Eric-Pris

I hired a lawyer and I am not having a good experience with it. I end up telling him more info about the process.

I bet your lawyer reads VJ.

A lawyer is not needed for a k-1 petition. Follow the guides exactly and you'll be fine.

In other words, you have to really screw up the interview to get denied. Is that about right?

Seriously, why are you filling your head up with this negative stuff?

Think positive.

Hello~

Is there a way to get the tracking number from the NVC to determine if the package sent was ours? Or are we just guessing which package is ours? I called the NVC and they confirmed they had received it but that was all the info they would give me and I emailed them and all I got was an automated response saying it would be answered in the order received.

Thanks--just trying to find out the tricks around here!

Micki

PS thanks for all the work compiling these lists! You are awesome.

No problem, it really is just a guessing game. But they are educated guesses. If you can speak to an NVC live person, they can tell you exactly what day yours left. You can then check to see if there was a package to your embassy that day. If so, there's a high probability that it's yours. You should also check the day before and after, one of those could be yours also, sometimes NVC isn't exact.

NVC can't tel you anymore until it's sent out, then they can tell you when it shipped. Before that there is nothing more to say, they are processing it. Try to get a live person. The automated message still says "We have no record of your case number" for ours.

I was told ours was sent 3/10. There was a shipment to our embassy on 3/10, nothing the day before or after. So I'm 99.9995% sure that I'm tracking our case.

I tried to get NVC to give me a tracking number, but she said that they are shipped in boxes, so they don't have tracking numbers (BIG FAT LIE! ). Then she said that she wouldn't be able to give it to me even if she had it (that's TRUE ).

How funny would it be if I said... is the tracking number xxxxxxxxxx?

Here are today's cases shipped from NVC to embassies.

3/11/08

Only 12... slow day.

The only thing that needs to be notarized is the I-134 that you send to your fiancee for the interview.

What about tax returns? I read somewhere they need to be also.

Stop reading there.....

By "somewhere", I meant somewhere on this forum.

Or you can both do your 2007 taxes before April 15th and save yourself the headache.

The only thing that needs to be notarized is the I-134 that you send to your fiancee for the interview.

What about tax returns? I read somewhere they need to be also.

I think I'm gonna, I met with an attorney today and he quoted me $3400 including all fees, $1500 upfront flus the $455 initial filing fees and $240 a month. The only thing that I'm trying to figure out is the timeline for filing in Texas - Austin/Dallas area. This guy told me 10-11 months.... thats crazy, I was thinking it was more like 4-6 months total.

$3400???? He must be high on something. I've heard $1500-1900, and that's in NYC.

Here are some things I learned about lawyers:

-They have dozens of these cases going at once, so yours will probably not be their main focus.

-The lawyers themselves don't often fill out forms and put things together.

-Paralegals/assistant usually handle the bulk of the work (even temps & interns sometimes do simple tasks).

-They aren't as efficient as you would be handling your own case. (That's why he quoted 11 months, it may take them 3 months to mail it out. That happened to a friend, he gave the lawyer ALL the documents needed in Oct, the case was sent out in January)

-If they are working on several cases at once, there is a chance of one couple's docs ending up in another couple's envelope. It has happened before.

-If there's a delay, they blame the CIS and NVC (happened to my friend).

Obviously, not all lawyers are bad. But the procedure is pretty simple and requires no expertise. Why waste the money... the GUIDES are so good that you really don't need a lawyer.

*Btw, If you're really looking for somebody to do this for ya, I'll do your whole case for $1700. That's a 50% discount from what they quoted you. Just kidding, I'm still dealing with my own headache, don't need yours. LOL

I just received our NOA2. We got the NOA1 on Jan 14, 8 days after mailing it. We just received the NOA2 on Feb 25. This must be a record and hope to all the rest of you.

Congrats on the NOA2. But sorry to tell you that it is not a record. But don't let that affect you. I thought we had the record too (I sent in our petition in mid-January also, and we were approved in 46 days), until I read that there was a case approved in 29 days recently. I don't remember the names, sorry.

Hello, can someone recommend a good attorney in the Texas area. I'm a naturalized US citizen I've been with my fiancee for 4 years. she is from Brazil and I was hoping I could talk to someone with a similar situation. thanks!

