LookyWhatIFound

Mkate well, I just noticed you are at CSC which is the fastest horse in the race so maybe something happens soon, good luck!

Is really hard to find what they are working on my case or not.anyway thanks a lot for you, and I have no another choice to get fast this case so STAY&WATCH???

Is really hard to find what they are working on my case or not.anyway thanks a lot for you, and I have no another choice to get fast this case so STAY&WATCH???

Yes I know we all have this problem, but I think nothing is happening with our cases, they are just sitting in a big queue waiting turn to get processed.

Just imagine taking a number, 1000, with number 1 being processed, and maybe 200 gets processed every month.

One month down and maybe 4 to go if we're lucky.

Hey guys, how are you? And what you doing?, after long time I'm going to ask a question for you. Plz give me a satisfied answer plz. Why the uscis did not update our case? Still the same time and date showing, and no initial on case update,

Hi Mkate, I'm sorry but this answer is not satisfying.

First what you should know is that probably nobody, except for you, in this thread has a case status that displays a scan date. I think that is probably because the status system has been upgraded for IR1 / CR1 visa cases.

For instance my status still just displays Case Received and everything else on it is the same as it ever was, and there is no scan date.

Since yours has scan dates, I think they must never have gotten to updating the system for LPR Family based visas. I think they got rid of that cause it was quite meaningless, and didn't work properly. For some people it updated once in a blue moon, for others it never updated, and for others it only updated when the case was complete.

If your scan date changes it could be 3 months from now because they are sending you an (RFE) request for evidence. Which isn't something you want to happen cause it just delays processing.

The other time when yours may update may be when USCIS is finished with your case.

Bottom line is scan date is pretty much useless. All it may mean is somebody touched your case for some unknown reason, maybe to move it to another shelf or something.

Thank you so much for your fast answer @LookyWhatIFound ! Yes i want to make sure if everything is alright but my husband couldn't relax me so last night I told him your answer and he said "it's not a problem, because he has both names on his background form. They will see both his names, it's okay."

You're welcome Fatigo, no need to worry, if they do need the name change document they will send your husband an RFE, and then he will have to give them the evidence they request.

Hey guys! I hope you're all doing well... I have a question. I hope you guys can help me. Well before I met my husband, he already converted to Islam, so he changed his name. We married. Now he became a Catholic again, so he changed his name back. I'm worried if there would be a problem about our marriage certificate or etc. He doesn't search for anything, but maybe I think too much?

Hi Fatigo, does he have Name Change documents from the times he changed his name? I think on his G325A form they would have asked for the names he ever used, so did he write down the name that he changed to?

They do name checks during their background checks. Also Turkey would have a longer Administrative Processing (AP) phase so I think you want to make sure there is no confusion.

I would think it might be a problem if they see his changed name on the marriage certificate and that name isn't listed as one of the other names that was used.

If you haven't sent in name change documents to USCIS and some explanation of why his name changed, I believe you can still send it to USCIS.

I read here somewhere, you might want to do a search on VJ, but I think you should write a cover letter and the name change document (officialy translated to English). Put your case number on the cover letter. Send the documents to the Lockbox where you sent your petition. The lockbox scan the documents and send the to the service center where your petition is.

Don't take my word for it, I would search around on VJ. Some other people in this thread may have thoughts.

Also ask outside of this thread cause there are people on VJ that know for sure. Good Luck!

Hello all!

My husband (the USC) sent off our paperwork last month, and our NOA1 was dated 2015-12-21, which was one day before our 6th anniversary of being together! We originally filed for a K1 way back in 2010 and I got all the way to the point of having a medical and interview scheduled, but we decided to wait and file for CR-1 later. I definitely did not expect to still be in Canada 6 years later but life has a funny way of working out, doesn't it? It has been a good 6 years either way, but I'm happy we are finally moving on with things. When I tell people I've been with my husband for 6 years and we've never lived together, I get some pretty funny looks.

Either way, I'm glad to join you all! Our petition is at TSC so I don't expect to hear anything until about May.

Welcome JlovesA, 6 years wow! Normally I think you would have beaten everybody, but Blanche, in this thread, has a few years on you, she's been married 20 years! For me its a tiny fraction in comparison at 1.5 years. Your petition seems to be in the same building as mine and also with the same NOA1 date.

You say life has a funny way of working out, but actually I would say life has a very strange and mysterious way of working out! Welcome to the December gang

So - now we wait for something from the NVC? I really don't know what the next step is. I'm scared of the fees, too! But of course we will do whatever it takes to get us back into the USA!

Yes, filed from abroad and sent to CSC. Also, my case was received on 12/1/15 so makes sense that I'm one of the first to get the NOA2.

Thanks again!

Yes but also you will be at least 4 months quicker than most of us in getting NOA2!

