elizaxyz

I wish you all the best! You are so lucky - how quick is the UK visa system?! Now you can DCF while living there. Good for you!

Cheers!

AmWo

Alas, we can't DCF, as the UK Embassy doesn't allow it. So I may be back here in a few years trying to get a k-3! : )

The UK visa system goes to the opposite extreme as the US one-- I had my visa within a week of applying. Frankly, given the security issues they've been having over there recently, I'd have felt a bit better if they'd given the paperwork a bit more scrutiny. A happy medium between US paranoia and UK laxity would be nice.

I just hope abandoning our K-1 doesn't create problems for us when we come back to visit my family.

Anyway, I'm wildly off topic here. Here's hoping you all get good news soon.

I haven't posted here in ages, but I thought I'd pop in and see how everyone was doing. My fiance and I have decided to abandon our K-1 application; on Friday I recieved my visa to the UK, and I'll be moving there in October. I did eventually recieve my request for RFE for IMBRA towards the end of July, but by that time we were both just too fed up. We decided that life was too short, and fortunately we had the option of living in England to fall back on.

Good luck to all of you, and I hope you're all reunited with your loved ones soon. This is a great forum, and I got so much good advice and support here!

Eliza

These are the "communicable diseases of public health significance" thatmay trigger a denial:

* severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

* tuberculosis (TB)

* leprosy

* human immunodeficiency virus (HIV/AIDS)

* syphilis (infectious state)

* chancroid (STD, similar to syphilis and herpes)

* gonorrhea

* granuloma inguinale (STD, donovanosis)

* lymphogranuloma (STD, chlamydia)

Hepatitis B is not on the list of conditions that will make her ineligible. At some point she will have to either provide vaccination records or be vaccinated for a number of things, and hep B is one of them, so she'll have to mention her status at that time.

http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/Medical_Exam.htm#whatare

Well, the case was finally reopened July 13, we were touched July 15, and I was notified July 18 that the RFE was in the mail.

I'm starting the UK visa process as well. Whichever one arrives first is where we'll live.

So now she tells me that once my file and petition are in the office I will get my RFE

That's what they keep telling me, and I'm sick to death of hearing it. In two days it will have been thirty business days since my file was sent back from London. This isn't rocket science!

Just got off the phone with Vermont. Still no record of my application since May 1. They have yet to match my petition back with the file that was recalled from the National Records center. The woman on the phone said "I don't know what to say. It's just a waiting game now."

I'm about 90% certain that we're going to sh*tcan this application and move to the UK instead. My lease is up at the end of October; if I haven't heard anything by the time I visit the UK in July, I think we'll apply for the UK visa.

I don't think it's fair to ask, since a cursory glance at our nation's immigration laws obviously indicates that the people who wrote them were smoking something...

I recently dropped roughly $850 for a New York-Heathrow flight! Good luck. Airfare this summer is obscene.

420 pounds doesn't sound bad. But the exchange rate right now is enough to make me cry...

No updates yet, I'm sure it will be soon. You guys are probably right about our files, they have to be mated with our petitions in order for our cases to be checked. DOS? who knows at this point, it's just good you know they have your case now. They obviously had to do some fixing of their case update system.

That's what I was told; that USCIS keeps a file on every petition they receive, and that they have to be recalled from storage and matched with the returned petition before any action can be taken. I doubt they've had so many returned cases at once before.

I'm glad to see some forward movement is taking place!

That sounds like good news to me. Mine was recalled on May 18, so I'm hoping to get an update soon!

I am also thinking of a one month timeline to be approved and another 2 months for the interview. My fiance hopes it´s gonna be faster.

That's about what I'm expecting. I'd rather expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised than be disappointed every week that I'm still not touched.

I wish I could feel that way too, but I keep checking my status online for at least 20 times a day.

Oh, I still do that!

I've given up calling them, though. For a while, at least.

I've never seen the point of having a wallet sized birth certificate myself. I lost the long one and had to have it replaced, because every time I've tried to use the short form as ID, people have thought it was a really bad fake. Hence I sent in a copy of my passport with our application!

If it says it was approved, then that was the NOA2. Most people do get two notices; the NOA1 acknowledges receipt of the application, and the NOA2 is the approval notice. And that is definitely normal procedure to get both. USCIS operators drive me up the wall at times...

It probably wouldn't hurt to find out from the consulate when your application was sent back to USCIS. It helps to have all the info at hand when talking to USCIS.

Come over to the IMBRA forum, there's lots of information over there!

Thanks for the reply. I have never received an nOA2. but the application went to the vancouver embassy actually. is that odd that I never received one? I need to figure out how to add the timeline feature. They sent a whole packet to my fiance asking her to fill out many forms, and then schedule an interview. Thank you for the help.

The NOA2 is the approval notice from USCIS; they must have generated one in order for your petition to have been sent on to NVC and then to Vancouver. Presumably yours was lost in the mail or something. You're going to need that in the future, though. Does the USCIS website say that your case was approved?

I'm in the same boat as you; My fiance got packet 3 and then was informed that the case had been recalled due to IMBRA. Presumably after the RFEs are sent out and processed, we'll get new NOA2s, since we'll have to be re-approved. There's a whole thread on this subject in the IMBRA forum. A lot of people are trying to figure out what to do about wedding plans right now. There's just no way of knowing right now how long this will take.

Here's the thread:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=18011

I posted this question in another thread and I think it got lost.....

As the foreign fiance, I have the long version, but does the USC have to send in the long version as well? I couldn't find anything in the guides that make reference to the long BC for the UCS... Did anyone send in the short version and be ok?

