JobbinsKnobbins

23 hours ago, ritac23 said:

Just one more message, @JobbinsKnobbinsand @neto-66, did you/your fiancé(e)s have to schedule a medical exam in Paris? I can't find the address/contact details for the doctor in Lisbon...

I (beneficiary) first scheduled to have my medical done in Lisbon but they could only set me up for the October 20th and the scheduled interview was set (at that time) for September 28th. Since it was a big discrepancy, they did say for me to try schedule it for Paris because chances would be, that it could be scheduled earlier.
I did managed to even chose a date that fit perfectly which was closer to the date of the interview, so I thought we would be staying in Paris for a full week to deal with everything (keep in mind that for the French appointment, you will also need to go do the exams before the medical appointment at the set places they have).
So I had my medical appointment scheduled for September 24th and did the blood/urine exams and the x-ray on the 22nd. They where in 2 different places. The results were done on the same day. The results for the blood/urine were sent directly to the doctor, while the xray, we had to pick it put later that day.

The only thing I have to add is that french language is the preferred language but some places had someone that had portuguese people or someone that spoke portuguese and helped. They do try to talk english but they aren't very comfortable in their abilities to speak it, that's why they stick a lot with french. In no way they were ever rude, they just really feel like they don't speak it well.

23 hours ago, Paris DC said:

Quick question..

While you received the email did they precise how to come to the embassy? Cause via the website normally we do receive a confirmation and the security guard are aware of your presence!!

Did you just show up and everything was set or?

 

Once you have the date scheduled, it will be in the list for the security guards. They will ask for specific groups to start entering, so the beneficiary needs to pay attention when they "yell" for the people for K1 visas scheduled for XX:XX.

Weekly update, almost no cases were accepted; I suspect that a lot of people are withdrawing their applications at this point. 91% through the cases of the month, but things are slowing to a crawl.  Looks like one case got approved this week, assuming that there were people who didn't withdraw accepted cases.  Getting close to the end of the year, and things are coming to a head here; I'll try to keep things updated on a regular basis, but that won't really change whatever is happening behind the scenes.  Best of luck to those of you with cases that aren't processed yet!

On 10/20/2021 at 1:42 PM, neto-66 said:

My fiancé was approved! He was told the visa would be printed today, and he'd receive it "very soon". 

Congratz!

3 hours ago, neto-66 said:

CEAC status changed to "Issued"! It seems like that means the visa has been printed, and they'll ship it out soon. 

We also had our status changed to "Issued" the very next day of the interview. Today we received an email warning us that they have sent the visa and it will be delivered in the next few days! So it took them 11 business days from interview to email for our case.

1 hour ago, neto-66 said:

Just posting an update:

 

My fiancé arrived in Paris today, his interview is tomorrow morning. He stopped at the post office for the Chronopost envelope and they only had a size that is slightly larger than the 25x36cm requested. It was 60 euros! More expensive than his round trip from Porto to Paris.

 

I saw that some of the French applicants who interviewed on October 6th already got their visas, I'm wondering how long it is taking for Portuguese applicants? With the border opening announced for Nov 8th for vaccinated travelers, flight prices are skyrocketing. We already had a travel voucher from a previous cancelled trip so we booked a flexible flight for late/mid November to try and get ahead of the prices. Hoping we won't have to move it. 

Yes, the 59€ Chronopost Envelope is the one required and it's also different visually from the pdf. Guess they haven't updated the pdf for a few years now. Unfortunately, lifestyle in Paris is way more expensive than the portuguese. Everything just adds up way too quickly and way too much but it is what it is...
We also saw that @Jess.s received their visa (congratz on that!) but we haven't received any e-mails from the embassy. We also have a flight booked way before they even delayed the interview date but we thought of all the delays of people not getting their visas sent, so we had booked a flexible flight. We also hope we don't have to change it, since it will also mean we have to book another airbnb or hotel and there's other added people/animals awaiting for us. (Also would be cool having our first Halloween together ;P)

Good Luck (Boa Sorte) for both of you 😃

 

Another half a percentage point this week.  Looks like people are starting to back out after waiting over a year.  About 250 cases pending and they are processing around 15-20 per week.  My guess is some people just went and will get married now that some travel restrictions are lifting. 

