GregandNatty

On 10/14/2020 at 8:43 AM, Evilplasticspoon said:

My spouse and I were fortunate enough to have our case expidited by NVC. Does anyone know the time frame from here? We received the approval notice yesterday and the case has been transfered to the embassy. Do we wait for the embassy to contact us? How long should we expect to wait and what the next steps are? Thanks in advance!

How long from your request to expedite to when you were granted expidite?

10 minutes ago, Her Highnesd said:

 

It lines up with the fact that in September the embassy issued over 250 DV VISAs, so they are operating.  Let's hope they start cranking out family VISAs this fast also.

36 minutes ago, imsan said:

They started DV because a judge ordered them to.

What a bummer.   Well hopefully now its full steam ahead with family visas

15 minutes ago, Mtu Mzuri said:

Rubs me wrong too. And it's like they don't want to hear it. They told me this week that I need to be "patient" as if waiting a year (I applied in October 2019) for our k-1 isn't already being patient. 

June 2019 for me, with no end in sight for the Nairobi embassy.  I'm reading of others with DQ dates from March that still haven't gotten an interview and my DQ is May.   Pretty dang disheartining.   I'm just hoping that now that they've hit their quota of the DV VISAs that they will start cranking out family VISA at the same rate.    I read somewhere that Sept 30 was the deadline for 2020 DV VISAs,

Comical that they were saying they were working on only mission critical VISAs.   Lottery VISAs (DVs) are not mission critical -- they are charity. 

On 10/9/2020 at 6:15 AM, Mtu Mzuri said:

Don't lose heart. In about 25 days, there is an election. If all goes well, we will have a new president and new support for easing immigration restrictions. 

 

Nairobi stated that this month (October) they will be doing immigrant visa applications which were cancelled earlier this year. We are still waiting to be contacted. All will be well soon. Don't lose hope.

 

The Nairobi embassy approved over 250 DV  VISAs in September compared to 27 CR1/IR1 VISAs.   Let's see:  The department of state is approving 10 times more VISAs at this station for random immigrates than family members of US Citizens and you are saying the current administration is hard on immigration????   How much more lax do you want it?   

Fact is, the issues we are having are 100% due to COVID.

Personally, it rubs me wrong to see this many DV Visas being approved while a bunch of us are waiting months and months longer than normal to be with our family members.   If anything, this shows the current administration is being TOO lax with immigration 

10 minutes ago, retheem said:

I had seen an email, maybe this post or another, that they would resume in october? On a side note and not being political, voting Blue will emove this shenanigans we are seeing

You were just being political -- and very bad at that.  Voting blue has nothing to do with what's going on right now in terms of immigration.  What's going on right now is 100% due to COVID. 

Current Admin:  I wouldn't call clamping down on illegal immigration and putting more scrutiny on high risk countries shenanigans.  The only thing that hurt some here was the suspension of some greencards several months back, but it would have looked REALLY bad if any administration let in a bunch of work VISAs when unemployment for here in the US was skyrocketing in the spring/early-summer.

Moreover, the last administration deported WAAAAY more people than the current one, so let's not go there.  Nuf said. 

5 minutes ago, retheem said:

Hope now they can get into the IR1/CR1 business

Look at all those DV  VISAs.  Over 250 DV VISAs versus 27 IR1/CR1 VISAs!   I thought the consulates were prioritizing family VISAs, but instead they are issuing 10 times as many diversity VISAs as family VISAs.

Yes, let's hope they get back into the IR1/CR1 business again because the ratio of diversity VISAs to true family VISAs issued is pathetic!

1 hour ago, ibulp said:

Yeah when I came to states in 2012 I had to go through it 🙂 became citizen two years ago .

Good for you on becoming an USC!

1 hour ago, payxibka said:

Certainly appears to be as an IR1 visa is for a spouse of USC

My bad.  His statement here "221G is not too bad I dealt with it myself" led me to believe he was a greencard holder. 

16 hours ago, payxibka said:

So four months ago. This proclamation was back in June.  Spouses are exempt 

Only if the sponsor is a USC.  Doesn't sound like this guy is a USC.

1 hour ago, Kenyan Couple said:

I think it is safe to expect this will only happen next year. There is some backlog and clearly the embassy isn't scheduling interviews how we expected it would happen, and it is almost mid October. I've reset my mindset to expect this to pick up in January. 

How is January any different from October in terms of COVID?  We won't have mass vaccinations by January.    

Would really like to see a VJ member get an interview

2 hours ago, Kenyan Couple said:

When is yours? (DQ date) 

May 4, 2020.

Looks like I'm a ways down the list....

Do we know if anyone here on VJ has actually gotten an interview yet at the Nairobi embassy?

On 10/2/2020 at 6:42 AM, retheem said:

In short the embassy is back and running!!!

When is your DQ date?

