BISHO

I just had my interview earlier today, and here's my experience:
 
I arrived 2 hours before my interview, and everything was done in exactly 2.5 hours.
I must say the waiting experience felt a little awkward, being able to hear all the interactions between interviewers and applicants, and with nothing to do other than looking over your documents. That alone adds to the stress, so I think sitting close to the TV and distracting yourself with CNN wouldn't be the worst idea.
 
For the interview itself: The CO (interviewer) was a friendly, understanding yet no-nonsense kind of person. I was honest and answered the few questions he asked me truthfully (the usual questions; where I met my spouse, last time we saw each other, etc..) and the interview duration must have been 5 minutes or so. He approved my case and wished me good luck.
 
My take-away after today is: Be well-prepared with documents they may need, stay calm and answer honestly. Overall it was a positive experience and a good day at the end.
 
Wishing you all the best of luck.

Yes , spouse is not required to attend the interview. 
Her Dq is 21.03.2021 before before me by one day . 

I have finally received my passport today with visa. Let me give some information for the ones that will have their interview soon;
 
My appointment was in June 8th at 8:30. I would recommend to arrive earlier. Parking is easy, there are a lot of parking spots outside of the embassy. You cannot enter to the Embassy parking by car. I have been at Embassy garden around 7:15am. They are putting people in line of seats at the garden. Gates do not open until 8:20 or so. So if you come early you need to wait outside. Since nowadays it is hot, note that outside they have two fan for cooling but they are not so effective. Waiting outside can be a little disturbing.  When I arrived there were 3 people ahead of me. And once they opened the doors there were around 10-15 people behind me in the line.
 
Once they open the doors, they take people in as first comes first serves order. First you go to the window outside of the building, there they check your passport and interview letter. Then they let you in to the first room for screening. After that, they send you to the main building where the interview will take place.
 
When you enter the main building, they check your documents again and give you a line number. Then you sit and wait to be called. First window took from me these below documents;
 
* Original of the Birth Certificate (If other than english, with original translation)
* Original of Wedding certificate (If other than english, with original translation)
* Original of Police Certificate for any country you have lived more than 6 months or one year (I am not sure which one, but I believe 1 year)
* 1 US standards photo
* Original of your passport.
 
After you give these documents then they put them to a sealed bag and you wait again. There were 3 officers the day I had interview for this process. One lady was a persian speaker, one gentleman was Indian and one lady was Arabic speaker I believe. 
 
After you gave your documents, and you wait for short while, they call you for fingerprints from another window. There is another lady in the salon that walks around constantly and helps people with their fingerprints etc. Once you give your fingerprints, you again just wait.
 
Then, your number is called from another window and you have your actual interview. . There was a very kind gentleman that did my interview. He asked the classical questions. 
 
* Where did you meet your wife
* When did you meet your wife
* What you do in UAE
* Did you ever had USA visa before
* When do you plan to move to USA
 
He wanted to see some pictures of us. I had brought over 100 pictures but he wanted only a 10 or so selection. Be informed that the gap that you give your documents to officer in the window is not that wide, so giving a photo album might be tricky. You can give the pictures out of the album.
 
After all, he told me that everything went fine. He told me that they will cancel my valid US B1/B2 visa and will give me a new visa. He wished me luck in USA and everything is finished.
 
I have brought lots of documents, lots of proof etc with me but they have not required from me. I would suggest you all to bring everything anyhow. Better to be prepared. 
 
They have not asked me 2020 tax returns, I had brought with me along W-2.
 
Also, you can bring your documents in binders or folders. Lots of people was carrying these transparent big file envelopes, and others were using binders. I came with a binder and transparent plastic for my pictures. 
 
You can bring your phone with you to the garden of the Embassy, so you wont get bored. They take your phone, car key and other electronics if you have and put a locker and give you a ticket for it to get it back after the interview. I had left my phone in car in any case, that why I got super bored while waiting outside for 1 hour. You do not need to:)
 
All along it was a very good experience. Consular officer was a nice gentleman, and if you have everything right and no red flag, they are helpful to you. My interview was at 8:30. I arrived to embassy at 7:15 and exit around 9:20. All took around 2-2.5 hours. Interview took itself no more than 5-10 mins (really hard to assess the real time due to stress:))
 
Finally, the evening of the interview my status in ceac tracker is turned to "administrative processing". I have stressed a little bit, as AP is a scary topic. I kinda knew that this is normal procedure between interview and visa issued but you cant help to the stress once you see it on the screen. So if you have verbal confirmation of the approval but your case is seen AP, you do not need to worry directly. Thursday finally it changed to issued and very shortly I got a mail from Empost that my passport is delivered to the Main hub in Muroor street. Since Empost is not working Friday and Sunday, today at 8 am I went to pick up my passport and it was so quick, in 2 mins they gave my package. In the package there is only your passport and two paper is attached to it. One says that they sent our immigration package electronically so we do not need to cary any packages with us to give border control. And second paper is explaining how you make payment for your greencard.
 
