step I am not sure if common sense is enough to avoid checklist Can you please share your understanding regarding photocopies?

Thank you for the link! Are you preparing for submitting the required documents soon? I am obsessing now about photocopies - say I am sending the original birth certificate and translated/notarized photocopy. Do I also need to make a photocopy? Or say I am sending W-2 form - does NVC still needs another photocopy of the W-2 form? Common sense tells me that NVC probably needs photocopies of the original document only, because the original will be returned to me, but at this step I am not sure if common sense is enough to avoid checklist Can you please share your understanding regarding photocopies?

NVC wiki page mentions the change to the process of document submission, but there are no details. My case has been newly assigned a number and I immediately got a bar coded cover sheet in the welcome email that tells me to submit documents as one package, which combines documents from the former AOS and former IV packages. Looks like I can send the entire package (former AOS+IV) right away before actually waiting to be invoiced. Has anyone else received a bar coded cover page in the welcome email? If so have you sent all your documents before waiting to be invoiced?

Please help to answer this question about I-864 and I-864A:

I am filling taxes jointly with my wife and I am filling I-864 and my wife I-864A - through a research I discovered that for the total income we list our total income in both forms I-864 and I-864A. I get W2s and my wife is self-employed. We are submitting IRS Transcripts and I really was hoping to avoid sending W2s, because it is not required if we use IRS Transcript. However, from the transcript it is not clear what part was earned by my wife and by me - has anyone been in this situation? I assume that sending W2 forms will help, but I just hate to dig out all the old forms... Any input appreciated.

We followed the instructions and left it blank and did not get any checklist for that.

Antre, thank you - this is what I am going to do.

I read NVC wiki very diligently and find it very useful, but there is one advice I am having a problem with. Wiki says that to avoid checklist do not use blanks as form instruction says, but instead use N/A. I tried putting N/A in the blank fields, but for some of them pdf form says that I can only use alpha numeric characters. Another concern I have is that pdf form has a bar code - this bar code is used to scan your application the way you filed into computer. This means that technically a computer will decide if you missed anything in the form or not and because blanks are allowed it should not be a cause of checklist.

Can you please share if you have filed I-864 recently and had blanks if this was a problem for you? For I130 I did use blanks and had no problems. Also instructions to I 864 specifically say to leave lines blank.

post these questions in the OCTOBER NVC thread. There are veterans who follow that post and they will chime in and answer .

Will do, thank you for suggesting.

Forgot to mention that I had blanks in I-130 and did not use capital letters and this was not a problem.

I read NVC wiki very diligently and find it very useful, but there is one advice I am having a problem with. Wiki says that to avoid checklist do not use blanks as form instruction says, but instead use N/A. I tried putting N/A in the blank fields, but for some of them pdf form says that I can only use alpha numeric characters. Another concern I have is that pdf form has a bar code - this bar code is used to scan your application the way you filed into computer. This means that technically a computer will decide if you missed anything in the form or not and because blanks are allowed it should not be a cause of checklist.

Can you please share if you have filed I-864 recently and had blanks if this was a problem for you?

I will start:

I just love USCIS and how timely it processes I-130 from US Citizens - it took USCIS 7 months to not approve my I-130 case (which is expedited by the way) and still counting. Every day I love USCIS more and more and am counting days to see if my I-130 will establish a new record - almost 8 month, go go go...

I am not sure how I can thank USCIS and all the related parties - the only thing I can probably do is to exercise my right and responsibility to vote to thank them all. Of course this will be an indirect thank-you and I doubt that my vote, my family's votes and my friends' votes will make a big impact, but this is still better than nothing.

Had a call with Tier 2 Agent in Texas yesterday about my personal situation. During the conversation I also asked Agent how long it takes on average to process I-130 and if it is indeed close to 5 months as stated on their website.

Here is almost the exact reply from Agent: " No, this is not right. Of course, some applications get processed earlier than others depending on individual circumstances, but for a regular I-130 case I can tell you from my experience as I am working here and able to observe the workload of I-130 applications, it takes on average 8-12 months". Again this is almost the exact wording as I remember it coming from Agent at Texas - I at least appreciate his honesty that despite what is posted (5 months) he told me numbers that are closer to the truth, although I am very disappointed that it takes so long!

I get it now, so since I'm a Feb 10th filer, I'd have to wait at Least until August 10th or so. Thanks for that, I hope to get approved by then, if not, I now know what to do.

What does e-request actually do for you? Does it speed up application somehow? Is e-request the same thing as service request? I am a little confused with all these terms - if someone knows better please kindly clarify.

No, what it means is that the last date they reported as of May 31st was that of Jan 13th in THEIR system. They do that every month, but the only way to find this out is by calling and asking them to look that up for you. Now, even if you call 3 weeks from today, it'll still show that same date because they only update it once a month. It simply means they're working on January petitions, period. That's actually good news for all of us

Thank you for clarification! I wish they could make it faster - would be nice if they had a target time for processing I-130 about 2-3 months, which is plenty for this kind of petition considering that it is only a first step.

So I called USCIS today since it's our 5th month and asked about when I can process an e-request. She told me it has to be when the processing time for NSC shows a date greater than my pd which is February 10th. So to all that have this question about when to file for that, there's the answer

Processing time currently shows "5 months", not a date. Date shows up if processing center is behind its target processing time (5 months for I-130), so I am a little confused with what they told you. Does it mean that you can only call them if processing time shows date, not "5 months" ? Sorry, but it looks like they are just putting you and others to run in circles...

My fiance wrote a letter to Texas service asking to expedite our petition in February, because it was a very bad situation in Ukraine. But they ignored that request. When he called in April to know what is going on with our petition expediting, they said in Texas, that they do not accept requests like that, because it was sent by the post and they said, that if he wants to expedite so he should request by calling on telephone. He requested the expediting again and they said, that we have to wait 45 days after this request. When 45 days passed and we didn't have any, he called again.. The person, who was talking by telephone with my fiance said, that if my fiance insists on expediting he should confirm it.. My fiance confirmed his request and!!! in 10 days we got an email from immigration service, there was:

"Your case is now under expedited review. You should receive a decision or notice of further action on your Form I-129F within 45 days from the date of this letter."

So, we have to wait another 55 days after the third request !

Finally you got expedited request approved! Hope your application is approved promptly and you can soon join your fiance. Sorry to hear about situation in your country.