Corp668

I filed I-485's last week for my wife and daughter... then when I was putting paper in the printer, the last 3 pages of my I-864 came out.  I actually filed with a joint sponsor just because last year I was working part-time and close to the limit... but anyway, the last 3 pages of my I-864 included the signature page which I did not include.

There are two I-485's, two I-864's (me and co-sponsor), I-94's, money orders, marriage license and lots more in the package... it was a LOT of work to do it all and assemble it all.  I do not want to have it rejected because of one missing page.  Rather than wait and hope for the best, can I just send along the missing pages somehow, or even send a replacement I-864?

If not, will I get an RFE for the signature page or will they reject the whole thing for this?

On 5/7/2022 at 6:20 PM, StevenInAtlanta said:

I am asking if anyone here in the VJ forum is Russian and has recently been interviewed/processed through the Warsaw Poland embassy/consulate. Of specific interest are IR1 immigration visa applications. My wife's interview is scheduled for Tuesday August 30 @ 8:00am.  I chose Tuesday and an early time with hopes that after the "10 minute" interview there will still be enough time in the day to pass the petition/application to the next step and enough days left in the week to still receive the new visa at the MailBox Express location...which seems to be the current process.

 

If you recently went through Warsaw Poland interview will you share with the forum your experience please?

 

• Did you encounter any civil problems at all just because you were Russian traveling through Poland?
• How long was your interview?
• What questions were you asked?
• If approved, how long did actually getting your visa take?
• If approved, where did you pick up your visa?
• What country did you travel through to get to Warsaw?
• For your Schengen visa, were you required to stay in the interim country a few days to 'vacation' or were you able to simply plane hop and pass through on the next flight in your travel? 

 

Thanks to all in advance that can share their experience.

#PrayForPeace

 

StevenInAtlanta

Two things I forgot to mention.

My interview was scheduled for 8am too, I figured we'd be outta there maybe in an hour.  We arrived at 7:45am and there were only a few people in front of us.  Well, she was still in there for just about 3 hours, and none of the people who went in right around 8am with her came out sooner than 2 hours, so plan on it being a while.  Also, when they were fixing to open the doors, a girl walked up and down the line with a sign that said "8am" and took everyone with an 8am appointment and put them in the front of the line, then did the same with a sign saying 8:30, and then saying 9am... so honestly there is no point really in showing up early, certainly no more than a few minutes.

EDIT: I should make a separate post about my experience with the doctors office in Warsaw.  What an absolute freaking FIASCO and totally uncaring and unprofessional.  That guy should be fired from working for the embassy ever again!

5 minutes ago, pavelp said:

What was the full itinerary to get from Russia into Poland?

I assume Russia -> Turkey -> Greece -> Poland?

Any COVID related requirements?

Thanks.

We did Russia -> Thailand -> Greece -> Poland -> USA but that was more because of the war breaking out and me wanting her and my daughter to get the heck out of Russia ASAP in case they closed borders or before plane tickets skyrocketed any further.  That meant we had several weeks to kill before the interview so we did 3 in Thailand, 2 in Greece and 3 in Warsaw.

In my opinion, minimize your time spent in Athens, the place is a dump.  Thailand was picturesque and very inexpensive... Warsaw is gorgeous and comparatively inexpensive to the USA.

11 hours ago, arken said:

Or they could just keep the passport and let you know about passport pick up once they receive the medical report directly from the panel physician or through you visa mail or drop off.

 

 

Note that even if medical report was ready last week, it could still take more than a week just to get the passport back with the visa.

On your first part, yes I hope they will do just that.  It has been a looooooong road to get this far to have things get delayed at the finish line.

On your 2nd point, I booked changeable/cancellable flights in case the visa doesn't get done in time.  Just supposed to be back at work Monday, although this comes first obviously.

Thanks for the info.

11 hours ago, Crazy Cat said:

Normally, if the interview is conducted prior to the completion of the medical exam, then the visa status will be "Refused" until the medical documents arrive.  I would attend the interview unless instructed to do otherwise by the consulate. 

 

Thanks, got medical docs for fiancee... docs office is sending over docs for child tomorrow, hopefully the visa will just issue a little bit delayed.

So I am sitting in Warsaw right now with my Russian fiancee and our daughter.  We had the medical tests last week and they were going to call me when the packet was ready for pickup but said it would likely be on Wednesday (today).  I called them today and they told me a further test will be necessary before the doctor can sign off on the medical exam (doesn't matter the details of that).