6 hours ago, neto-66 said:

6 days until my fiancé's interview and we haven't heard anything about postponing, so I'm going to assume we're still good for the 20th.

 

For those who have already interviewed in Paris from Portugal, was your COVID-19 test antigen or PCR? How soon before your interview did you get tested? 

For the Portuguese beneficiary traveling, you don't need anything if you have a vaccine passport, otherwise PCR is good for 72 hours, Antigen is 48 hours.  In France a negative test is valid as a health pass for the duration of its validity.  Americans traveling to France (in case you want to know) need to be vaccinated, or have a compelling reason to go (the interview doesn't count as a valid reason I believe) and present a negative PCR/Antigen test, or present that they recovered recently. 

The embassy itself didn't have any testing requirements, they just checked passports at the entrance.  They might ask if you are vaccinated at the interview, but I don't think it will negatively impact entry.  They did recommend keeping the vax passport handy when traveling to the US later.  Hope this clears thigs up for you.

There's no need to be afraid. Just take a breather and check with your father about his and your citizenship documents. RFE's are not a bad thing, it means they are working on your case and they just need some data.

On 10/7/2021 at 3:45 PM, neto-66 said:

Congrats!! I'm surprised they changed your interview date on such a short notice, especially coming from Portugal.

 

Hoping my October 20th date won't get pushed back, I'm not sure that the accommodations or flights we booked are refundable or changeable. 

It was a bit messed up since we had the medical scheduled in Paris and were trying to do it before the interview but all in the same stay. We just ended up doing the medical and the other days we checked the landmarks and museum even thou it wasn't the plan. For the interview, we booked the flights for the previous day, stayed a night in a hotel and came on the same day of the interview.
It was easier because we were together for all of this, I think it would had been different if I was alone. =S

Keep us updated, hoping you don't get delayed either since it was an added stress for us, wouldn't wish the same. Boa Sorte!

6 hours ago, Jess.s said:

Hi, so I haven't been able to update on here for a while but I got my interview on the 6th that was initially scheduled for sept 28th. They sent us a an e-mail the week before the re-schedule. Everyone didn't get rescheduled but the majority did. Some for the 6th some for the 13th. 

The wait at the embassy was kinda long I got in at 9:15 I was out at 11:45. It looked like to me that they were understaffed. Out of 6 windows only 4 were open. Good luck to anyone waiting, I know how frustrating it is! 

Congratz on the approval! It is nice to hear from you. 😃
Also thank you for updating your timeline!

On 10/7/2021 at 12:37 PM, Paris DC said:

Thanks for sharing your experience. at least they are booking and go threw the schedule interviews not cancel them anymore. 

Does it seem to you that they were understaffed or in lack of rss.? 

Somehow it definitely should be back to normal by now its been 16 monhs since the hit from covid, US can make it if they want to deal with.

 

best 

I don't know what rss. is but like @Jess.s said, they do look like a bit understaffed. Being a US Embassy they follow the US laws but they also have to follow the French ones, so the Embassy does have to deal with the backlog of cases that are/were from 2019 (because their interviews were set to 2020 and got cancelled/delayed).

They were really nice and helpful, and did not at all looked like they were not doing their jobs. The people at the booths are the same people that deal with all the cases. That's why often the cases have their interviews scheduled in the middle of the work week, because they have to deal with them on the other days (for both people that got their interview/getting their visa issued and the new cases being brought/awaiting for the interview).
 

When we entered it was before 9am and there was 3 people dealing with the documents and by the time we left, there was 4 (maybe 5) people dealing with the documents and 4 interviewers.
The place has assigned booths, with 5 of them being for the interviewers, about 6 to 8 for giving documents for those having to go to the interviewers and the rest of the booths for other things that are mainly for american people, like registry of babies and voting information.