If you are just looking to get her a K-1 visa, then save the $1500 he will charge you and do it yourself. Use that money to spend some more time with your fiancee.

The K-1 guides and flowcharts are so great, that every dollar spent on a lawyer is a dollar wasted IMO. Unless you have some extremely complex/unusual situation, forget the lawyer.

Some embassies (at least my fiancee's does) prefer you to pick up Packet III in person. The address system is so messed up in Costa Rica that they don't want to chance it by sending anything. If they don't have the beneficiary's phone number, can't get in touch with the beneficiary, they will send it by mail, as a last resort.

Maybe you can arrange to pick up the packet. Once you know it left the NVC, you may want to contact the embassy and explain the situation and see if they will let you do that. I don't know if doing an address change would delay your case.

Here are today's cases going to embassies from NVC, including mine.

I had 2 supplements on my I-129F and I only included 1 copy of each supplement, not 4. We were approved in a month and a half, so it didn't delay our case.

Excellent, thanks.

I'm completing the forms for our upcoming interview and I have a question.

Here's the back story:

Two years ago (Mar 2006), a cousin of mine from Poland contacted me and wanted me to help his friend get a tourist visa to come to the US for 6 weeks. He was a college student and wanted to see the world.

In the embassy in Poland (maybe others as well), you need to submit an I-134 from a US resident or citizen in order to even be considered for a tourist visa.

My cousin assured me the guy was a good guy and wouldn't overstay. So I filled out and sent him an I-134. I never actually submitted it, I just sent it to him. I guess he needed to bring it with him to the interview at the embassy. I know he came here in July 2006, but he was traveling a lot so I never actually saw him. I don't know what day he went back, but I'm 95% sure he didn't overstay the visa. I contacted my cousin to get the exact details (dates), but am waiting for his response.

My question is this... on the I-134 I'm filling out now it asks if I have ever submitted an I-134 on behalf of anybody.

-Do I need to include this thing from 2 years ago on my current I-134?

-Question #7 says that an affidavit is binding for 3 years from the date of entry into the US. What exactly does that mean if the person has already returned home? Can this cause any problems for our K-1? Even if he's already back home, would they possibly still count him on my size of household? If that's all they would do, it's ok as far as income goes, I make more than quadruple times the poverty line for my fiancee and her kid, so adding another person would affect it. But I'm just worried that it would affect our approval.

Thanks.

hi.......i dont know if they ask for it or not but we included pics with his family and us together so that they would know that its not just us that are wanting the marraige.....but beard i do not think makes a difference perviz father has a beard and comes from Kashmir to visit his son that is in the USA all the time with out any problem..........

Family photos are not needed, just photos of the fiances.

You guys are all missing the obvious here.

How would USCIS know that what his father looks like? At no point will you be asked to produce photos of his parents.

As long as you've seen each other in person in the last 24 months (and you have proof), it won't be a problem.

Here is today's list of cases shipped from NVC to embassies

3/7/08--see attachment

Congrats, that was a long wait.

You don't need any forms, but you must get a list of approved doctors from the embassy or somebody else who has gone through the process with your embassy. I don't think you can just go to any doctor you want, it has to be one approved by the embassy. I received a list of 3 doctors, a couple of laboratories for blood test, and a couple of places for the x-ray. I emailed the embassy and sent me the info a few days later.

Good luck.

Where do you go to get this information? Can you send me the link?

Check out this thread for info: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...p;#entry1631247

To get the shipments for a particular day, search for reference with the previous day's date. For example, if you wanted yesterday's (3/6) shipments, you would search for reference: EXP 05 MAR 2008A

That's the only field you need to fill in or change.

Congrats, I just received the same news about 15 minutes ago.

Tip: For those of you calling NVC to check if they received your case, wait to speak with a live person. If they say all operators busy, keep calling until you get a live person. The automated system is not updated real-time, it still says "we have no record of your case" but I spoke to a live person and got my NVC case number and date of receipt (today).

Tip#2: To speak to a live person, press 1 for English, then wait a second and press 5 to speak to an operator.

So what is the average NVC processing time? Usually only a couple of days, right?

Applications the NVC sent to the embassies today 3/6/08

http://www.dhl.com

see attachment