argylejegirl

So my husband originally came here on a K-1 visa. We applied for AOS in February 6th of this year(2019) , and we did fingerprinting in the beginning of March. We just received an appointment notice for the green card interview. We were surprised, first because we didn't think we were going to have to do one (we had read that an interview was probably not necessary if he came on a K-1 visa), and the other reason we were surprised was because of how fast it came. We expected that if we would have an appointment it would be 7-9 months from when we originally filed, but our appointment is on May 1st. Is this a good sign? Also, we haven't received the EAD or the AP yet.

Can anyone share their experiences for the AOS Interview, especially if you went to the Kansas City, MO office. 

Thank you! Were trying to get all the papers together, but were a little stressed because, while he's conversational in English, It might be a little intimidating for my husband if they separate us for questioning, and he might misunderstand a question or something. I'm a little worried. Any encouragement would be nice. :) 

My fiance arrived on Saturday! We are so happy There is a light at the end of the tunnel for all you in the process! ❤️ 

On 10/16/2018 at 11:03 PM, cdee098 said:

Thank you, thank you, thank you! The packet comes via email, correct? I've emailed NVC to ensure they have my fiance's (beneficiary) correct email address. How quickly can we expect the packet after it's received by the embassy? 

 

Also, when I put in our case number for to the tracker, it says:

 

U.S. Department of State
IMMIGRANT VISA APPLICATION

In Transit

Immigrant Visa Case Number:

SNJXXXXXXX

Your case is in transit to the Consular Section. Your interview date was provided to you by the National Visa Center. 

But we definitely did not get any information on an interview date from the NVC??

 

Also--CONGRATS! Gives me lots of hope to see your timeline
 

 

 

Of course   ❤️ Glad to help! Yes It will come through email, but it will take a long time, so go ahead and use the one I attached to get ready.  In transit means it's on its way to the consulate! Yay!! Soon it will say ready and that's when you can schedule your interview.  here: http://www.ustraveldocs.com/cr/ or you can call the telephone number 4000-1976 (from Costa Rica) or (703) 745-5475 (from the United States). All this info is also in the packet. Meanwhile you can do your medical stuff and affidavits and civil documents. 

I'm glad my timeline gave you hope! My fiance should be here saturday!  There is a light at the end of the tunnel! 

16 hours ago, radharose said:

Hey guys!  We finally got our NOA2 on Friday, so we're back to the waiting game again.  I had a question for those of you who have scheduled your interview already; are you able to pick your interview date, or does the embassy just assign you a date/time, or how does it work?  If you can pick your own date, more or less how booked up are the appointments–how soon can you book an interview?  Also if anyone has the instruction letter that the embassy sends that you would be willing to share, that would be awesome.  Thanks! 

For K1, you pick your interview date. You can call  the National Visa Center to get a status on your case. When they send it, it should only take a couple weeks for the case to show as ready on the case tracker. https://ceac.state.gov/ceacstattracker/status.aspx When it says ready you're good to go and you can schedule your interview.  

While your waiting you can prepare financial documents and evidence, and important documents like birth certificate, police record, proof of singleness etc. and you can schedule your medical! 

This should help speed up the process. I've also included attached the packet that they will send in email when the embassy is ready.  It is in English and Spanish. This way you don't have to wait for the email to start preparing for the interview.  I hope this helps! 

packet.pdf

Josue, my fiance passed his interview yesterday!!!!!!!! Praise God!  How long should it take for him to get his passport back? They said up to 10 days. Any experience? He lives in Puerto Jimenez, so a little far from San Jose. 

On 9/21/2018 at 6:41 PM, Cari & Andy UB said:

oh wow! thank you so much! did you make a prior appt far in advance? I am worried it will take long to get seen.

Sure He called the day before (Thursday)to make the apppointment for the following day  (Friday) and went that same day (Thursday) to get the labs done. But yes, call ahead just in case they’re busy. To get an X-ray and blood work you need to have an appointment with the doctor for the physical exam already. 

