Eaglenoodle

I would appreciate any advice you guys might have regarding my fiance’s upcoming K-1 embassy interview.  Specifically, she applied for an F-1 visa and was rejected about three months before we submitted our K-1 application.  We’re wondering what impact this might have on the outcome of our petition and what might come up in the interview.

The objective for the F-1 visa was for her to study English for several months while she lived with me.  She’s serious about improving her English (and plans to enroll in the same program after she immigrates) and we wanted to see what it was like living together for an extended period of time as we had gotten more serious.

After the F-1 visa rejection, we decided to commit and apply for the K-1 visa.  Fortunately, there were no major hiccups and the next step is her embassy interview.

Naturally, she’s concerned about the prior F-1 rejection.  If asked, our plan is just to be honest:  she wanted to study English and get more comfortable with living with me.

My understanding is that theoretically, the F-1 rejection should not affect our K-1 petition – the goal now is to prove we’re in a genuine relationship, and we think we have a really strong case there.  However, we think the primary risk would be if they suspected she was using the F-1 to circumvent the K-1 process, causing the interviewer to question her credibility.  In addition, they might see her as trying to get into the U.S. by any means possible (therefore F-1 followed by K-1) – but this shouldn’t be an issue with convincing evidence, right?

I guess our questions boil down to:

1. How might the F-1 visa rejection affect the K-1 visa petition process?
2. What is the best response if the F-1 rejection is brought up?  (We think honesty is the best policy, and the reason for rejection may have been lack of ties to her home country.  When she applied, we had not decided to get engaged yet.)
3. Is there anything she should not say?

Again, really appreciate any advice or color on our situation.  Thanks!

Just got off the phone with USCIS - our petition was forwarded yesterday (1/24)!

That would put it at five business days after the second NOA2 notice date, so normal timing.  This seems to imply that receiving a second notice means the process is moving again after a period where they lost track of the case.

We'll never know...but I like to imagine it's something as silly as Bob opening a drawer and realizing, "oh #######, I forgot to forward these cases."

Appreciate and agree with the advice!

I did receive the second NOA2 in the mail today, with a notice date of 1/15/2019. 

I also received responses from both NVCResearch (identical message as the original post)

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The National Visa Center received your inquiry and the attached I-797 Notice of Action - Approval Notice. Unfortunately we do not have a record of receiving your approved petition from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

 

NVC will work with USCIS to determine the location of your petition. We will let you know when we have more information. You do not need to take any action at this time. Thank you for your patience as we work with USCIS to ensure your case is moving forward.

 

and surprisingly, USCIS (I submitted an online inquiry two days ago):

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The status of this service request is:

On 01/22/2019,  you or your representative contacted USCIS concerning your I-129F, to notify us that you believe your case is over normal processing time. Below is a summary of what we found and how the issue has been or may be resolved. 
What We Have Done

This case was approved on 01/15/2019 and a notification was mailed to the address of record at that time. 

Once an initial I-129F petition has been approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, it is forwarded to the National Visa Center, which is an entity of the State Department.  The State Department controls visa issuance.  Once with the State Department, USCIS no longer has jurisdiction or access to the petition.  

For questions regarding your petition, it is recommended that you contact the State Department regarding your concerns.  You can contact the National Visa Center for more information. 

I'd like to think things are on track now, but won't be giving them the benefit of the doubt anymore.  Hopefully there'll be an update when I call them tomorrow morning.

I'm flying to Tokyo next week to formally propose and give her the engagement ring (which should come in handy for the interview).  If nothing's changed by the time I get back, I'll have to escalate things.

The lack of transparency is what makes this so frustrating...my fiance and I joke that we got the laziest worker at CSC and he just moved his box of Krispy Kremes and noticed our case was under it 😒

Sharing my experience here as a member of the double NOA2 club:

12/03/18:  NOA2 notice date, 179 days after “Received Date,” within the normal timeline.

1/16/19 [44 days after NOA2]:  It’d been about six weeks and we hadn’t heard anything, so I emailed NVC (NVCINQUIRY@state.gov) to see if they had a case number yet.

1/22/19 [50 days after NOA2]:  I received a response to my email (identical to the one in the original post), stating that they had not yet received my petition:

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Thank you for your inquiry. We do not have a record of receiving your petition.

 

It can take at least six weeks for the National Visa Center (NVC) to receive an approved petition from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and enter it in the U.S. Department of State's database system. If it has been less than six weeks since USCIS approved your petition, you don't need to take any action at this point.

 

If USCIS approved your petition more than six weeks ago, please send us a scanned copy of your I-797 or I-171 Notice of Action - Approval Notice. You can attach the scanned copy to an email, and send it to nvcresearch@state.gov.

 

In the subject line of your email, please type the original receipt number from your I-130 Approval Notice. If you have more than one petition, send a separate email for each petition. Once we receive the copy of your approval notice, we will contact USCIS to find your petition.

 

Before you send us an email, please check your Notice of Action and make sure it says your petition was approved. If it says that USCIS kept your petition, or if it is a notice other than an approval, you should contact USCIS for more information. You can contact them on their website at uscis.gov, or by telephone at 1-800-375-5283.

 

At this point, my misplaced faith in the process had eroded and I called USCIS.  The rep I spoke to said our petition had not been mailed yet, and that they had sent a second NOA2 on 1/16/19.  I requested to speak to a Tier 2 Supervisor, who also said they had sent a second NOA2 on 1/16/19 – her tone as she saw this on their system seemed to imply she thought this was odd.  I asked her to confirm that our petition had not been physically mailed yet, and she responded that the system said that as of 1/16/19, the petition was still at CSC and being prepped to be sent to NVC.  She indicated that it could take “a couple of weeks” for petitions to be mailed, and when I pressed her on a best estimate, she said to call back if NVC hadn’t received it in 30 days.

Given the similarity of my experience with that of scootabug, sunshinefemi2014, and Gulsah90 above, I suspect there was a holdup at CSC around this timeframe, and around January 16^th someone stepped in.  My hope is that things are moving along now.

I also emailed a scanned copy of my I-797 to nvcresearch@state.gov but haven’t gotten a response back yet.  I haven’t received a copy of the second NOA2 in the mail yet, but think I might get it today based on how long it took for me to get the first one.

Any advice on what else I can do at this point?