There's a thread down below under the Consulate and Service Center title, called something like National Visa Center ( Department of State ) I think that has a lot of information about the process.

I believe it goes something like this (it may have changed from what I remember) USCIS will send your case to NVC, once NVC processes it and they can give you the case ID that your embassy will use for your case. In most cases the NVC assigns the embassy interview date for you. But in the mean time you will have several forms to fill out, police reports to obtain, gather evidence, do a medical at the consulates designated doctors facility. Get translations, if needed, etc. Different embassies ask for different forms and have different processes. So you should check the embassy info tab at the top and also look at your US embassy / consulate website for information about processing the I-130 there.

Checked my case # online today and it says I-130 has been approved! Yipee! Such a relief considering the stupid address mix-up they have with me.

Wow Blanche, you're the second one to get your I-130 approved already!!!

The common thing with you and RJS7 was that you are filing from abroad and his went to California service center and I don't remember exactly but I think yours also was being processed at CSC.

You definitely want to look at your NOA2 to make sure all the information is correct and also that its being processed for the US Embassy in Israel.

For sure you've got some work to do to make sure your case gets to NVC and all things you need to do for the Embassy interview.

Hope for smooth sailing, in the rough seas!

Hey guys, can you tell me about Upon naturalization of the petitioner, a pending 2A case is converted automatically into the Immediate Relative visa category, which is not subject to numerical limit and therefore has no visa waiting period. As a result, the amount of cases being processed in the Immediate Relative category may increase and partially offset new F2A filings.

Are you going to be naturalized soon? I suppose if you read that somewhere from a reliable source it must be true.

But I don't understand why you don't ask these kind of questions in the F2A thread, "Family based thread"? There is a section for that here on VJ.

The rest of us in this thread are IR1 or CR1 visa filers so most of us, including me, have no clue how to answer you.

Truly sorry to hear about your situation, just wanted to pass along my experience, in case it can help ease the pain. My wife is a ethnic Russian from Latvia and it took me 13 years since first meeting her to make her feel comfortable enough to marry me. Along the way 2 wasted K-1 petitions of which she wasn't able to do the interviews, but of course there was at least one ex-boy friend that was interfering, that I didn't know about.

As far as I know in Russian / Ukrainian culture there is a very high divorce rate and more couples just go without getting married. Also they are very tough / strong people who've gone thru a lot of hardship and keep a lot of feelings inside. So the only way to breakthrough is communication and more communication until she will truly talk about her feelings.

You are relatively young so both your perspectives will change in time and you may find a woman who is even a bigger love of your life than she was.

Best wishes to you!

Hi everyone, how are you doing? How are you dealing with this waiting period?

Yes its a very tough wait especially if you focus on it all the time. I think the best way of dealing with it is to just accept that its a minimum of a 5 month wait and just do whatever it takes to keep your mind off of it. Whether it is some sort of hobby, work, or like in my case searching for a new job, or whatever can keep your mind occupied.

Of course there will be some that just happen to run into good fortune, or those who have emergency reasons for their case to be expedited. But for the rest of us only the passing of time will do the trick. But hoping for something like that to happen, for most of us, is just wishful thinking.

There are some like Mkate who need to accept that as a permanent resident and not a USC, the wait can be even longer cause in that case Visa's are not always available until their priority date becomes current. For USC's Visa's are always available on successful interview at the US Embassy. But in some cases there could be a longer wait even after the interview, especially for cases that are processed in high fraud (MENA) countries.

Best Wishes for all to get thru this.

Well folks it looks like a bit of good news to start us off. I checked the USCIS website this evening and saw the following.

"On January 6, 2016, we approved your Form I-130, Immigrant Petition for Relative, Fiance(E), or Orphan, Receipt Number WACXXXXXXXXX. We will mail your approval notice. Please follow the instructions in the notice. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address."

Didn't get an email notification yet so I'm going to wait until I get my NOA2 in the mail before definitely saying I'm in my way to NVC. However let's hope this is the first of many quick I-130 turnarounds for Dec 2015 filers.

I'm filing from abroad and at California Service Centre.

WOW!!! Congratulations thats amazing! Well onto NVC and the Embassy and maybe get your Visa by summer!

I third the Community College suggestion. There should be one in your county. They're easy to get into, relatively cheap and like others have said you can transfer to another college later. Also most of the course credits you obtain will get accepted by the college you transfer to.

My interview was on the 4th Dec 2015, and to date my case as been updated 5 times but still I. AP. After the interview the Co said my case was approved but I needed to submit an additional piece of document which I did a few days after. I was also informed by the embassy that the document was received and they will continue to process my visa. My question is. Is this the usual? And is there anyone who have been through similar situation? And how long did it take to get the visa?