Thanks

The US doesn't have a long and short form Birth Certificate. There's just a birth certificate. True, you can get a wallet-sized legal BC, but it's still the normal one, just smaller (reduced).

It depends on the state that issued the BC. I have both a short and a long form from South Carolina. I couldn't find the long form when I sent in my application, but it states in the instructions for the I-129f that if you lack a birth certificate, you can send in a complete copy of your passport (all pages, including the blank ones.) So I sent that with the short form to be on the safe side and had no problems getting approved through Vermont. (Until IMBRA screwed it all up, of course.)

My fiance is in Vancouver, canada, and all we had left was the interview when this whole RFE problem started. I still have not received an RFE, have not been touched. I received a notice of action back in april and have received nothing since. I don't know when they will send me the RFE as they keep saying "you should get it soon". I read on another thread that it takes them about two weeks to process it after you submit it. My processing center is Vermont so hopefully it will move quickly. Problem is we had made wedding plans in the united states for end of august -early september based on the original timeframe given, and now I'm afraid the visa will get delayed, and we've put money down already. Since all we had left was the interview do you guys think once I get the form and submit we should still be okay? I dont have any criminal history so it should be quick for them to process. Is there a way to request a interview date quickly so you're not waiting weeks for the date? The final decision is made right there when you have the interview right? Thanks for the help.

( OurI-129F was submitted and received on march 16, 2006 and we got a first notice of action on april 18, 2006 ).

Do you have an NOA2? If you fill out your timeline, we might be able to advise a bit more.

Right now RFEs are going out, but thus far no one who was actually approved and sent on to the NVC has gotten one. To be honest, I'd plan for a worst case scenario here, just to be on the safe side.

I am also thinking of a one month timeline to be approved and another 2 months for the interview. My fiance hopes it´s gonna be faster.

That's about what I'm expecting. I'd rather expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised than be disappointed every week that I'm still not touched.

Okay. So we've got both NOA 1 and 2, it was approved and the interview was canceled.

How do I check on updates on the case status? Is that even available?

This may be a dumb question, but if only I could obsess about checking the status online every day, it'd make me feel better All I get is "your petition was approved blahblahblah". How do I get to know if it's been touched or something?

Go to the USCIS website (www.uscis.gov) and look at the 'Case Status and Processing Dates' link at the right. You can create a login that will allow you to check the status of your case as obsessively as you like.

All I get is "your petition was approved in March 29, blahblahblah". How do I get to know if it's been touched or something?

Oh, and by the way:

NOA1: 2006-03-19

NOA2: 2006-03-29

Ah, you edited! That means the last time you were touched was March 29. Mine hasn't budged since approval either. I don't think any of the recalled cased have been touched since the RFEs started coming out.

That question will be asked as part of form DS-230, which is part of Packet 3. If it were me, I'd just stick to answering the questions on the form. I've no idea if a denial is something that would trigger an RFE.

I'm surprised he was denied, though. Did he specifically say "I'm visiting my fiancee" at the POE?

I never thought I'd envy someone for getting an RFE, either!

Congrats!

Thanks, Dilly! That's straightforward enough. Here's hoping the rest of us get them soon.

traps American men into marriages to American feminists.

See guys, I wouldn't trust 'em. They obviously don't care about my poor foreign man, about to be trapped into marriage to an American feminist.

Exactly! There sould be a background check done on us-- foreign men need to be protected, too! The FBI needs to verify that we all shave our legs and know how to cook. The fact that I own a copy of Andrea Dworkin's 'Intercourse' should be disclosed before he's granted a visa. For his own safety.

I´m not calling them anymore.

I feel worse after calling them today.

I just didn´t understand the sixty-days after the embassy sent back the application.

What can we do after that?

It´s been 33 days since mine was sent back from the Consulate.

I was told that if nothing happens for sixty days after it left the Consulate, they would consider that the file might be lost and start some new process to find it. Here's hoping we don't have to wait that long to find out. Of course, that's the worst-case scenario, as when I asked that I didn't realize that most people who had recalled petitions hadn't gotten confirmation that their petitions had been returned.

I didn't call today, and I don't feel as stressed as I did yesterday. I just check the USCIS site a couple times a day and try not to think about it too much.

---

Ok. Just talked to my fiancée and I don´t know if she´ll have a chance to call VSC before 18h.

Is there any chance that one of you petitioners, with the recalled case back in Vermont would call them and ask what is going on?

What´s the deal with no one with NOA2 getting RFE while people who just got there last week are getting theirs?

How far in the line are we?

Please.

They won't answer that question specifically, but I was told the other day that once a petition is approved, the file that USCIS keeps on the case is sent to storage, and no action can be taken until the files are recalled from storage and paired with the petition again. So that's probably adding to the delay.

To be honest, I don't think that calling every day and obsessing about this is doing me any good-- all it does is to get me all worked up. They're going to move at their own speed, and until they hit the sixty day mark after the petition was sent back by the embassy, I can't see them taking any special action to find the file.

(And I'm sure you know this but whatever you do, don't mention any ceremonies, unofficial though they may be, to any immigration officials; this has been grounds to deny fiance visas in the past! Have a great trip.)

Thanks! I didn't know that and might have tripped up. Proves once again how valuable it is when we get together like this to share information.

I have no direct experience of this, but I've heard some horror stories about situations like that here on VJ. I gather they occasionally decide that unofficial ceremonies qualify as weddings, and things can get messy. Best to be on the safe side!