CH & JO

Hey Everyone,

I hope you are all well and none of your partners were affected by the recent flooding in Ireland.

My partner's visa got approved yesterday! Very exciting. We are waiting on DPD to come to the Embassy to pick it up. Hopefully he will have his passport back in a week's time and can fly out. We have a booking at City Hall for Thursday 31st August. In theory that should be enough time for the passport to get to him from Baile Atha Cliath.

I thought it might be useful to share a bit of information about the DPD/courier process that we were able to reach/inquiry about.

DPD does not come to the Embassy everyday. The official Embassy answer to how often they collect is every 4-5 business days. At the DPD customer service center, for security reasons they were not able to tell me which days they do collect things but the person on the phone was nice enough to say that it is on a 'logical day for collection'. I am guessing this means Friday is one of the pick up days. From the Embassy it goes to the depot in Dublin and then the main Sortation Hub in Athlone. They say they sort packages Monday-Friday and go through 50,000 a night. It is sorted based on region and then is sent onto that regions hub. For more information on where the hubs are look here: https://dpd.ie/Pickup

In the case of Galway the regional hub is in Ballybane Industrial Estate. My partner was able to talk to someone on the phone there. They are open till 6:30 at night which is good. And you can talk to a real live person.

From the central regional hub it is either 1) Brought to a pick up location 2) brought directly to the address on the package.

I thought this information might be helpful to some of you.

As always- best of luck no matter what stage you are at!

Hi everyone,

First off okaygrave- I am very sorry that you have to wait 6 weeks. That is frustrating. Hopefully there will be a cancellation and you guys will get an appointment earlier.

My partner had his interview yesterday and he is 97% done. The Embassy rejected his passport because the name as it appears on his passport was not the same as the one of his birth certificate. We are working on getting him a new passport. Hopefully the Irish passport office will be quick!

He passed the question part and said they asked him basic stuff like how we met and what we studied in school. Also asked him how he planned on making a living once going to the US.

He dealt with two people at the Embassy. The first who was Irish looked through all his paperwork. They asked for no documents proving on-going relationship. The second was American and asked him the typical interview style questions.

All in all it was an easy process. Just a fair warning to anyone out there who may have changed their name as an adult that they do not accept the change of name process available in Ireland. Your paperwork and identity documents must reflect your name at birth.

Hope everyone else is doing well!

On 7/27/2017 at 0:23 PM, nmr said:

Did any of your guys have trouble getting the vaccination records from the health serivce? The process has been unreal for us because they have NO records of his mmr.  He has had to get a blood test to verify immunity instead. 

Sorry to hear you are having trouble with that nmr. My partner's parents had a booklet the Irish Government gave out in the 1990s with all the vaccine names and a place for the GP to sign off when he received each one. He took this to the Matter and they accepted it.

I don't think the HSE would have many records going back but then again it would depend on the year of your partners birth and possibly the area they were living in.

Keep your chin up and all these little hick-ups will be laughing points in a month or two when you are together again :-)

Hey everyone,

Okaygrave welcome to the Irish group! 

Thank you so much for answering my question Nutmeg1521! My partner and I really appreciate  So glad for you the passport came back quick.

On 7/25/2017 at 0:34 PM, nmr said:

1.) What vaccinations did they require? My fiance was told tetanus and mmr were all that he really needed.   Is that true?  Did they administer any vaccines?

 

2.) Did they take the picture that you need to bring to the medical or can you use that as one of the two you need to bring to your visa interview?

 

3.) Did you get the results back 14 days later by driving back to Dublin like Nutmeg1521 or did they mail them? 

nmr to give your our personal experience with the following questions....

1. All the information about vaccination requirements can be found here: https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/immigrate/vaccinations.html

Make sure your partner has them done before hand. They do not administer vaccinations on the day. The whole medical process took a little over an hour and my partner said it was very easy going. They ask a bunch of questions and asked no follow up questions. Even if he answered 'yes' to a medical history question.

