2018croz

Hi Michael,

We did nothing, just waited and got the interview appointment letter (via email) about 3 weeks after submitting. My husband took the I-864 and civil documents directly to the interview, and paid the fee there as well.

Apparently, even though when you go through direct consular filing you never deal with the NVC, you still get all the standardized instructions and you just have to ignore that.

Best,

Hi coubeau,

When I requested permission to file DCF due to exceptional circumstances, I emailed the embassy using the address: citizeninfo@state.gov

Hi JulienR,

It was actually quite simple and almost identical to what was described in the first post on DCF in France in this thread with only a couple of differences.

August 12: emailed the US embassy in Paris requesting to exceptionally file because of new job offer in the USA and that I had been living in France for more than a year. I included the PDF of the memo listing relocation due to job as one of the qualifying reasons, found here.

August 13: consular section emailed back asking me to email documentation of relocation along with copies of both our passports, birth certificates, and marriage certificate.

August 15: I emailed the requested documents, with the offer letter with start date listed from my employer serving as proof of relocation.

August 17: The wrote back saying the petition had been approved, to fill the form I-130 and prepare documentation and that once the documentation was ready we could request an appointment, which would only be available on Wed afternoons.

Sept 13: We wrote saying the documentation was ready (we thought we had to bring in all the things USCIS ask for evidence of marriage, which is why it took a while to compile) and requested an appointment for mid-October.

Sept 13: Embassy wrote back the same day granting us the appointment on the date we requested

Oct 17: Appointment to file I-130. As mentioned, they only wanted the I-130, our passports, brith certificates, and marriage certificate, no other documentation was needed. We paid a fee.

Oct 31: my husband received an email saying the petition was approved. "Complete you DS-260, gather the full documentation, and register your appointment." 

Nov 25: We submitted the DS-260 online via the CEAC portal. No fees. We tried to make a medical appointment and to register a visa interview appointment but learned we had to wait till the embassy responded with the visa interview appointment before we could do either of those things. I prepared the I-864 and he got his police records and vaccines done.

Dec 13: My husband received an email giving him a visa interview date of Jan 9. We could then schedule the medical appointment and register the appointment (essentially to have a courrier service return the passport and visa).

Jan 4: medical appointment, fees.

Jan 9: visa interview. Another fee payment. Very short, he was told at the end that he was approved and that his passport would be mailed back to him in two weeks, so we're now just waiting for it to arrive (knock on wood!). 

The main takeaways for me were that we should NOT have spent all the time we did gathering evidence of our shared residence, finances, trips, photos, etc and translating all the documents. None of that was needed. We were especially worried because we had very recently gotten married but it did not matter. And they did consider my job a relocation even though I had just graduated, wasn't moving from one job to another. 

I also want to note that it could have probably been done in 2 months instead of 5, we just had a complicated schedule in the fall so could not be available for appointments and filling out the forms immediately. So, if your wife gets a job in the US definitely send in a request to do DCF with documentation of her job offer or contract.

Hope this helps! 

Hi JulienR,

NO! It was way simpler. We prepared everyone that USCIS listed because when I emailed the embassy to ask, they never replied. But we only needed the I-130, our passports, our marriage certificate, both our birth certificates (in French was fine, they did not need a translation), and the documentation justifying why we needed direct consular filing (in our case, my offer letter from my employer in the USA). We did not need any of the "evidence of bona fide marriage". 

For some reason, when the embassy sent us the email for the first appointment, they also said to bring ID photos and a G325A form for each of us, but at the appointment they did not ask for them.

Good luck!

Just wanted to update--we received the appointment letter via email today! This letter has full instructions and says to bring the documentation to the appointment, not to send it anywhere.

So the NVC was never involved. Like you said, the confirmation page had generic instructions that didn't apply to our case. Too bad that the initial email from the Consulate doesn't mention we should ignore instructions having to do with the NVC, that would have been helpful....

Thanks for the reply and directing me to the other thread! It's disconcerting to receive contradictory instructions...

If anyone has experience doing DCF at the Embassy in France would love to hear what your process was like. I'll update when we hear more.

Hello helpful community!

I'm about half-way through the CR1 visa application process through Direct Consulat Filing at the US Embassy in Paris for my husband, who is French (I'm a US citizen). Everything was pretty clear and going smoothly until now, we're completely lost as to what the next step is. Did anyone file recently at this consulate, and if so, when/where/how did you submit your I-184, financial and civil docs after submitting the DS-260?? Did you send them to the NVC?

To recap our situation:

Oct 17: We submitted our I-130 petition in person at the US Embassy (we had previously gotten approved for filing directly due to exceptional circumstance)

Oct 31: We received an email from the embassy saying the petition had been approved and instructing us to: ""Complete you DS-260, gather the full documentation, and register your appointment." There was a case number beginning with PRS in the email.

Nov 25: We submitted the DS-260 online via the CEAC portal. Unless we missed something major, there was NOT a tab for uploading the I-184, financial documents, nor civil documents.

We received the Confirmation email that the DS-260 had been submitted. This email said we had to submit the financial and civil documents for the NVC for review and directed us to this website (excerpt from letter below:  

I thought with DCF we never dealt with the NVC... we only got an email from the embassy, no welcome  from the NVC and we don't have an invoice number nor any fees. Moreover, on the CEAC tracker, though, our status is marked as "Ready" and says to wait for appointment notification:

So, are we supposed to:

A) Do nothing just wait to hear from the Consulate in Paris?

