N400fiasco

Hi guys, 

Update! contacted deferred inspection site via email . Explained the issue and got dad's I94 updated to current passport. Also got written confirmation that stamp in passport doesn't matter, the online record is what matters . Here is the response verbatim " It does not matter if the stamp is correct or not. All that matters is the online record, which is correct."  I hope this helps others who may be in a similar situation.  Since I have a written confirmation from an official CBP email address, my parent will stay the extra month!

Appreciate everyone's advice here! 

Appreciate all the advise folks! 

43 minutes ago, Loren Y said:

Looks like they only get to visit for 5 months or risk never being able to visit again. follow @Mike E recommendation. The I-94 is issued against the passport the visa is in, Why would they issue a I94 to a passport number that does not have a Visa in it? it's a matter of traceability im sure. I traveled to China a few times using the 10 year visa in my expired passport and their version of I-94 was always referenced to the expired passport. I don't think that is an error.

Appreciate all the comments. Note that my mother had the same exact case where here visa was in the expired passport but her I-94 is on the new passport! So I am not sure now which is the error

I understand being risk averse and stay 5 months, but where else would that be tracked if the electronic version says 6 months?  

Parents entered JFK on B1/B2 and the immigration officer put down an admitted until date that was 5 months from date of entry, when we printed the I-94 online, it showed the full 6 months validity. I assume the electronic one takes precedence. They want to stay the full 6 months. Any thoughts? 

Another issue my father's I-94 is tied to his expired passport! My father had the valid visa in his older passport and the IO made an error and issued the I-94 against the expired passport instead of the new one that he also presented. 

In 2 minds on whether to get these corrected. I don't want them to have issues, the next time they travel. Also I don't want the I-94 shortened to 5 months incase they notice that written date in the passport. 

Thoughts? TIA!

1 hour ago, Ben & Jela said:

Joining the April filers for I-751.👍

 

Definitely feels a bit weird having to come back here after 2 years of freedom and peace. Lol.😁

 

Filled April 20, 2021; (via USPS)

Received April 22, 2021

 

Now we wait... again. 

Best of luck everyone! 😊

2 years of freedom and peace with a random pandemic thrown in lol. I know the feeling. 😊

My application was received 4/2. Just saw a pending charge on CC. No notification yet, but I guess it coming soon. All the best everyone!

Hi All, 

Apologies if this topic has been covered elsewhere. I am a US Citizen and my parents are visiting me here on B1/B2 from India. They were supposed to go back to India by end of April but with the Covid situation , they cannot go back till India opens back up. 

Over the last few years they visit me and stay with me for a 4-5 months a year. With the Covid situation, I'd much rather that they stay with me permanently . Is it possible for us to start the GC process now (subject to it not being in the 60 day ban) before they head back? Or filing for a tourist visa extension is only option?  

Thanks for your help! 

16 hours ago, K1visaHopeful said:

New policy, old policy. It's all the same. The K1 is still exempt from redoing the medical/submitting an I693. That exemption did not change on Nov 1st and was the same before and now.

Dont stress. Just photocopy that DS3025, keep the original for yourself and submit that with your I-485. All good!

Thanks for clarifying this. I was looking for this confirmation too. I was only given page 1 of the DS3025 , would you know if that is sufficient or do I need to somehow get the page 2 as well? Thanks a ton. 

55 minutes ago, JMCKNG said:

I personally feel like I'm experiencing deja vu with the I-129F. I have spent probably a good week so far gathering the appropriate documents, necessary copies, and reading through all of the differently worded questions within the applications. 

 

I would start it as soon as you can! I think my application will at least be 100 pages combined 😤 I hope to have it sent this week and we are  2 months after POE.

Thanks for confirming my fears! 129F dejavu is not something I wanted to hear. Let me get into it then. Thanks for starting the thread!

Hi All, it was long great struggle to get my fiance here, so I procrastinated a bit on the AOS filing . I am now 10 days away from I-94 expiration. I started filling out the forms, need some guidelines of the time effort needed to put together the whole package and mail it out. ( I will not be doing 693 form as we have a copy of the 3025) . Thanks a ton! 

6 hours ago, loboxja said:

Does the Mumbai embassy usually email the packet 4? Our case left the NVC on the 4th. Hoping it gets to Mumbai by the 7th as "Ready".

Not sure of others, but ours never arrived although they claimed they mailed it. We didn't need it to schedule interview and such. Just follow procedures mentioned elsewhere in the thread with next steps. 

