rick702

It's taking 4-5 months to have an interview after the NVC completion. Can take 2-4 months just to get the date.

Thank you! Hopefully yours will be faster than ours.

I'm going home!!! The embassy just called and said my wife's visa is READY!!!!!!

I'm FINALLY going home!!! The embassy just called and said my wife's visa is READY!!!! I was worried after seeing the status change to Administrative Processing yesterday, so this is such a relief. What a long strange trip it's been.

My wife's CEAC case status was updated to Administrative Processing today, 49-days after the interview.

Ok please stop arguing .Who cares about their budgets. LETS JUST PRAY WE ALL GET OUR VISAS SOON AND go home

I totally agree! I just want to go home... The embassy told me that my boys and I are free to leave, but we're really not when my wife and their mother can't go with us. I was kinda offended by that as it seemed like an unethical presumption (to leave without her).

_{Actually, the foreign born spouse is the one being interviewed, not an American citizen, so head of line privileges don't extend in the direction you believe....and, consular application fees pay for the staff and running of the consular section, NOT taxpayer dollars...so, one's status as an American taxpayer doesn't matter.}

Really, Mr. Know-it-all? That's funny because I paid my fees to USCIS and the NVC, not the embassy, who has a $42-million annual budget made up of tax-payer money. But I'm not going to argue with you, because you apparently know it all, despite seemingly not having a case of your own in progress. Troll!

@HFM181818, well I know for a few reasons. One of which is I know an American staff member working there, who says they're not that busy. Two, it's evident form the report I cited in my previous post. One of the recommendations in the report is they need better training, and that they waste time doing things they shouldn't, such as preinterview screening. As for should I be in the front of the line, ABSOLUTELY! As a tax paying U.S. Citizen, my wife, the mother of 2 U.S. Citizens, should get priority over TOURISTS! This process should have taken 6-months, and it's now been a year and 10 months.

@MARY1981, lets hope there will be no additional waiting for you. Nobody should have to wait this long after the interview.

I was reading this report about the embassy today. Seems the consular services section only employs 19 people, and receives 1% of their budget to process 60,000 visa applications a year, 30% of which are Iranians that are more time consuming.

good you finally got a date! how far away is it?

my wife is still waiting for the embassy to print/issue her visa, been 47 days of waiting already.

It still says ready for interview.

According to an American insider that works at the Embassy, they are not overloaded. They're just poorly trained. I am still waiting for my wife's visa, and her interview was nearly a month and a half ago. They told her then her visa would be issued "within" a week. They've been holding her passport since the interview, almost 45-days. Yesterday they responded to an email I sent 2-weeks ago saying "we deal with each case in the order received, taking all the necessary steps to reach the end of process the soonest possible". This despite the U.S. Department of State guidelines granting priority to spouses of U.S. Citizens.

I am not Armenian, my wife is, and we've been advised to file a complaint with Office of Inspector General in the U.S. Department of State "AFTER" our case is resolved. The staff of the US Embassy in Yerevan, Armenia is poorly trained and not adhering to the guidelines set forth my the U.S. Department of State.

Quick update. It's now been over a month since the interview. The embassy is still not responding to my emails. My congressman's office said they only deal with USCIS and NVC and not Embassies. My lawyer stopped taking my calls and responding to emails. The embassy still has my wife's passport and still has not issued her visa. Feeling kinda more frustrated and helpless now...

Took 3-months for us to get an interview date after the case was completed at the NVC, and interview date was 2-months after the notification of the date. Seems the embassy in Yerevan gives priority to Armenian and Iranian tourists.

They have everything they could possibly want, and she's been approved, the visa just hasn't been issued. My suspicion is that tourists from both Armenia and Iran are getting the priority. This embassy manages both countries.

@mwah1, that's the only silver lining. It would be a million times harder if we were apart. I hate being here, but I could never leave without them.

Hello world!

I'm writing this post because I decided my experience should be entered into the public record. Everything I've read in terms of processing time, has been absolute nonsense; at least in our case. Even this website says 6-12 months processing time for an I-130 petition. WRONG! Or as previously stated, at least not in my case.

My experience may well be the exception and not the rule, or it may be indicative of how detrimental the process/system has become in 2014 and 2015.