As a summary timeline for me was like this;
 
June 8th, Tuesday - Interview
June 8th, Tuesday - CEAC Tracker switched from "Ready" to "Administrative processing"
June 10th, Thursday afternoon - CEAC Tracker switched from "Administrative processing" to "Issued"
June 10th, Thursday - Empost sent mail for the tracking number and link
June 13th, Sunday - Passport collected with Visa.

If you are immigrating to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, you must pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee online  . 
 
e strongly encourage you to pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee after you pick up your immigrant visa from the Department of State and before you depart for the United States.
If you cannot pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee, a family member, friend, employer, attorney, or accredited representative can pay for you. If someone pays the fee for you, they will need your Alien Number (A-Number) and Department of State (DOS) Case ID.
You may also pay the fee after you arrive in the United States. If you choose this option, we will send you a notice requesting payment with instructions on paying your fee. You will not receive your Green Card until you have paid the USCIS Immigrant Fee.
 
How to Pay the Fee
You must pay the fee online. The U.S. Embassy or Consulate will give you your:
A-Number (the letter “A” followed by 8 or 9 numbers); DOS Case ID (3 letters followed by 9 or 10 numbers); Instructions for paying the USCIS Immigrant Fee; Immigrant Data Summary; and Sealed immigrant visa packet. If you are a Diversity Visa immigrant, your DOS Case ID will have 4 numbers followed by 2 letters and 5 more numbers (for example: 0000AB01234).

Hi,
no need to book any appointment for the biometric , it will be done at the embassy with the interview. And about the medical, you have to go directly to NMC with the required documents to do the medical.

A new update by the embassy. Only regarding Iranian nationals. Though from that we can see that they already gave appointments 3 months in advance. I am guessing that how they planned to deal with the ban, giving appointments to everyone for the next 3 months. So maybe after June things go back to normal month by month basis? 

Hi everyone 
 
guess what!!! After expediting request and approval and everything. They scheduled my interview at
22. June.2021 . So don’t raise your expectations . You will be disappointed 😢 . Imagine requesting an expedite and your deadline is 11 April and you get interview on 22. June . 
 
hope all the best for you ✌🏽

Hi everyone 
 
guess what!!! After expediting request and approval and everything. They scheduled my interview at
22. June.2021 . So don’t raise your expectations . You will be disappointed 😢 . Imagine requesting an expedite and your deadline is 11 April and you get interview on 22. June . 
 
hope all the best for you ✌🏽

Hi everyone 
 
guess what!!! After expediting request and approval and everything. They scheduled my interview at
22. June.2021 . So don’t raise your expectations . You will be disappointed 😢 . Imagine requesting an expedite and your deadline is 11 April and you get interview on 22. June . 
 
hope all the best for you ✌🏽

I think it's fair to complain. We each have our own situation and experiences with them. I know about the whole pandemic affecting all that, but then again during the pandemic they kept doing interviews for students visas and even prioritized that while family based visa interviews were put on hold. Even now when they are saying they will prioritize IR1 and CR1 visas, they are still holding interviews for student visas. I think it's perfectly normal to complain. Not like they will care if we complained or not. 

It's pretty frustrating, on the website it said NVC phase should take 90 days or less, yet here we are waiting 6 months and up 

Effect immediately 😎😎😎... very good news , I’m wondering if they schedule our interviews this month or next month . Are they gonna ask for 2020 tax return? Anyone have an idea about this ?? 