10 hours ago, nacho said:

We received a post on aug 28th from US consulate Mumbai saying your K1 visa is now ready for final processing. We got our I-797 and ceac status is ready. We went ahead and filled and submitted ds-160,  paid fees, obtained pcc (police clearance) and created an account on usatraveldocs. The problem begins here. We are unable to schedule an appointment. Whatever date we select we are getting no appointments available. Please press the back button and choose and new OFC appointment date. The first step is OFC scheduling and next is interview scheduling. OFS shows availability but interview page shows this message. If anyone has faced a similar issue or has got past this issue kindly suggest what course of action we should take? The call center has so far been useless :)..

 

Regrads,

Nacho

What does it show as the earliest available date on the initial screen in USTraveldocs? Keep in mind , the OFC date has to be within 30 days of the whatever the earliest date available is , otherwise it will say no dates available on the next screen. Also , once you do grab the first available date  for an appointment, create another dummy ustraveldocs account to keep checking the earliest date available (since it wont be visible on the main account once you schedule an appointment) 

7 hours ago, jangrace said:

I finally received my visa yesterday. I was given a 221g at the interview and asked to submit additional documentation along with my passport at a dropbox after 5 business days. Once I did so, it was ready for pickup 2 weeks later! 

 

Good luck to everyone else going through the process and feel free to ask questions.

yoohoo, congrats!

Just wanted to close the loop on my situation.  I heard back from the Embassy and visited them early Thursday. My Fiance was all tears and told them what happened and explained we had a ticket for that night. They were kind enough to reseal our envelope in about 20 minutes ! We got real lucky (finally!) . I am now typing this from the USA where my Fiance and my daughter are spending a nice relaxing weekend. 😁

Couple of lessons for the next sucker who goes through this . These points are specific to the Mumbai embassy, but may apply elsewhere

1) "Resealing" seems be a well known service that the Mumbai Embassy provides . All the handlers outside the embassy knew about the "resealing"  .  I guess enough people must have their envelopes accidentally open or something and ofcourse there's the occasional buffoon like us. 

2)  The only way to contact the embassy was through the official email (ustraveldocs) . They responded 2 business days later and asked me to come in any business day at 730 am. Their email specifically said an appointment isn't required for resealing. 

Thanks all for your support folks. 

Hi All,

Monday came and went and I unfortunately haven't heard back from the embassy yet. The only contact route given to me is via USTravelDocs which I did over the weekend and though I pushed them, they couldn't get a response back today. 

The only direct phone line into the embassy is for  "an immediate threat to the life or welfare of a US citizen". I want to say this impacts my welfare, but I was weary selecting that option for now. But I am getting desperate so might call in with that option tomorrow 😵

Anyone know of alternate ways to make contact to try to expedite? 

1 minute ago, NikLR said:

There should be two in there.  I remember them being taken out when I entered the USA as well.  

Brilliant . Thanks! That was the only piece that I wasn't sure about. Thanks for confirming. I have the packet put together now and will see what the embassy wants me to do. Really appreciate your response. 

6 minutes ago, JFH said:

My packet (IR-1) was opened in front of me by the CBP officer at the airport when I arrived. It had the original petition in, some extra pages of notes from USCIS, everything we sent to the NVC, everything I took to the interview and left with them, additional notes by the interviewing officer and my medical report. Probably other things as well but that's what I remember from when he opened it and went through it whilst sitting in front of me at the desk. 

 

But it will need to be redone by the embassy. The brother should never have even opened the outside courier mailer - nothing was adressed to him - let alone the envelope inside that says in big letters "DO NOT OPEN". In many countries it's illegal to open mail that's not addressed to you. 

Thanks a ton. That's what we have put together. Do you remember a couple of passport photos also being in the packet. I know they we're collected at the interview 

Thanks all for your helpful responses. Was planning on showing up at the embassy first thing Monday, but I guess will wait to talk to them on Monday and await instructions.

Worst weekend of my life 😌. Thanks for your support though. 

2 hours ago, ajay007 said:

Hi friend it's ajay I hope you remember. In Rochester. First of all no need to worry anything serious. second this khakee envelope is not packet 4. Third this packet comes with passport and visa and the additional documents and her medical report which she submitted. So no need to panic and I don't think so us consulate will help you with this so better option is that peacefully sought out the documents and fix it properly. when I came here at the port of entry immigration officer didn't know aboutthat packet he asked me is this for me? So no need to panic deal with it peacefully. Best of luck 

Thanks Ajay. I am weary to try my luck at POE. I will have to wait to talk to embassy on Monday. I am cancelling my flight for tonight and will wait to hear from Embassy on Monday. I am in Delhi so will have to fly down there tomorrow probably. As a US citizen, I am hoping they will let me in to plead our case. 