Hi, in this thread people have just begun the I-130 filing process so nobody here has been through the process yet. You probably want to create a topic with your question as the title, one level above this thread where the people that might be knowledgeable on this will see your post and reply.

I think since you were missing information that they needed and if they are satisfied with what you provided you'll be out of AP, hopefully soon and get your visa. Since your case has been updating it is a good sign!

Good luck!

Cool Caleb, congratulations! I guess we'll soon find out if the rumors are true that California is processing at the speed of light!

Hi Everyone,

Happy New Year! I just got back from my celebration for 2016 but here again. I received my text/e-mail NOA1 on DEC 23 and hardcopy on DEC 28. I am so excited to get things started! Hopefully, we all will be getting NOA2 soon so finger crossed. Lets roll

Happy new year Sky, and congratulations! Yes we're finally rolling again after the holidays! But hey can somebody find the accelerator on this contraption and put the pedal to the metal please!!!

Welcome Fatigo and Caleb Joshua

Fatigo,

yes it is because of California Service center, but that's where it gets a little weird. CSC didn't have a huge backlog of cases to process at the time of that' list. I believe the lockboxes try to send cases to the center with the smallest backlog to try to even out the processing times.

So I don't know, who is to say that by now CSCs backlog may have increased so CSC's processing times could have got slower. But keep the fingers crossed you never know!

AH88

You're welcome, yes there're a bunch of tidbits that you find out the hard way. I happened to learn some of them in the past when I was trying to do the K-1 visa (which we didn't finalize), for my now wife.

So even though I got a message on the USCIS website saying the document they sent to me was returned (the NOA1, I'm assuming, almost certain) and I contacted them and changed my address to my parents one in the States (since I live abroad), I asked my mom to check when her check to them was cashed and she told me Dec 2nd. I'm guessing this means they are still working on my case and I can expect an NOA2 at some point?! Hoping. Being patient....

Hi Blanche, was starting to wonder if we lost you I just got back from ringing in 2016! You did get the email about receiving the NOA1 right? So they'll work on your case. Your mother will get the NOA1 hardcopy hopefully soon. I would have her scan the NOA1 and email it to you so you can make sure all the information on it is correct. I mean you sure don't want to correct any misspelled names or addresses and stuff, cause if you don't do it now it'll get processed with the wrong information.

Hey, my case was received on 14 dec and they send me notice on 15 dec, also send me hard copy also.. And the uscis right down on hard copy hard copy the prarity date is dec 14, and I was creat my account on 17 December,when i put my case number the status says last scan date is 16 December... So i was confused now...

Hmm, I don't even have a last scan date on my status. It just say Case Received with a general paragraph below it. The scan date would be when somebody moved it into the system. You might see changes in the scan date but there may not be a change in status along with it. They just basically stuck us in a long queue without much to do and leave it to our imagination about what might be happening.

Yeah its a confusing process!

got email for Nebraska..... thanks so much for all your help.. because yesterday I thought I was going to go crazy.

Congratulations RSDP, on getting your email and the fact that you're NOT going to go crazy!

Thank you for the detailed information, LookyWhatIFound! ?

I hope by next month we will all receive our NOA2 ??❤️

Sure Deedah. Next month it is then, cool!!!

Looky

Hello, why didn't change the case status......is almost 15 days .

Oh boy I think you better sit down for this one! I'd say your case is sitting in a giant stack of cases and for sure you're nearly at the bottom of the stack. So until all the piles of cases on top of yours are processed your case status will probably always say what it says now! So in 15 days, no way.

Also you don't want a status change right now. NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS! If you do get a status change before your NOA2 it's probably an RFE, which is just going to add a delay to your case processing.

Also like I said before, the case status thing is unreliable. Some people can get their NOA2 but the case status never changed.

RSDP, look at this site the list of acceptable passport photos, both ladies have their ears covered.

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/photos/photo-examples.html

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Hi RSDP, that seems pretty extreme if they would send the whole package back. I would think for just the photo the service center would just give you a RFE, request for evidence, and make you send them a new photo.

I think a person working at Walgreens generally have a good idea of what will pass and what won't cause they do these all the time. I believe they also may have a guarantee that if it doesn't pass they will take a new one for you free of charge,

Passport photos are so easy to mess up slightly so I think it wouldn't make sense to send the whole package back for that. I wouldn't worry about it so much, they would give you a chance to fix it, if they have a problem with it.

Congrats on your NOA1! ☺️

Well thank you Deedah, yes for sure its a good feeling to finally be on the path to striking GOLD!

Gosh I wish this editor would make up its mind! It first told me I did not have permission to make the last post in such a short time. SO of course I make a new post and now I found out the other post did get posted!

Well I guess it just means I'm doing the double happy dance!!!