My question is - if my fiancee and daughter go to the appointment tomorrow without the medical docs, what will happen?  I know they won't issue the K1, but will they allow us to have a "follow up" appointment next week or something?  We have been waiting for this appointment since December and the next available on Warsaw's website is not until November.  My fiancee's schengen visa is good through the end of the month.  It was a hassle to get out of Russia for her and getting back will be almost impossible (not to mention Poland wants to stop issuing schengen visas.... we've spent countless thousands of $$ on this and have flights to the USA booked for this weekend (an assumption I know but needed to show departing flight from Europe for Fiancee to get into the country, even then it was a hassle).

So the question is, is there any way to get a "follow up" appointment for sometime next week?  I can delay my flights and travel plans but fiancee going back to Russia and waiting 6+ months is not an option.

Does anyone know of a service that is currently working to send money to Russia?

PayPal does not work, Western Union does not work, and Moneygram just stopped offering service to Russia it seems.  So what are people using?

So we ended up getting a flight.  She is flying this coming week to Vietnam through Dubai.  I was not able to book a flight, I had the foresight to send her a few thousand $$ before the banks were blocked, and she ended up having to pay for the flight herself.  It cost over $5,000 for two one-way tickets and when we were looking on travel sites, if you didn't book immediately the price would be rising as you click refresh and then the flight would be unavailable in a matter of an hour or two.

I am trying to figure out a way to send money to Russia... anyone know?  She borrowed the balance of the $$ needed from her parents and they are most definitely not wealthy and need that money back sooner than later.

Our stress level is through the roof - I hope her mini-vacation in Vietnam will help relax her before we head to Poland for our interview, then on to the USA.

My fiancee and daughter have their appointment in Warsaw on May 5th.  She already has a schengen visa for them both that is good through June 1st.  We are trying to immediately get them out of Russia, but the problem I am having is I can only search for flights on Russian flight booking sites but I cannot book those flights since Visa, MasterCard and Amex are blocked.  I also can't send her the money to book the flights because sending money is blocked too.

Does anyone know a website that will let me book these flights using my credit card?  There must be a bunch of us in this situation.

Or if that wont work what about ways to send money to Russia?  PayPal is blocked, what other sites are working?

Steve,

My case (K1) was transferred from Moscow to Warsaw right around Thanksgiving.  Just yesterday my fiancee got the documents from the Warsaw embassy by mail.... so that was 2 months.  Be patient, they are going out it seems but not nearly as quickly as usual.

5 hours ago, egur said:

Ok thanks. Yes I contacted ustraveldocs and they said (both by phone and by email) they have everything and just to wait. NVC status also is ok. Have letter from them. NVC also replied to an inquiry saying that everything is in Warsaw and just wait. So we are just waiting. I am just not sure how long is this wait. We also have a single entry Schengen visa from Greece. But it's going to run out of days of stay in Schengen on Feb 3 and if we don't make it in and out of Poland by then will need to extend it somehow while we are in Greece or in Poland or reapply for a second visa. I just hope my fiance would not need to go back from Greece (or from Poland) back to Russia to reapply for another Schengen visa and the back to Greece and back to Poland. I cannot really find any info on how to extend a single entry Schengen visa while inside Schengen and outside of your home country (i.e. Russia). Does anyone have any recent experience with doing that?

I am in a similar situation - my stuff was sent from NVC on November 24th and status is "Ready" with NVC.  I did the DS160 and paid the fee and could see the form to schedule interviews, but we couldn't do it yet because my fiancee has to get her police report and we dont have it yet.  The embassy had some interview dates in mid-January but those are all gone and nothing shows for the next 24 months, but I think that must just be because they haven't added them to the system yet.

I did NOT get the letter from the Warsaw embassy yet... so we are in the same situation, they have had our case for 30 days (almost) too and haven't heard a peep from them.

My understanding was there is around 650 cases transferred from Moscow to Warsaw and they were processing about 50 cases per month... so I hope we are not looking at a 10-month wait here

I applied in December 2020, NOA2 received August 2021, case was sent from NVC to embassy November 24th and I haven't heard anything since.  My fiancee is Russian and we have been dealing with the whole Russia/USA embassy closing situation.  A few days before they announced that all Russian cases would be handled through the Poland embassy, I emailed the embassy asking to transfer.  They wrote back agreeing and giving me a WRW number, but I got another email a day or two later saying all Russian cases were being sent to Poland and I didn't need to do anything.

Anyway..... from looking at the timeline on here, the next step is my fiancee will get a letter in the mail from the embassy saying what the next steps are.  She has not received that.  On a whim, I went to the USTravelDocs website and was able to login... I can complete the DS-160 and it says the next available appointment is December 16th.  That seems almost too good to be true, considering hundreds of cases (presumably) were sent from Moscow to Poland.

