Cire32

My understanding is that's always been a bit like the US, where there is an assumption of illegal immigration intent and need for the traveler to prove they will leave on time (of course they went easy on privileged nationalities). But it seems that right now with the war and security situation, they are really scrutinizing everyone. Apparently even Israelis were being questioned to some extent.

My fiance successfully made it into Israel! He took an El Al flight into Tel Aviv. At the check in desk, they subjected him to a two hour long interrogation. They asked him about every place he had been recently, who he met there, what he was doing for work, why he was coming to Israel. He had all his documents and evidence of on going relationship printed out with him for the interview and they went through everything. They even wanted to see his email on his phone where he got the interview confirmation and his Telegram chat with me. We had a flight booked to the US (cancelable and changeable through El Al) and they commented on that flight, so it was probably good we had a flight out booked. In the end they were apparently satisfied and they let him through. They gave him a stamp that showed he went through security already, so they let him through quickly at the actual border control in Tel Aviv. Now just waiting on the medical exam and the interview.

My fiance has an interview date! It's at the end of February! We've had such trouble with this scheduling stage and I had been unable to find anything helpful on the internet or on this forum, so I want to leave my experience here for anyone else who may go through it. My fiance is Russian and our case was originally sent to Warsaw. We transferred our case to Jerusalem and at the end of September we finally got the email saying the embassy received our documents and they were ready for us to schedule the interview by going to https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-il/iv/users/sign_in. When we first tried to schedule, there were no appointments and you can't pay your fee if there isn't an appointment. After a week or two, finally they released appointment dates. When you are ready to pay you get sent to the Hyp CreditGuard page when you put in your card info and pay. However, every time we tried, we got a message saying "Payment Failed! Refusal. Use alternative method." We tried multiple cards but nothing worked. We also received a message after several tries that said "There was a problem processing your payment. You may have been charged. Please contact support. Do not attempt to pay again." They listed a contact page (https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-il/iv/information/contact_us) with an email for payment issues, which I emailed. Absolutely useless. In one reply they did confirm that my payment hadn't gone through, but all other communications were copy-and-paste pre-written messages that didn't relate to anything I wrote. All of the appointments were taken in less than 24 hours and we missed the opportunity. I saw there is an option to pay in cash at the Israeli Postal Bank, but you have to physically go there and pay, then you come back to the portal and upload a receipt before the system considers it paid, then it will let you through to the scheduling calendar. Neither of us are in Israel right now, so that wasn't an option for us. Then the war in Gaza started and they announced they were no longer processing visas and cancelling appointments. We've checked several times per day every day anyway and only twice during October and November did any appointments appear. I suspect they were cancellations because they were only a week or two away from the date I saw them. We tried to pay anyway, but no luck. I emailed the visa section of the embassy and asked if they had any plans to restart visa appointments again and they told me they may release new dates in January and we should keep checking the portal. At this point I discovered that you can schedule by phone too. I don't know how I missed this earlier, but I called and confirmed that they can take your credit card over the phone and then schedule you. There were no dates at that time, so they told me to keep checking the portal. Finally in the beginning of December at least one February appointment appeared (before you pay, the portal will only tell you the soonest appointment available. There may be other dates but you can't see them or know how many until after you pay). This time I had a new card. All previous attempts had been with Mastercards, but my new card was a Visa card. This time it worked! No issues at all! I don't know if being Mastercard was the problem or not, but there is nothing that says they don't accept them. There were three spots available and we chose end of February. It's good we didn't take an earlier date in February due to the medical exam. After scheduling the visa appointment, we scheduled the medical exam. All of the December, January and early February dates had been filled up, so the mid February date worked well for us. I want to celebrate, but I know there are still big hurdles to overcome yet. My fiance will have to enter Israel and it seems their border control is as strict and hard to cross as the US border control. The embassy could also put him in administrative processing. And then there's possible escalation of the war and it's complications. So I'm (very) cautiously optimistic.