I am a natural born US Citizen. My wife is Armenian. I moved to Yerevan, Armenia in 2012 to marry my wife in her native country so that her family could be in attendance for the wedding, and then we would apply for her spouse visa. Everything we read said that would take 6-9 months. So the plan was to live in Armenia for a year. A few months after the wedding my wife got pregnant with our twin boys, so we decided to postpone filing for her visa until after they were born. In January 2014 we retained a law that advised we file an I-130 petition for alien relative, so that's what we did. The lawyer instructed us on all the forms we need to fill, the documents we needed to provide, and the fees we needed to pay; and we did all of that promptly. We were anticipating leaving after our boy's first birthday in October 2014, 10-months after we filed. It seemed like a reasonable presumption, give or take a couple months. We were so naive!

The case was approved by USCIS in June of 2014, and seemed to be proceeding as expected. It was acknowledged by the NVC and given a case number two months later in August. Everything seemed to be going according to plan; and then suddenly it wasn't. The next response from the NVC wasn't until February 2015 acknowledging the receipt of our documents. Then in mid-March 2015 we received the following:

All documentation necessary to complete the National Visa Center's processing of your case has been received. As soon as an interview date has been scheduled, the applicant, petitioner and attorney (if applicable) will be notified.

After that notice we received no further communication from the NVC until June 2nd 2015 when they finally scheduled the interview, for two months later, on July 30th 2015.

My wife attended the interview and was approved. That should be cause for celebration, but the story doesn't end there. She was told by the Consular that her visa would be issued "within" a week, and they would call her when it was ready. Now it's almost 2-weeks later, and still no visa. They have since stopped responding to my emails, so my wife went to the Embassy last Friday to retrieve her passport they have been holding since the interview. They informed her that they still need to keep her passport in order to issue her visa. They told her that if she needs it for something specific they will relinquish it, but she'll need to bring it right back. Otherwise, they will call her when the visa is ready. So she let them keep it.

Just now, as I am concluding this post, I received a reply to my email from the IV Unit, US Embassy, Yerevan, Armenia, that states:

Your wife’s case is in the review process. As soon as the process is over, we’ll contact your wife and advise accordingly.

Apparently 1-year and 8-months of review/processing time + Consular approval wasn't enough... I'm not sure if "review process" equals "administrative processing", but I've read AP can take another 3-months. I sure hope not, but given our experience thus far, sadly it wouldn't be a surprise.

So that's my story in a nutshell. It should have been a really easy case, but it's dragged on for a year and eight months and counting. There is no logical reason for any of this. As stated I am a natural born US Citizen. I have never been convicted of any crimes aside from traffic violations. I am a self-employed computer programmer and I make very good money, well above the poverty line and national average. Our children are both natural born US Citizens with valid (unused) US Passports. My wife has never been convicted or even charged with a crime. She is former law enforcement officer. She has never been to the United States. So there is no prevailing reason or logic for why our case has suffered such extreme delays.

Let this be a warning to all of you in a similar situation. You may get lucky and wait only 6-months to a year, or like our case it may take double that amount of time. So consider yourself forewarned, and plan accordingly.

Yeah, it's frustrating. I understand that it's the tourist season. But. Why should they get priority? I started this process a year and a half ago. Took 3-months to get an interview date that's 2 months after getting the date, so 5 months wait for an interview, that's absurd. Meanwhile, tourists can file and scedgule an interview online for next week. Seems a little backasswards.

So they said our interview is scedguled for July 30th, and it was just scedguled yesterday. So almost another 2 months, then I can take my family home! All and all, this has been a rediculasly long process. When I started I was told 6-9 months. I started this process in January 2014, so if her visa is issued in the begining of Augest the whole process will have taken 1 year and 8 months. And I'm a natural born US Citizen with 2 citizen children with my Armenian wife.

i was percistant.. i called over and over and over, maybe 50 times, finally got through and now i'm on hold. Crossing fingers!

Hello,

Three months ago I received notification stating "The petition is waiting for an appointment to be scheduled at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in YEREVAN, ARMENIA. When an interview appointment is scheduled, the petitioner, principal applicant, designated agent, and attorney of record (if applicable) will be notified". No action has been taken since. The embassy does not have the case or recognise the case number. The status on the NVC website simpily says "At NVC".

I've tried calling them, but every time I get a recording saying they are busy, try again later.

My attorney says "I seriously recommend that you contact your local congressman / senator (for your US address) and ask them to intervene on your case. Every politician has an immigration liaison.".

I'm at a loss. All I want to do is go home. I'm stuck here in Armenia with my wife and our twin sons (US Citizens) until she gets her visa. I've read seemingly a million threads, and nobody else seems to be having the same problem as me.

Desporate for a solution... suggestions?