9 minutes ago, FlashLG said:

Based on some other threads where previous people have made this mistake, it seems that the packet will need to be re-sealed at the Embassy before travel to the US.

 

Thanks, yeah I read those. My additional issue is that we need to make sure we include all the documents that were in the packet to send them back to the embassy. Appreciate your reply. 

1 minute ago, stiggy771 said:

Just the sealed packet and the passport. Nothing else 

Ok great. Thanks for the help. Can you or anyone reading this also confirm if during the interview did they return all of our original documents like the original birth certificate , original PCC etc back to us? My fiance insists they were in the sealed packed , but I dont think the original birth certificate could be in there as the sealed document is supposed to be kept by the POE office right? 

1 minute ago, stiggy771 said:

 you should definitely tell the embassy about what happened at your fiancés place with the documents. 

 

Regarding what the packet contains (as I just entered the US a couple of days ago and the officer literally kept the documents opened in front of me during my entry process), it consisted of 

1) the i129f copy packet 

2) letter of intent to marry 

3) Affidavit of support (i think i saw it there) 

4) medical reports (didn't really see them in the packet but it's pretty easy to know if it was part of it since if you were to see it in the set of documents with you, that means it came from the packet and not from anywhere else)

 

 the first 2 were definitely there, but I'm not fully sure about the AOS being there. There were a few more documents but I'm pretty sure all of them were part of our application. The packet (as far as I've read) is just a way for them to save on paying the shipping charges, and hence they send it to the US with the beneficiary. 

 

It's a good thing you're there in India. You should just go to the embassy asap and tell them what happened. Also, i did read about some instances where the packet was opened on VJ. I'm sure you would've read about it. Definitely expect a delay in getting the documents resealed, but that's all there is to worry about in my opinion. Good luck 

Thanks Stiggy!  When you got the visa packet from the embassy, I need to know what was available to you outside do not open packet, apart from the passport

Hi Guys, ok so I am in a state of shock right now and can't think straight. Could use some calmer heads to help me rectify the situation. 

I traveled back to India to accompany my Fiance and my 7 month US citizen daughter back into the states this evening.  We had been waiting for 2 years since we started this journey. 

I know this shouldn't have happened and I am extremely stupid for letting this happen despite reading VJ every day, but my Fiance's brother recieved the petition packet and accidentally opened "do not open" packet. He then delivered the packet to my fiance a few days later who found the envelope already open and ignored the do not open signs and just assumed it was the Packet 4 we were supposed to receive earlier.  (which we never did) . She  disassembled the packet contents and organized it in various files for safekeeping. This was a 3-4 days ago. 

I flew in today and asked to see the visa packet and the visa and discovered this mess. 

Now I know that me, my fiance and my fiance's brother are all idiots.  I also know that I need to contact the embassy to make it right, but I need to reverse engineer what was inside the sealed  envelop so I can contact the embassy to reseal it.  My fiance is in a state of shock and cant think straight as to what was in the envelop vs. what was outside apart from the passport.  Can someone advise on what they recieved back from the embassy. What was outside the envelope apart from the passport?  

Its saturday morning right now. I assume I should cancel my tickets, because there is no chance of this happening on a weekend right? As a US citizen is there an emergency line to contact the embassy to help me out? 

Thanks all. 

Hi Guys, ok so I am in a state of shock right now and can't think straight. Could use some calmer heads to help me rectify the situation. 

I traveled back to India to accompany my Fiance and my 7 month US citizen daughter back into the states this evening.  We had been waiting for 2 years since we started this journey. 

I know this shouldn't have happened and I am extremely stupid for letting this happen despite reading VJ every day, but my Fiance's brother recieved the petition packet and accidentally opened "do not open" packet. He then delivered the packet to my fiance a few days later who found the envelope already open and ignored the do not open signs and just assumed it was the Packet 4 we were supposed to receive earlier.  (which we never did) . She  disassembled the packet contents and organized it in various files for safekeeping. This was a 3-4 days ago. 

I flew in today and asked to see the visa packet and the visa and discovered this mess. 

Now I know that me, my fiance and my fiance's brother are all idiots.  I also know that I need to contact the embassy to make it right, but I need to reverse engineer what was inside the sealed  envelop so I can contact the embassy to reseal it.  My fiance is in a state of shock and cant think straight as to what was in the envelop vs. what was outside apart from the passport.  Can someone advise on what they recieved back from the embassy. What was outside the envelope apart from the passport?  

Its saturday morning right now. I assume I should cancel my tickets, because there is no chance of this happening on a weekend right? As a US citizen is there an emergency line to contact the embassy to help me out? 

Thanks all.