On 9/21/2018 at 4:50 PM, radharose said:

May I ask how you sent the documents, did you use USPS?  I've sent him I think three envelopes via USPS over the years and at least one never arrived.  He sent me two copies of the Letter of Intent, one expedited and the other not, and one arrived in like 10 days, and the other took 5 months!  I'm hoping to be there with him for the interview, but I want to send a copy of the documents ahead of time so he has them just in case.

FedEx- a whollllle Lot more expensive, but I know it will get there safe and on time. It gave me peace, but it is very expensive 😕 

1 hour ago, Cari & Andy UB said:

Who did you go to for the blood work, urine test, and chest x-ray?

Dr. Enrique De La Cruz: LABORATORIO LABIN 

and the X_RAY was at the clinica biblica

My fiance went to Dr. Rogelio Pardo Evans, and he was amazing! He helped my fiance get all the vaccines he was missing the same day, and was very kind and helpful!  

Now we have the medical exam checked off the list! Now all we have to do is wait for the papers that are being apostilled to get back! and for the affidavits of support to get to him in the mail. (should be arriving tuesday), and we will have everything ready for the interview!

4 minutes ago, JennaL said:

Generally, you wait until the status changes to say "Ready" - that means the embassy has received your case and is now ready for you to schedule an interview. Shouldn't be more than a few days until the embassy receives your petition, so keep an eye out for that status change.

Thank you!   

I got the email that the NVC sent our K1 visa to the Costa Rican embassy. How long should I wait to schedule the interview? How long will it take for the embassy to receive the petition? 

I checked our case status online and it says In Transmit. 

12 hours ago, Cari & Andy UB said:

This is where we are going. I just emailed her tonight and she said 11,000 colones per document.

 

Thank you!  

Where did you all get your civil documents translated into English? I would do them for my fiance, but it's a lot of official language and it worries me, that the translation should be more official. Do you all know a translator who could translate the documents quickly, or somewhere that translates official documents? 

I appreciate it so much! 

EDIT: We just saw that the same government building that does the apostille can do the translation.  

Just saw online that it was in transit. I haven't received an email yet though. I'm calling to see. 

2 hours ago, Cari & Andy UB said:

Honestly, just the marriage certificate and the birth certificates...oh and the international police certificate. It's simply authenticated as a valid document on an international level. I'm not sure it is required, but it is safe to do so. I also work case management with immigrants and often authentication of documents from other countries are necessary.

Great! Do you know how long it takes to get them apostilled? Would they be ready the following week? 

Thank you for all this information!  

On 9/15/2018 at 6:43 PM, radharose said:

My fiancé just made a trip into San Jose to get his birth certificate, police record and certificate of marital status on September 7th.  He took the documents to the Casa Amarilla (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores) to have them apostilled for good measure.  They told him he could pick them up on Tuesday, but he hasn't been able to get back to pick them up because of the strike that is happening.  He called and they said they would hold on to them and he could pick up them up when things settle down.  Has anyone else been affected by the strike?  It sounds like things are pretty topsy-turvy down there right now.

Is it necessary to get documents apostilled? 

Hello! Thank you for creating this thread! We are in the NVC stage right now. My fiancé will go in a couple weeks to pick up documents such as police record and do the medical exam. Hoping the strikes will subside by then 

13 hours ago, Greenbaum said:

 

Many of our answers are predicated on the information you supply in your profile. When we look at the left column and can't determine your timeline or your Embassy it's hard for us to give you a factual answer. If you look at the profile of others here, they have a flag for their country, so it makes it easy for us to reply as we can quickly determine your Embassy. Our answers will sometimes be tailored to a specific Embassy hence the reason for you to complete your profile.

 

So, if you could help yourself out and complete your profile that sure would help us out when we want to reply to your question with factual information.

 

Go to the top right of this page select your name (it's on the upper right hand corner)>my profile>[below your picture on the right column] edit my profile. Scroll to the bottom and fill in "Immigration Info". There now we can better serve you.

 

Thanks

Thank you so much! I filled out my profile. Thank you! 

18 hours ago, Naes said:

You can do the ds-160.

