Mrs. DK

I recently had my CR-1 interview in Frankfurt, Germany. My husband was there with me at the window, the CO asked me a few questions, how we met, what his job was etc and then said my visa was approved (she even joked about my husband looking nothing like his photo on our paperwork!). My passport was back with me within a few days.

Congratulations! I'm very happy for those who got approved! I know how difficult it can get, especially when Nvc made mistakes (like ours!). I hope mine will go as smooth as possible!

Thank you a lot for your comment, this definitely gave me some idea about what could possibly happen!

Sorry, I was talking about the i-130! Not k-3. I think they're different? Lol

AP means they need more time to look at your paperwork and they may take them forever

Thank you!

Any response you get may not be an example of what happens in your case because they are all unique. If your case has been presented correctly the interview should be easy and quick. My embassy said they needed 3 days to insert the visa. There are cases that are put in A P which can then take days, weeks or months to be approved or denied.

I hope your post is in the right forum so you will get info from Japanese based cases.

What does AP means? We've gone this far, but we are not very familiar with certain abbreviations or names since we don't get on this site or other website except Nvc and uscis.

Any response you get may not be an example of what happens in your case because they are all unique. If your case has been presented correctly the interview should be easy and quick. My embassy said they needed 3 days to insert the visa. There are cases that are put in A P which can then take days, weeks or months to be approved or denied.

I hope your post is in the right forum so you will get info from Japanese based cases.

Yeah, I expected that, but was hoping to hear what most have experienced. And yes, my interview will be in Tokyo Japan, so I do hope to get some response from those who had their interview in Tokyo as well, but I'd love to hear experiences from anyone/anywhere!

Which interview are you talking about?

For the k-3. NVC is waiting to get my interview schedule for May.

We are now waiting for an interview schedule (cr-1), and I've heard that you will get an answer whether your visa is approved or denied right after the interview. Is this true? Would like to hear anyone else's experience!

Sorry if this is posted in the wrong forum. I don't use this site very often and I'm still not sure if I'm using is right. Please no sarcastic comments, just want to hear other's experiences right after the interview. Thanks!

So after waiting for months and months and trying to change my interview location, we have finally received our new case number (CR-1)! I called, and the respresentative gave me the new case number (we haven't receive an e-mail yet though, because it's only Monday, and it was just changed on Friday or something. So now the representative said that they're just waiting for my interview schedule, which might be around May.

Now my question is, was the visa approved/denied right there and then after your interview? Or does it depend on who's interviewing you? I'd like to know what the majority is, and would appreciate hearing all your experiences!

But this is the only way to speak with supervisor:/

If you don't have luck with your first call....call again.

Good luck!

I did assume that this is the main way (which I already did btw), but I was thinking that maybe there are other numbers or other ways of trying to get ahold of one.....

use a telephone.

when a human answers the call,

ask for a supervisor.

Wow, some people just enjoy being sarcastic instead of helpful... We are not all a visa experts here! and I also have heard that some HUMAN won't even transfer you to a supervisor! You know, most of the time you can't get what you want when it comes to immigration, and they're not very helpful st times! JUST LIKE YOU!

NVC did the same with my brother's case. They messed up on his address instead of Islamabad Pakistan, they put New Delhi, India as his consulate. My father wrote a letter for my brother to NVC indicating their mistake. And within a month, NVC sent another letter with the right case number, right address, right consulate. My father sent the letter on October 25, and NVC responded by end of November . I wish you best of luck.

Thank you for sharing! I did call Nvc today and explained our situation and asked to talk to a supervisor. Before the lady forwarded me to the supervisor, she finally GAVE me a time frame (not sure why the lady that I talked to a few days ago couldn't do this), but it seems like she wasn't sure, so she finally forwarded me to a supervisor. Supervisor said that it seems like they received a request on jan 12 (not sure what he meant, and this date is also just 10 days after I sent my request about changing my address and consular, and 7 days after they received our IV & AOS documents), then asked me to hold on again to look up some stuff, then he finally told me that what he's going to do is to contact the embassy to see what's going on. He said that it might take a few days to get a response, so he asked me to call back in a few days to talk to a representative or a supervisor to see what's up. Hopefully it doesn't have to take too long and that we will just get an e-mail about this.

This is a re-post, since original post was posted in another forum.

was hoping to get some answers from those who went through the same situation.

First NVC made a mistake with my address. They wrote a different country on my address. We found this out when we received our welcome letter, then It says that I will be interviewed in this country (the country they wrote on my address) once they've reviewed my documents. I corrected this as soon as I was able to, and the only way to do this was by email (sent the email on jan 2, so 3 days before they received our AOS and IV.) It took them almost 2 months to reply, and this is what I received on feb 20th "The correspondence submitted is currently under review. An appropriate action will be taken once this review is completed.", only few days from when we were expecting an e-mail from them about our documents being reviewed.