* about the chicken pox. My partners parents were unsure if he had the chicken pox but his country GP knew his parents and said he would take their word for it that he did. This was added into his 'official report' from GP and therefore went into the medical exam as record. This is an easy way to avoid having to wait the extra weeks for the 2 adult chicken pox vaccinations.

2. The pictures you bring on the day to the medical are given to the doctor/staff and are used in the medical package that is submitted to the embassy. Basically they look at the photographs to see if this is the person they are examining and then included them in the sealed envelop. This helps to ensure the person who goes for the medical is the same person who shows up at the interview. You will not get these photographs back.

3. They NEVER mail the medical results. You have to go and pick them up in person. As I said previously it took 14 business days to get them back. We were originally told 7-10 but I think many staff are away on holidays at the moment. Remain polite but I would call every day after the 10 days have passed. There are 4 different people you will talk to when you call and only 2 of them have access to the records. Through polite persistence my partner was able to get them.

16 hours ago, okaygrave said:

 

 when he spoke to the doctor, the doctor said it should be fine if he turned in his notice of readiness that day but after doing some research, we decided to wait until he had his medical results back just to be certain.

 

Considering the wait time for an interview right now, would anyone advise that we should go ahead and turn in our notice of readiness this week? Or would you guys think it is too risky and just get the medical results back and then turn in readiness?

Okaygrave I can give your our personal experience on this one! We tried to do the same. Submit the Notice of Readiness after my partner went to the medical but BEFORE he physically had the medical results. And with the new system at the Matter the Embassy can actually see who has picked up their results! They talk back and forth about it through some electronic system. So when my partner tried to submit his Notice of Readiness before having the result to-hand the Embassy emailed him back and basically said we know that you do not have all these documents yet and we want to check one more time that you are saying you do. Basically if you are lying about the documents. Lying to the government = bad. So we waited the additionally 4 days for the result to be hand and my partner submitted his Notice of Readiness when leaving the doors of the Matter.

I agree with you that is seems silly to wait when it takes so long to get an appointment but this whole process seems a little silly- considering we first submitted our petition in February! 

Stay strong fellow K1 Visa peps and thank you to all for sharing their stories. I think it is great to be able to share what people have gone through and maybe help fellow Irish filers in the future.

Hey Nutmeg 1521 and Nmr,

I wanted to give you an update on our time line and ask Nutmeg 1521 a question- if she would be so kind.

So my partner's medical exam got moved up the 8th July because there was a cancellation. It was originally scheduled for the 27th July.

It look 14 business days for him to get the results back. He had to call a lot. It sounds like they are short staffed in the summer.

He submitted his notice of Readiness on Friday 21st July. We got the interview time today. It is 3 weeks out. Which is disappointing because he will not be here for my vacation time.

The Embassy says that they hold onto the passport for 10 business days after the interview and that it takes 5 business days for the passport to be delivered by the courier.

Nutmeg 1521- would you mind me asking how long it takes for you/your partner to have their passport released by the Embassy? Did it take the full 10 business days? I would greatly appreciate any help with this matter.

We are trying to decide a possible flight date so that he can prepare his family and friends for his departing.

All the best to you both. So nice to know other people are going through the same thing in US/Ireland

Thank you for clarifying nutmeg 1521. And for updating your timeline. That is most helpful. P.S. Your cat is adorable. Have a good weekend ladies!

It look my partner ages to get a medical appointment too so I feel your pain!

I think it is up to you if you want to include that extra stuff. It is definitely not laid out as something he has to bring to the appointment. In my own dealings with the Dublin Embassy I have always found them very understanding and friendly. This is in contrast to the cranky border officers you sometimes get at the airport.

They recently changed the system and you do not need to bring the "interview confirmation" to the medical. You actually cannot schedule the interview until after you do the medical. I am guessing that this is because the Mater Hospital are being such slow-pokes with getting all the appointments booked. To the medical for paper work he should bring passport, full medical record, and full immunization record. They do not have a lot of the shots there to give him so it is best if he does these with his local GP and then brings the confirmation. This is what my partner is doing. He has to get tetanus shot, etc. Not sure how old your partner is but there was a scare in Ireland in the 1990s that shots gave children learning disabilities and so my partner was missing A LOT of the shots we would considered standard children shots in the US. 