What did you submit to show there was no military service? My fiance says there is nothing like this, you only get papers if you did serve. Is there actually something?

Yeah, if you could share the Telegram group, that might be helpful.

When did you schedule your interview? I've been trying since the end of September to schedule but no appointments have been available. I have had it twice now in the last two weeks where it actually showed one that an appointment was available and it let me progress to the Hyp CreditGaurd payment screen, but every time I tried to pay, it either never stopped spinning while processing or gave me a "Payment Failed! Refusal. Use alternative method" message. After two days the appointment(s) were gone. For anyone who has managed to schedule - when you got to the payment stage, on the right side of the screen it says "First Appointments Available" and lists dates below. When you scheduled, were there multiple dates listed or just one? The two times I saw dates, there was only one and it was only a week away. I wonder, do they only display the earliest date and there could be more, or was it really the only available date, probably a cancellation?

My fiance and I were able to successfully transfer our case to Jerusalem. On this forum people are saying it's the only embassy that will take Russians right now. It was the first one we tried. It took about month for the transfer to process after they confirmed they would take the case. Now we're wait for appointments. When we log into the portal to schedule an interview, it literally says that there are no appointments available and that we should check back later. Absolutely no indication of when more appointments will be available.

When you applied for the schengen visa, did you apply to Poland or a different country? How long did it take them to get back to you with a rejection?

Has anyone ever tried to transfer to a Latin American country?

I am a US citizen engaged to a Russian man. We are going through the K1 visa process and just (7/18/23) received notice from NVC stating our case number and that it's being sent to Poland. Poland has stated they will not let (most) Russians in and will not give tourist visas to them. My fiance left Russia in Oct 2022 after conscription was announced and has been hopping from country to country ever since. Our lawyer advised us that we can transfer the case to somewhere else and we've been planning on that ever since. My lawyer just now told us that their practice had a client who was from Africa and took advantage of a program in a Caribbean country to work remotely there while waiting for his visa (not sure if K1 or CR1) and applied to transfer his case there. The transfer was accepted and he had his interview. However, at the interview they told him they had no jurisdiction over his case a railed him for having made the transfer. They ultimately rejected his case, apparently because of the transfer. My lawyer is now advising us to have my fiance go back to Russia and try to get a Polish visa. He's hoping a rejected visa will be a good enough reason for a new embassy to be ok with his transfer. I've read about other people on this forum who successfully had their cases transferred to somewhere else and did not have residency there. I can imagine maybe Russians might have a better excuse than most other people. Have you had or ever heard of problems with transfers like the story above? Have you had any success transferring your Russian case out of Poland? Are there and things to watch out for with doing a transfer? Any advice you wish you had known?

Hi everyone, I'm a US citizen engaged to a Russian man, and in February 2022 we submitted our K1 packet and received our confirmation that they received our documents at the end of February. In September 2022 my fiance left Russia to avoid mobilization. Since then he has been living in various countries and will continue to do so. Since he can't go home, there is no way he would be able to go to a European embassy in Moscow to even attempt to acquire a Schengen visa. This means our only hope for the next step would be to have our case transferred from Poland to some other country. I have several questions I'm hoping someone could provide insight on: 1. Can you apply to have your case transferred before you've received the NOA2 to schedule the interview? 2. Do you have to currently be in the country to have your case transferred there? 3. How long could it potentially take for them to consider your request, and how soon could you schedule the interview after approval? Are we talking days, weeks, or over a month? 4. Once an interview is scheduled, how much time should we plan on spending in that country? I'm really concerned about the various unforeseen waits and delays or extra hurdles that could affect our calculations. 5. I've read that Uzbekistan, Armenia and Mongolia are known for not accepting transfer cases. Are you aware of any non-EU countries in Asia or north Africa that are known for accepting or not accepting transfer cases? I know that there is so much I don't know about what's to come, so if anyone has experience with getting an interview transferred and has any insight or advice, I'd be very appreciative to hear it.