A couple days after the 60 days mark, I still didn't receive an e-mail, so I gave Nvc a call, and they told me that my documents cannot be reviewed until my interview location is reviewed and corrected, they also said that there's no time frame for this :/. It was their mistake, and now we're the ones who has to wait... Do any of you have had the same experience? If so, how long did it take for them to be able to change your consulate? We are very worried because although we are already married, we were having a wedding ceremony in Hawaii this coming July, and we really thought we were going to make it. I'm also 100% sure that we didn't make any mistake with our AOS and IV.

Please keep in mind that my husband and I are doing this on our own, without a lawyer and anyone else who knows about these things, so we weren't sure what to do. We didn't even know how to e-mail them the correct way until I called and was told how to. We also received our welcome letter on oct 9, just 2 months after we started the process with uscis, but we didn't see NVC's letter until dec because it got sent to my husband's junk mail... So we had to do this in a hurry. We also emailed them about correcting my address and consulate a couple of days before sending all our documents, but of course, it took them a very long time, and we weren't allowed to change these through the phone... Please give me some advice!

Yes we did, that's why we tried to change it asap, but of course this was our first time and we really didn't know what to do, we didn't even know how to email them at first. We were also in a hurry to send everything because the welcome letter was sent in oct 9th, just 2 months after we first started everything with uscis. We didn't see NVC's letter until December because it got sent to my husband's junk mail. How do we talk to a supervisor?

I was hoping to get some answers from those who went through the same situation.

First NVC made a mistake with my address. They wrote a different country on my address. We found this out when we received our welcome letter, then It says that I will be interviewed in this country (the country they wrote on my address) once they've reviewed my documents. I corrected this as soon as I was able to, and the only way to do this was by email (sent the email on jan 2, so 3 days before they received our AOS and IV.) It took them almost 2 months to reply, and this is what I received on feb 20th "The correspondence submitted is currently under review. An appropriate action will be taken once this review is completed.", only few days from when we were expecting an e-mail from them about our documents being reviewed.

A couple days after the 60 days mark, I still didn't receive an e-mail, so I gave Nvc a call, and they told me that my documents cannot be reviewed until my interview location is reviewed and corrected, they also said that there's no time frame for this :/. It was their mistake, and now we're the ones who has to wait... Do any of you have had the same experience? If so, how long did it take for them to be able to change your consulate? We are very worried because although we are already married, we were having a wedding ceremony in Hawaii this coming July, and we really thought we were going to make it. I'm also 100% sure that we didn't make any mistake with our AOS and IV.

I think I was also having a hard time understanding all these visa talk because I'm a newbie lol. So much questions! And I'm scared that the information they have online is not enough >_<, but definitely appreciate your help!

IV fee is invoiced after DS261 is reviewed (for that they need aprox 30 days from submitting DS261).

After they received AOS and IV documents, they need aprox 60 days to review them.

Good luck!

PS. sorry for misunderstanding before..My English is a little bit rusty...have to practice more )))

Yes we've Paid both affidavit of support and IV, so I'm currently filling up my ds-260. What was weird was that, Ive noticed that I wasn't allowed to pay my IV until this actually received my documents. Is that normal? Hopefully everything was correct and will get approved.

Okay I think you're confusing a few things.

• You send the I-130 petition to the USCIS (it is not an application so you have not applied for anything thus far.)
• They send you an email and/or letter stating they received your petition and what it's case number is (on VJ we call this NOA1)
• USCIS approved your case and sent it to the NVC (called NOA2.)

If you're both abroad it likely happened pretty quickly, like within a month or two, which it did

As a side note: since your husband is in the military he only has to make 100% of the poverty guidelines not 125% and his income counts no matter where he makes it in the world (because he works for the US government.) You do not need a joint sponsor. However if he is retiring from or leaving the military and he needs to find a new job when he gets to the USA, then he will need a joint sponsor.

The person said 4-5 months FROM case number TO interview. Because it normally takes the NVC 2 months to review the documents and then another month or two until you get an interview after the NVC has determined they have everything the consulate will need and it's filled in correctly. If there is a mistake in there, the NVC sends something called a checklist and asks you to correct the mistake. It's the NVC's job to make the CO's (consular officer) job easier by making sure the documents are correct. This way the CO can concentrate on the interview and review the documents as if they're accurate and correct vs spending time to see if you really wrote down the correct $$ values.

You needed to file the DS-261 so that you can pay the IV fee as well. Did you do this? Have you paid the IV fee? Until that shows as paid, you will not have the DS-260 (the actual visa application) to complete.

Also your timeline is here http://www.visajourney.com/timeline/profile.php?id=193408 you can put in the dates for everything that has happened and it gives you an idea of how far along in the process you are.

Well we applied for I-130 in early August and got approved and immediately got a USCIS case number online within the same month, then the actual letter with the USCIS case number just a couple of weeks after the e-mail.