I emailed our case officer through the general email of the Embassy- make sure to sight your case number in the email and both names in full. She replied back quickly and said with the Dublin Embassy they are currently hoping to have all interviews scheduled within 6 weeks of submitting the notice of readiness. Now that could mean it takes 6 weeks or it could be them making sure to stay with in long timelines. We won't really know until after they submit. But I am glad to hear that Nutmeg1521 got theirs in a few days. Congrats! 

She also advised us that you should only submit your Notice of Readiness when you are ready to go for the interview the next day. You will not get a next day appointment but you cannot cancel or re-schedule the date they give you. There is not a list of dates you get to chose from. They just assign you a date. If you do not show up and cannot prove a medical emergency then they automatically add 1-3 months extra onto your wait time. So basically you need to be ready to go to America the next day if they give you a specific interview date. I guess this makes sense because they do not want to waist their time work on re-scheduling peoples interviews.

I hope that helps! 

How did you meet your fiance? My partner and I met while in school at NUIG. We have been together for 8 years and I only moved back the US last year. It has been hard being apart but I am looking forward to this roller-coaster being over 

Hey NMR,

A fellow Dublin Embassy filer here. I hope I can tell you about our experience and that might help a bit.

I am the US citizen fiancée living back in the States again and my fiance is still living in Ireland (Galway).

1. I got an email a few days ago from the Embassy in Dublin. They no longer mail out what is sometimes referred to as "Packet 3". That is what you would have gotten in your own email box. You are suppose to forward that onto your partner. What you will get in the snail mail is a letter from the NVC in the next few days. It is one page and just says the case number on it and that it made it to Dublin. You need to copy that and send it onto your partner with the other documents (I-134, etc.)

Once your partner has all the documents and the medical done then they submit the Notice of Readiness (NOR) to the Dublin Embassy via email.

* A note about the medical that we just found out that is specific to Ireland. I wish we had know this in advance! They recently changed the doctor/hospital where you can get the medical done. The process has completely changed. My partner called over a month ago and the next available appointment was 27th July. This is a lot longer than we thought for a wait time. Also with this new location they DO NOT give you the results on the day. You have to come back 7 days later and pick them up. You cannot submit your Notice of Readiness (NOR) until after you have the medical results in your possession. There is a waiting list but they said on the phone that they give first preference to people who live in Dublin or surrounding Pale area. This is because the cancellations usually only give 2-3 hours notice. Not enough time to get from say Dingle to Dublin.

2. From what I understand about the proof of relationship stuff at the interview- you do need to have that stuff with you on the day. BUT this material only needs to show proof of your ongoing relationship. I.e. we submitted out packet to the USCIS in March and so at the interview if they do ask for material like that it is just for documents, pictures, cards, text messages, etc. from March 2017- present. To show that you are still together and are still talking about getting married and building a life together. You cannot bring too much material into the Embassy. They are very strict on security. So what I will suggest my partner bring in is the following: 10 pictures of us together dated between March 2017- present, 5 pages of text message print outs- one for each month; I choice messages that showed us talking about our wedding plans, buying furniture, and then also talking about major family/pet life events (i.e. me texting him that my cousin is expecting a new child this October or him sending a picture of their new family dog), cards that we sent each other for our anniversary, flight information for the last time he was here and receipts for some of the places we visited.

3. I am not sure what the official policy is about the intent to marry letter. I have seen that other people brought an updated letter with them on the day of the interview. This cannot hurt. I also read about a case were they were turned away on the day because the officer did not believe that the people were intending on getting married. They officer asked for proof of wedding plans. So perhaps to be safe I would sign a new letter with a date listed that is closer to the interview time. That is what I will be sending to my partner.

4. There is no way to file the DS-160 on paper. You have to do it on the Internet. Have you tried updating your Adobe Flashdrive? You could always have your partner fill this out instead if it is not working on your computer?

I hope that information helps! It is nice to know that another Irish couple are going through the process around the same time as us.

Wishing you all the best!