Yeah bro , I got my DQ on 20Jan2021 .. so we will get our interviews soon as they say about increasing the immigrants visa for CR1 and IR1 .. all the best 😎😎

like wise my friend!! will be getting our love ones soon! nshallah  

Yeah bro , I got my DQ on 20Jan2021 .. so we will get our interviews soon as they say about increasing the immigrants visa for CR1 and IR1 .. all the best 😎😎

HI brother yes is defiantly good new!! i get DQ 10 feb 2021 what date are you DQ ?? HOPE this month they send us IL for April = ), abut the tax return of 2020 i will bring it just in case they request, but my lawyer just ask me for that paystubs but i will send the tax return 2020 to my wife. lest keep our self updated and hope to be call soon

Effect immediately 😎😎😎... very good news , I’m wondering if they schedule our interviews this month or next month . Are they gonna ask for 2020 tax return? Anyone have an idea about this ?? 

Effect immediately 😎😎😎... very good news , I’m wondering if they schedule our interviews this month or next month . Are they gonna ask for 2020 tax return? Anyone have an idea about this ?? 

What’s going on. No interviews .. very strange, this month no one got interview letter for March . We hope they will start sending interview letter ASAP .. waiting is frustrating 😤😤

hi every one look like we have good news the embassy did speed up this year 
 
 JANUARY 2021 - IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class (state.gov)
 CR1- 36 VISAS 
 IR1- 91 
lets be positive will have or family reunited soon nshallah!!! 

This month, anyhow, seems extraordinary rather than previous 2 months to be honest. Normally people would get their interview letters in the middle of the month (14-15-16th) and each month of interview was covering roughly 2-2.5 month of DQ dates.
 
This month only 2 people got their IL in the forum (Both are October DQs and one of them as I spoke with him expedited his case). These two IL came around 8-9th of the month. And we haven't hear anything during 14-15-16-17th for the ones whose DQ are November and December which should be interviewed in March as per previous months statistics.
 
I do not know exactly, but something is not in place. Additional note: AUH embassy stopped nonimmigrant visa issue except medical-humanitarian cases. It can be that Embassy will not work full capacity this month, it can be that their staff are using their annual leave, or it can even be covid measurements related. We just simply do not know what is inside the box and blindly guessing.
 
No matter what, this months ILs are extraordinary compared to previous two months', that is for sure.
 
Let's hope the best. 
 
I was hoping that since they limited the nonimmigrant visas, they would've process more and more immigrant visas which they have very limited catagories already (IR1/CR1, EB3, K1,etc - Even no DV1). But that looks like this is not the case.
 
A side note, in general USCIS has approved almost 25% less cases in 4th quarter of FY 2020 (Which is July-August-September 2020). (144,000 worldwide approval compared to FY2020/1, FY2020/2 and FY2020/3 which were around190,000-200,000 approval). These 4th quarter approved cases mostly already got their DQ dates around August-September-October 2020 and had their interviews. I believe this less approval is a trend that continued at 1st Quarter of FY2021 (October-November-December 2020) as we can already see the affect on this on the VJ members. VJ members which got their NOA2 in these months are less than the previous quarters for sure. 
 
So statistically, there are less people waiting for their interview, hence less workload for embassies, still there is not much IL issued this month. Just weird. 
 
Also everything I wrote above are still so blindly guessed since we do not have information of the full picture. Just data of VJ members, their timeline etc is not enough to make concrete deductions. Still, while we are waiting, why not do some brainstrorm, right

Today I saw that US Embassy in Abu Dhabi is not issuing any nonimmigrant visa if it is not essential (Health reasons or student). I remember they were issuing normal B1/B2 visas and other nonimmigrant visas as normal last week.
 
Also visa wait times for nonimmigrant visa is showing "emergency appointments only" now. Before it was showing 140 days for visitor visas and something like 30 days for others.
 
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/wait-times.html
 
https://ae.usembassy.gov/visas/immigrant-visas/
 
Do you think this would give a speed boost to immigrant visa interview numbers for the upcoming months? They will be less busy with nonimmigrant visas and they will have way more less nonimmigrant visa applications.
 
I wonder if this free slots of interviews will be assigned to immigrant visa, especially ir1/cr1 interviews and will melt the backlog or will continue like this.
 
Let's see. (fingers crossed)

As per the comments, some of October DQ are interviewed on February, but there is still some people whose DQ on September and October not yet interviewed. So I believe they will schedule interviews for people DQ on November   , December And January.

As per the comments, some of October DQ are interviewed on February, but there is still some people whose DQ on September and October not yet interviewed. So I believe they will schedule interviews for people DQ on November   , December And January.

Waiting is hard man . We all in the same boat . There some people from September also waiting. Just keep it up until it comes . Feeling anxious will not get you there.