By october (2 months after we applied) we receive an NVC welcome letter with our new case number. The letter also says that they'll be helping us to complete my immigrant visa and schedule my interview. This e-mail ended up in my husband's military junk mail! So we didn't see it until December, but as soon as we saw the e-mail, we immediately sent the documents (affidavit of support, IV etc.) that they were asking for. They received my documents by January fifth and was told that it'll take at least 60 days until they can review my documents, then they'll contact me again whether they will be needing something else or if they can schedule me for an interview.

I just didn't understand when the previous post said 4-5 months until we get a case number for the interview.

I

I'm not understanding what you're saying. Could you please fill out your timeline so I can get a better idea of exactly where you are in the process?

Yeah I do know that you get one case number from uscis then another one from NVC, but I guess I wasn't quite clear about what Frips said. I thought what he/she meant was that you'll get another NVC case number withing the course of 4-5 months after getting he first one or after submitting the i-130. I received my case number from NVC just months after we SENT our i-130, so I'm not sure if this is normal time or not as well.

8 months total. It was EXACTLY 9 months from filing until I had my green card in my hands in the USA. Oct 13, 2011 - June 13, 2012. Nothing I did made it that fast, it was just what was common at the time.

No. You get a case number from the USCIS. Then you get a NEW case number (DOS/NVC Number) from the NVC. That number will carry through until pay for your green card.

Please take some time to read:

http://www.visajourney.com/wiki/index.php/NVC_Process

Thank you for your response, but what do you mean by check list? Sorry I honestly didn't know anything about this until we stared

Edit: just read your response right. So they will give you a different case number for the interview?

Total..these days you need aprox 4-5 months at NVC without cheklist:/ (form case# to the interview)

8 months all in all or just the wait for the interview?

Although I'm sure that it's not the same for everyone, but how long did you wait to get your visa after sending all your required documents to NVC? After they received my documents, they said it'll take about 2 months to review them, and from what was written on the NVC welcome letter, after reviewing my documents and everything is correct then they should be able to schedule my interview.

It sux because we missed a couple of months because we didn't know that uscis was going to submit our documents to NVC, so we kept on waiting for a USCIS e-mail, until my husband finally saw a welcome e-mail in his junk mail in December, and this e-mail was sent in October. We immediately sent our documents by the end of December and they receive it in Januray 5th. I heard for some the whole process takes about 11 months or so? Is this true?

I live in the countryside in Japan and managed to find one that does 50 x 50 "visa sized" photos. I also saw one at a train station in Tokyo - I think it might've been Ikebukuro - next to the coin lockers. Not every photobooth has that size, though! If you've only checked one or two photobooths, check a few more just to make sure you haven't missed one.

Otherwise, you could do what I almost did and download a smartphone app to take an appropriately sized and positioned photo yourself and print it out on your computer or at a printing station (of which there are many in Japan, including at conbinis). The smartphone apps have little positioning guidelines just like the photobooths do, so it's probably really hard to mess it up...

There are a couple close by where I live, but no 50x50, so my only choice would be finding it somewhere else, but since I'm busy and don't drive, that means I'd have to wait until the weekend. I was hoping to find some other alternative here, but I guess it really has to be a 50x50

Oh wow... Thank god i didnt ask you why you didnt took tose photos the last time you was in the US.. Cause thats something i was about to write, but then i thougt, it wont help you.

I was just trying to help, cause i know here in middle europa (Switzerland, Germany and Austria) their just axept the 5x5 and nothing else (Btw also the USCIS and i guess also the DoS).

You also can ask a friend to take a photo of you (white background and all the other rewuirements) and chop it by yourself at your computer and print it on photo paper.

Sorry, I was a bit harsh with my reply, I just feel like sarcasm wasn't necessary, or so it seem like it. From what I know, a lot of people who are migrating haven't even stepped in the US, but in my case I have, but is only stay there a couple of weeks the most, especially that my husband is always on deployment. I was already back in Japan when we started he process, so we have no idea about what we really need until now, nor do we know anyone who has done what we are doing.

Every good photo studio can print the potos in the size you need. Even in Japan their can cut it like you need it

First of all, that eye rolling emoticon is unnecessary, 2nd, it is easier and faster to take it at the photo booth (they're everywhere) especially for busy people like me, 3rd, there aren't a lot of photo studios in Japan especial in the country side, so it'll require me to drive, and I don't drive. I can have someone drive me, but that means making a schedule, and I'm usually not home from 6:30am-7:30pm (my job is far), by the time

I get home, photo studios would be close, so this is the reason why I'm trying to get some ideas or checking if anyone have submitted passport size photos instead of going to a studio. Do you by a chance live in Japan??? Thanks for the advice anyway, I DID NOT THINK OF THAT.

I've never been to Japan but I would suggest that you ask the U.S embassy for places they know prints acceptable sizes, or visit a professional photo centre and have them reprint the standard passport photo from your country in the required dimensions I think they should be able to do that with ease it might just cost you a little bit extra.

Yeah, I guess it'll cost more too, plus extra time. Thank you!