Can I just pay the fee, fill out the DS-160 and book an interview date?  My fiancee has a lot of paperwork and documents to collect but it would be really nice to kick the process into high gear if we can.  But as soon as we book our interview, we have to book travel from Vladivostok to Warsaw through Greece for her, and I need to fly there too, plus we have a 2 year old child together that has to go, so it's a lot of expense, time and hassle arranging all that non-refundable travel if I am being premature and need to wait to hear from the embassy first.

What is my next step?  Fill out DS-160 and pay fee or wait to hear from embassy?

So I emailed the Warsaw embassy asking to transfer my case and got a reply which says:

Quote

Effective May 12, 2021 U.S. Embassy Moscow does not offer immigrant visa services due to the government of Russia’s April 23, 2021 notification prohibiting U.S. Embassy Moscow from employing foreign nationals in any capacity. U.S. Embassy Warsaw is currently accepting transfer of ALL categories of Russian immigrant visa cases on a case-by-case basis thus your request has been approved. If you are a Russian immigrant visa applicant and your case is still with the National Visa Center, you may also request transfer of the case to U.S. Embassy Warsaw by contacting the National Visa Center.



Russian DV cases will be automatically allocated to Warsaw for immigrant visa processing and will be scheduled by the Kentucky Consular Center according to law mandated rank number and date of document submission. Please do not contact us regarding transfer of DV cases to Warsaw.

So the big question is what is rank number?  Date of document submission I guess means the date I submitted my I-129F?  Does anyone have an idea how many K1 cases are waiting from Russia now in Poland?  And the big question.... when could I expect to get our interview scheduled?  

I got my NOA2 on August 10th.  I got my number from the NVC last week and when I log into their site, I am not getting any info or accessing my account.  If I go to

https://ceac.state.gov/CEACStatTracker/Status.aspx?App=IV

I log in with the number I got from NVC and it says "Please follow the instructions you received from the National Visa Center (NVC) that list the six steps you must take before NVC can schedule your visa interview appointment. This includes submitting to NVC various fees, forms and documents. Once NVC has received all the required items, they will let you know if anything is missing or incomplete."  Well that's great but I didn't receive anything from the NVC yet.  It also says "If you case is processing electronically, please log into your CEAC account at ceac.state.gov/iv with your NVC case number and 16 digit Invoice ID for case status and to learn what steps you must take to advance your case.".  

So if I go to ceac.state.gov/iv I get a login that asks for my NVC number and my invoice ID (which I also got from NVC).  When I log in there, I get a message that says 

"K visas are nonimmigrant visas that assist spouses or future spouses of American citizens in entering the United States. As with all nonimmigrant visa applicants, a DS-160 must be filled out in order for a consular section to process the case." and a button at the bottom that says "OK".  My case # is shown at the top right, so it appears I logged in OK.

My fiancee is in Russia and I emailed the Poland embassy to transfer my case, I have not heard back yet... but does the message above mean they need the DS-160 filled out before they do anything else?  I thought my case goes to the embassy and then I get requested to fill out the DS-160 which will then get brought to the interview?  

The woman I talked to at the NVC said I shouldn't be doing anything at this time other than waiting to hear back from the NVC.  I asked if cases were being moved to Poland and she said that was not yet confirmed but presumably when it was, it would be moved automatically.  I'm trying to move things along as quick as possible obviously and want to make sure I am not holding things up by not having filled out the DS-160.  I also don't see anywhere on the CEAC website where I can schedule anything or pay anything.  I literally get the above message and when I click OK it logs me out and sends me back to the login page.

I got my NOA2 on August 10th.  I made a spreadsheet from looking through timeline data here, and it seems that people who report getting K1 interviews averaged 9.5 months after getting their NOA2.  I have some questions:

1) It seems there is no way to tell how long it will be from NOA2 to interview in Moscow, other than just reports from other people going through the process, right?  Or does the embassy publish any sort of information about how many are waiting in line?

2) My fiancee got a schengen visa to Spain a couple years back.  We have a child together now so I am not sure if it's more difficult to get a 2nd schengen visa now with the child situation and the COVID situation?  Any ideas?

3) Can I request transfer to Poland as soon as I have my NOA2 or do I need to wait a few weeks until I get a case number from the NVC before transferring?

4) If I do transfer to Poland, it seems people are saying they are getting interviews within a month or so after the transfer is approved.  Is that right?  My concern is transferring to Poland and then having an 8 month wait there vs. a 9 month wait just leaving things in Moscow.  Any comments on the timeline for Poland?