 

however most embassies would want to see NVC letter (will be emailed to you at the time of transit) or document from your embassy. So you can probably get the appointment but it may not be possible to have the medical without the letter.

  

please fill in your visajourney timeline so we can give you more accurate answers. As everything from this point on will depend on your embassy.

Thank you! I have filled in my profile now. The embassy is costa rica. We also already have a copy of what they will send my fiance in Packet 3, given to us by rapidvisa, so I feel like we do not need to wait for that. We will wait to schedule the medical exam until the NVC sends the petition to the embassy (hopefully next tuesday?). At which time, we would receive an email that it has been sent, correct? 

Thank you for all your help! 

Hello everyone! I have my case number, but my case hasn't been sent to the embassy yet. Can I do the I160 and can my fiance go for his medical exam, or do we need to wait until the embassy has the case?

18 hours ago, GP1977 said:

I think you are okay.   If your embassy receives cases from the NVC electronically your case will be sent on the 18th of september to your embassy.  There is no official NVC policy for this but we have seen this to be the case of the past 2 months or so. THe last batch was sent on 9/4 so next tuesday 9/18 they should send the next batch and yours should be included in that group.

Thank you so much! That makes me feel a lot better! 😁

56 minutes ago, Alekezam said:

I'm in the same boat as you. 

 

Our case has been sitting in "administrative processing" for over 4 weeks now and every time I call they just tell me there is no timeline. 

 

Ours is merely a re-affirmation so our case number was assigned months ago. Long story short, ours had zero complications other than a mess up on USCIS's part that we ultimately ended up paying for. 

 

I was also told by the NVC on every call I made that the CEAC status tracker has nothing to do with them....how messed up is that? What is the purpose of the CEAC tracker then if they don't utilize it? The whole process is dysfunctional and it only seems to be getting worse. 

 

So sorry to hear that! Hopefully we will both hear from them soon! Keep me updated. 

I believe you need a letter of intent  to marry from each of you that is physically signed (no copy or faxed signatures) . The rest I believe can be scanned so no problem. 

I called last week and got my case number from the NVC for our k1 visa petition. I called to see if it was sent out to the embassy and they said it was under administrative processing. What does that mean exactly? The lady I spoke to on the phone was unable to give me any kind of timeline for how long that could take. She just said my case was under review. 

What does administrative processing mean at the NVC stage? Has anyone had this?

15 hours ago, Greenbaum said:

After getting notified and receiving your NOA2 send an email to NVC asking for them to email both you and your fiancé if any updates occur. In the past they have replied when your case was received from USCIS, another when your case number has been assigned and when your case is being sent out to your Embassy without you having to make any further queries by phone. Here is where you send this information to:

 

Email address: NVCINQUIRY@state.gov

Subject: Your receipt #

Body: Petitioner's Complete Name Birthday ; Beneficiary's Complete Name Birthday

 

 

Or use the online form

 

https://secureforms.travel.state.gov/ask-nvc.php

 

https://secureforms.travel.state.gov/ask-nvc.php

 

 

And you need to call NVC and you will need the Petitioner's and Beneficiaries full name and date of birth.

 

Call 603-334-0700 or 603-334-0888 Be prepared for a wait. Tell the operator that you are requesting a case number for your K-1. They will ask for the receipt number located on the left top of your I-797 (NOA2) form. Then he/she will either tell you that they have not received your case or you will be asked for the names and date of birth. If they don't have the case, you will be told it can take 30 to 45 days for them to receive it and to wait however many days/weeks and call back. That's a pad answer so ignore it. You can call back the next day or as often as you want. NVC's hours are 7am to 12 am (midnight) eastern time. Monday through Friday except Federal Holidays. Calling early at 7 am on the dot will get you in the fastest or calling late the lines to be open most often.

 

When you have your case number, enter it here https://ceac.state.g...ker/status.aspx and it will tell you one of three things... At NVC, In Transit, or Ready.

 

Thank you so much! I called and got my case number!  They will send it out to the embassy soon, then?