Just over half a percentage movement this week; a bunch of them appear to be people withdrawing their applications.  9 Cases were accepted though, which is something.

On 8/14/2021 at 2:20 PM, JobbinsKnobbins said:

Just updating here: We got our interview finally scheduled a week ago. French Embassy had slowed down for a couple of month and kept everyone in the dark for a while.

NoA2: 30/Apr/2021
Left NVC: 25/May/2021
Interview: 28/Sep/2021

Updating the update: The interview was delayed to 6th October 2021 (they sent the email of the change a week before the 28th September).
Interview done and approved!

On 10/4/2021 at 5:58 PM, neto-66 said:

I saw that a few of you had a September 28th interview. Any approvals or visas received yet?

 

Trying to get an idea of the turnaround between interview and visa in hand to prepare for our interview in 2 weeks.

 

 

Our interview got delayed a week before the 28th for a week later (6th October). We got approved (and even got the bonus to come cross a fellow forum member *Hey again @Jsilva718 !*)
 

From what we gather from the workers there, looks like things are catching up and it seems like some "normality" on things are starting to creep up. But an educated guess is that this might apply to Portuguese only because it seems that all the Portuguese dossiers are directed to the one Portuguese employer that handles them.
Our interviewer said that maybe by the end of this month we might get the documents/passport, since first the visa needs to be issued and it might happen this week or next one. Then the lady that handles the Portuguese dossiers will be in charge of putting everything in the envelope and give it to the courier. They will warn us by email when the package is sent because it will have a tracker on it.

I don't know how the RFE process works, but best of luck to you.

Less than 10% remaining. Things are getting closer, though it feels like things are a perpetual 5 months out. Which is probably a function of the case processing rate going down as the number of cases in the month diminish.  Anyway I'll be back in 1-2 weeks with an update of how things are going.

 

50% more cases this week compared to last week. Crossed into 89% clearance.  I feel like we are perpetually 10 weeks away; I don't know what to say other than we are close to 300 cases remaining.  Much love to y'all!

On 9/8/2021 at 10:43 AM, wave19 said:

Hi everyone, 

 

did anyone receive news from the embassy in Paris? Any interview dates?

 

thanks!! 

Yes, as you can check from the thread and also from the timelines (at least the portuguese ones that seem that were the only ones that updated it), the Embassy is going slow but it's moving. A lot of patience is required and no hope should be lost in this process.
Can't speak from how things are going from French residents besides what's been written on the thread.
Just goes to show the importance of updating Timelines.

16 minutes ago, ritac23 said:

Hi. Yeah, I got a NOA2 but can't find the date right now, as I'm away from home atm. They gave us an interview in May but I could not attend because of life things that got in the way. I've also emailed asking for them to reschedule, but ofc they haven't responded (yet). They did tell me on the phone to reschedule online.

It seems like you are in a similar case that @neto-66 went through (you can check the past posts from this actual thread). When someone misses a scheduled interview it gets put back in the line for the reschedule and unfortunately the Embassy seems to be with delays overall since they have still backlog from 2020 to go through (not necessarily just K1/CR1's).
It's going to be complicated but you need to support each other on this tough situation and not lose hope.

Boa sorte.

23 hours ago, ritac23 said:

The same is happening to me! I need to schedule a K1 intervier and have seen nothing but "try again later" for the past 2 weeks. Has anyone been successful?

On the timeline it doesn't show if you received the NoA2 yet. Have you received the Embassy email with the scheduled date yet? (Asking this because you can't "schedule" a date if they haven't contacted you guys first.)

On 9/6/2021 at 10:47 PM, AD1 said:

10% rejections after they sent RFEs or just directly rejected? Any insights?