I got approved today!  It feels SO GOOD!  

NOA1 was December 24th, approved today, August 9th.  

6 hours ago, millefleur said:

You just have to contact each embassy individually and ask, and presumably provide reasons for why you are requesting. No harm done in reaching out to Japan or Korea since they're both physically closer to Vladivostok. Let us know what they say if you decide to contact them.

I have to wait until at least after I get my NOA2 to request a transfer, right?  My daughter was born in Korea... she isn't a Korean citizen but I wonder if that might be some sort of valid reason to transfer there?  Honestly, my fiancee really doesn't have any ties to anywhere else, it's just a very long trip to Moscow and they appear not to be doing their obligated duty to process visas and giving a big middle finger to all the Americans waiting for fiancee visas to be processed  those are the reasons we want to change to another embassy.

7 hours ago, DaveAndAnastasia said:

It doesn't seem like they've resumed regular processing of K-1s (or CR-1/IR-1s) in Moscow yet, so the small numbers of visas processed have been eligible for some sort of exception. But as far as I can tell there's no public info on the backlog status at any embassy/consulate, you just can go by word of mouth (aka are people here getting cases sent there by the NVC, and if they are, what's the scheduling looking like).

 

 

So how should applicants know what the wait is?  I mean, if they haven't processed applications normally in 1.5 years, it would seem there is a 1.5 year backlog, which combined with USCIS backlog means we might be looking at 3-4 years for her to get her visa, and that would be if they resumed processing immediately.

I am a dual citizen... I can get her into the UK and move back there and leave the USA if need be.... but we have a 1.5 year old daughter so it's getting more urgent that they can come here.  I am just sort of shocked that the embassy apparently doesn't need to answer to anyone and just can not offer services they are required to offer by law. 

5 minutes ago, HRQX said:

Even before all the current events (i.e. geopolitics and the pandemic, etc.) Russia has had only 1 IV unit. The K-1 interview is done by the IV unit. The IV unit is still doing interviews:

• https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyNIVIssuances/MAY-2021-NIV-Issuances-by-Post-and-Visa-Class.pdf
• https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/MAY-2021-IV-Issuances-by-Post-and-Visa-Class.pdf

Well congratulations on being the first person to give me some hope and positive feelings since this whole process started!  Thank you!

I did not realize they were still doing interviews... I guess maybe I was looking at immigrant visas assuming K1 would be there but I see it's classified as a nonimmigrant visa.  

So how does one get a feel for what the backlog is like?  Or is there any way to tell?  

3 minutes ago, Letspaintcookies said:

Is your fiancee a resident of Korea or Japan? Or does she have something like a study or work visa? She needs something that allows her to actually live there. A tourist visa won't work.

She isn't a resident of either Korea or Japan, just was able to get a tourist visa there.

I read about Poland accepting applications, and I am guessing the people being accepted there aren't Polish citizens or have study or work visas (the discussion was about entering through another country on a Schengen visa), so it seems it's not required to be a resident or have a study visa?  How do we know which countries may accept a transfer?

My fiancee lives in Vladivostok and we have a 1 year old child together.  I applied for my K1 in December 2020 and still waiting for NOA2.

My concern is that with all the tension between the USA and Russia, combined with the closing of all embassies/consulates except Moscow, combined with COVID and everything else, that there is a MASSIVE backlog of people waiting for K1's.  Is that correct?  How do we even know what the backlog is?  

I don't know what the usual time is after getting NOA2 that an interview would be scheduled, but I can only imagine it's multiples of what it was before.  On top of that, the flight from Vladivostok to Moscow is very long, especially when a 1 year old would need to be going also.  

Ideally we could transfer to Japan or Korea... I thought it would be difficult for her to get a visa there but we went to Korea for the birth of our daughter and it was fine... so maybe that is an option?  Any suggestions?  Should we just wait it out with Moscow?

What do they mean "age out" in reference to immigrant visas?  Do they mean visas that are in danger or expiring because they haven't been processes quickly enough?

1 minute ago, Boiler said:

I would check to make sure US assets are OK, I do not know if that would be an issue. Also check www.britishexpats.com as they have a forum for moving back to the UK.

A sincere thank you for your help and information.

👍

16 minutes ago, Boiler said:

Meeting the financial requirements.

Thank you for the clarification.  From my reading of the regulations, I think I could meet the requirements without issues.   I own a business in the USA and I also have enough savings and investment account balances to cover the necessary required amounts... I will dig a little further and learn what I can.