B) Email documents to NVCelectronic@state.gov ?

C) Mail them to National Visa Center Attn: DR31 Rochester Ave. Suite 100 Portsmouth, NH  03801-2914 ?

D) Something else?

Anyone who has been through this process recently and can tell us what steps they had to take would be most appreciated! From what I've seem in other threads, DCF people just bring their documents to their interview, but it seems every embassy is a little different so I'm not sure what to do. Thank you!!!

Hello helpful community!

I'm about half-way through the CR1 visa application process at the US Embassy in Paris for my husband, who is French (I'm a US citizen). Everything was pretty clear and going smoothly until now, we're completely lost as to what the next step is. Did anyone file recently at this consulate, and if so, when/where/how did you submit your I-184, financial and civil docs after submitting the DS-260??

To recap our situation:

Oct 17: We submitted our I-130 petition in person at the US Embassy (we had previously gotten approved for filing directly due to exceptional circumstance)

Oct 31: We received an email from the embassy saying the petition had been approved and instructing us to: ""Complete you DS-260, gather the full documentation, and register your appointment." 

Nov 25: We submitted the DS-260 online via the CEAC portal. Unless we missed something major, there was NOT a tab for uploading the I-184, financial documents, nor civil documents.

We received the Confirmation email that the DS-260 had been submitted. This email said we had to submit the financial and civil documents for the NVC to review and directed us to this website.  Option one (CEAC) doesn't seem possible, do we EMAIL or MAIL the documents in to the NVC? Our case number does not begin with the letters they put as the ones that should be emailed in. Here's a bit of the letter:

On the CEAC tracker, though, our status is marked as "Ready" and says to wait for appointment notification:

So, are we supposed to:

A) Do nothing just wait?

B) Email documents to NVCelectronic@state.gov

C) Mail them to National Visa Center Attn: DR31 Rochester Ave. Suite 100 Portsmouth, NH  03801-2914

D) Something else????

Anyone who has been through this process recently and can tell us what steps they had to take would be most appreciated! Thank you!!!

Hello helpful community!

I'm about half-way through the CR1 visa application process at the US Embassy in Paris for my husband, who is French (I'm a US citizen). Everything was pretty clear and going smoothly until now, we're completely lost as to what the next step is. Did anyone file recently at this consulate, and if so, when/where/how did you submit your I-184, financial and civil docs after submitting the DS-260??

To recap our situation:

Oct 17: We submitted our I-130 petition in person at the US Embassy (we had previously gotten approved for filing directly due to exceptional circumstance)

Oct 31: We received an email from the embassy saying the petition had been approved and instructing us to: ""Complete you DS-260, gather the full documentation, and register your appointment." 

Nov 25: We submitted the DS-260 online via the CEAC portal. Unless we missed something major, there was NOT a tab for uploading the I-184, financial documents, nor civil documents.

We received the Confirmation email that the DS-260 had been submitted. This email said we had to submit the financial and civil documents for the NVC to review and directed us to this website.  Option one (CEAC) doesn't seem possible, do we EMAIL or MAIL the documents in to the NVC? Our case number does not begin with the letters they put as the ones that should be emailed in. Here's a bit of the letter:

On the CEAC tracker, though, our status is marked as "Ready" and says to wait for appointment notification:

So, are we supposed to:

A) Do nothing just wait?

B) Email documents to NVCelectronic@state.gov

C) Mail them to National Visa Center Attn: DR31 Rochester Ave. Suite 100 Portsmouth, NH  03801-2914

D) Something else????

Anyone who has been through this process recently and can tell us what steps they had to take would be most appreciated! Thank you!!!

Hi, 

We're in the middle of DCF in Paris but a bit lost about the process hope you can help...

When/how did you submit the applicant's civil documents and the petitioner's I-184 and financial docs? Via the CEAC, online to NVC, directly to the embassy somehow....?

For context, I am a US citizen and have been living in Paris with my French husband. We request exceptional filing at the US embassy and were approved, made an appointment to submit the I-130 in person exactly as you described, and received on Oct 31 an email from the embassy saying the petition had been approved and instructing us to: ""Complete you DS-260, gather the full documentation, and register your appointment." 

On Nov 25, my husband submitted the DS-260 via the CEAC portal. There did not seem to be a way to upload civil documents or my I-184. We received the confirmation email that had the DS-260 had been submitted. The CEAC Status tracker says the application is "ready" but we have not received an appointment date or further information from the embassy.

We're confused because the confirmation email instructs us to submit documents to the NVC and says the file will not be reviewed and appointment will not be scheduled until the other documents are received. When we click on the link for instructions, we are sent here and neither of the three scenarios seem to apply to us: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/the-immigrant-visa-process/collect-and-submit-forms-and-documents-to-the-nvc/step-6-submit-documents-to-the-nvc.html

How did you submit your documents, or do you have any idea of what we're supposed to do at this point? Just wait for interview appointment or submit something? I contact the embassy via their contact form and have not heard back.

Thanks for any help you can offer!!!!