Rejections as far as what my application values as a rejection, are as follows; Incorrect fees sent, lack of signature, or incorrect form.  If one of more of these occur; then the application gets rejected.  It is also possible for someone to send a withdrawal notice; I count this as a rejection in the sense that the case is closed as far as I compute it.  It could be reopened I believe, though I don't know how that is filed.  I don't see any instance of something going from RFE to rejected unless you botch signing whatever forms they need signed.

Have about 5 cases per day, since there was a holiday; not too bad.  About to get to 11% cases remaining.  Very likely to hit 90% clearance at the end of the month.
 

On 9/6/2021 at 10:47 PM, AD1 said:

10% rejections after they sent RFEs or just directly rejected? Any insights?

Rejections as far as what my application values as a rejection, are as follows; Incorrect fees sent, lack of signature, or incorrect form.  If one of more of these occur; then the application gets rejected.  It is also possible for someone to send a withdrawal notice; I count this as a rejection in the sense that the case is closed as far as I compute it.  It could be reopened I believe, though I don't know how that is filed.  I don't see any instance of something going from RFE to rejected unless you botch signing whatever forms they need signed.

Time for some good news bad news and more bad news.  The format of the USCIS page changed and caused my program to not work while I was unable to access the source code; I have it fixed and was able to finally get the data.  The more bad news is that in spite of taking the data over the month period as opposed to weekly; the rate has slowed down to half of what it was before.  Before was an average of around 10 cases per day being handled; we are now seeing somewhere around 5 cases per day.  On the plus side most of the cases being handled are RFEs to approvals and there was a solid chunk going towards approvals.  Its sitting around 12 percent of the cases remaining,  Since we are approaching a year of people having applied; I would probably think that if you haven't gotten a approval I would start to exercise your options; write your congressperson, contact the USCIS.  From what I scouted from historic data, the data settles around 90 percent cleared, which means we are hitting a point where the cases are going to slow down to a few to no cases per day for the September 2020 crowd.  I will try to keep up the data collection until the end of the calendar year; though I really want to at least see everyone whos been in the thread though.  My plan is to try and create a platform to make it easier for people to collect the data for future users;  the recent events are a reminder that the USCIS pages aren't set in stone and its something I'll need to keep an eye on when I work on this stuff.  See you all next week!
 
 

On 8/30/2021 at 1:57 PM, neto-66 said:

Have any of the Portuguese applicants here figured out how to get their documents delivered to Portugal?

 

 

Seems like it's not possible to even pay for delivery to Portugal through the online portal. 

 

According to their site: https://fr.usembassy.gov/visas/immigrant-visas/finacee/


Since the portuguese have to buy a specific envelope and give to the Embassy to deliver the documents:


On the *.pdf it also shows a map of a French Post Office near the Embassy where we can purchase the envelope (images included): https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/iv-dv-supplemental/PRS-Paris-092519.pdf

On 8/24/2021 at 8:53 AM, JobbinsKnobbins said:

Update: My fiancé doesn't have the program with him but he is aiming to re-write it so he can give the stats this friday. (He is working remotely while being with me but I'll make sure he will have some time to spare to work on it ;P)

Update for the Update: apologies for the lack of posting; I am abroad right now and had an older version of the program with me to scrape the data; but it appears to not be working for me.  I'm going to work on a rewrite, just dealing with some health stuff at the moment.  I will keep you all posted.

On 8/23/2021 at 10:09 AM, NB5347 said:

Been checking for appointments for a week and no "available appointments" ugh!! Another girl just told me that she emailed the Madrid embassy and they told her they were not sure if they'd be able to open appointments for September.... !?!? My 797 Notice of Action shows expires September 21, 2021 so doesn't this mean the interview has to be done prior to this date??

Our NoA2 is going to expire a month before the interview and the email stated that the beneficiary needs to bring another letter of intent to marry from both petitioner and beneficiary, to extend it.

Don't know how it is for Spain but either way, you guys need to make another letter and sign it (each) so you can send it to the Embassy to extend it or to bring it to the interview.