17 hours ago, yjia0319 said:

Hi everyone, we received an email from NVC saying "Notice regarding your Immigrant Visa Case becoming Documentarily Qualified" . Everything is moving fast now. 

 

Below is my time line: 

 

10/28/2019 - Send out package

11/1/2019 - Received NOA1 

02/10/2020 - Case transferred from TSC to VSC 

08/11/2020 - Received NOA2 

04/14/2020 - Received Welcome letter through email from NVC with case number and Invoice ID 

08/17/2020 - Paid fees 

08/24/2020 - Submitted  Form I-864, DS-260 and all supporting documents

09/09/2020 - NVC notified us, our case is done and current transferring to Frankfurt Germany consulate for interview. 

Congrats on getting DQ, but unfortunately you have now hit a major road block that many of us have been dealing with for months.  VERY few of the embassies are doing interviews and have not done interviews since late Feb or so due to COVID-19.  NVC has been cranking out DQs like crazy, which means there are going to be huge lines of people waiting for interviews when the embassies do open up again for immigrant VISA interviews.

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but this is the reality right now.  

On 6/11/2020 at 5:39 AM, PWB said:

When this is finally over one of the principle things that we can take away is the horrid responses of the Media.  They have created more problems than has the Virus.

There is no truer statement than this right here.

The media has been absolutely horrible in all of this and has caused so much un-necessary heartache. 

On 6/10/2020 at 9:39 AM, PhillyNatz said:

Hmmm no. 

 

We take advice from the head of the country’s infectious disease Centre with 50 years of infectious disease experience and that’s Dr. Fauci and his team. 

Dr. Fauci is extremely well respected in his field and has served under 6 different presidents right from Reagan before anyone claims there’s a political angle to this. 
 

Dr. Fauci is very well know in my area of research and it’s disappointing to see these attacks on him and his family from people who have no foundational understanding in the sciences. 

 

Fauci has been wrong about this virus and the pandemic multiple times.  

He may be well respected, but his track record of credibility in THIS pandemic is pretty bad.

On 6/13/2020 at 7:50 AM, PaulinaZ said:

Guys do you have any guesses on when they might open? Am I the only one who thinks this is just enough?

Like it’s just so hard for them to put consul behind the glass and don’t make him touch anything without glows, also before entering they can check the temperature of applicants. This is way better than affecting so many people’s lives and also having a backlog. I understand they protect workers, but it can’t be like that. We have preschools and nurseries open, borders as well but of course embassy is just something different.

If the host country govt forbids public assembles, how could the US embassy conduct interviews even if they wanted to?

16 hours ago, Paul & Mary said:

Another option is that you could file for an extension to file the return unit October 15th. You still have to pay the tax due by July 15th.  If you pay the amount that would have been due as MFJ and later file as MFS you will run into penalties and interest. 

The extension is probably the way to go.  I didn't think about that.   

Sadly, it doesn't look like there's anyway for my wife to send me her passport.  I had her check with DHL and they told her DHL no longer allows passports to be sent from Uganda to the US.  You can only send embassy to embassy, which is currently impossible because all of the embassys are closed to regular services.   

39 minutes ago, Paul & Mary said:

Honestly I'd just file MFS and amend it later.  A bunch of folks that I know have done that just to get it done.   You will have to list her SSN as NRA.

MFS has fairly significant tax implications for me in terms of owing quite a bit more money, but may be the only option.

14 hours ago, Paul & Mary said:

That is correct. And there is no IRS International Acceptance Agent in Uganda.  She may be able to get a certified copy of the passport (bio page).  We were able to do that while we were in Hong Kong.  Not sure how to do it in Uganda.

 

You could file Married Filing Separately and the amend the return when she gets to the US.

Pretty unlikely she can get a certified copy of anything at the moment.   Uganda is locked down pretty solid with curfews and the like.  They aren't even allowed to move around in vehicles without a special permit. 

I'll figure out something.  I'd hoped to not have to make her DHL her passport to me, but that may be the only option. 

Who knows when she will actually be here in the US at this rate with COVID.  

My wife and I were married last year and we are at the NVC stage of the visa process.   I'm getting ready to file my tax return as married filing jointly, and found that I need to also send in form w-7 so she can get an ITIN.

As I read the instructions for form W-7, it says I need to send her actual passport.   This will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, right now due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. Moreover, I am concerned about having her DHL me her passport when we are at the NVC stage and who knows how long it would take to submit the form W-7 and then get her passport back and DHL it back to her in her home country.   I'm not sure how to provide the proof of identification the W-7 requires if you can't send a copy of her passport.   I'm not sure how one would even get a certified copy because her country, like most of us, is locked down. 

It is really starting to feel like those of us working on spouse VISAs are in for a very long wait for an embassy interview.  The entire COVID situation is starting to feel like things aren't going to get to semi-normal for months.  Like 8-12 months....

Does this include embassies or this that an entirely separate thing?