MelanieR18

Just now, EKT said:

We haven't paid it yet but it sounds like new IOE number might just be the receipt number for the immigrant visa fee transaction. Does the notice have his full name and IV case number (ours starts with ACK2021...) on it? 

No it doesn't, the email we got after paying had a "tracking ID" and the amount/date that it was paid, but no name or anything, then just this comment at the bottom that said:

Your payment was applied to the following case(s):
        IOEXXXXXXXX

So weird. 

I did go back and try to pay it again just to check but site said the fee had been paid so I'm sure it's fine. 

Just an FYI...

When I went to pay it online, the IV Case Number/DOS Case Number was too long (ours was like 12 digits and it said it only takes 9-10 digits) and I saw somewhere online that you have to take off the 01 at the end and it works. Just in case anyone else runs into that same problem

Has anyone paid the $220 USCIS immigrant fee yet? I paid ours today online and it emailed me a receipt with an IOE number on it which is different to our original IOE number. Just wondering if anyone else had the same thing happen?

7 minutes ago, Stevi_09 said:

Congrats!!! We all know it’s not easy getting to this point. How long did you wait from getting DQ to interview? Thanks for heads up on questions!!!

@Stevi_09 Thank you

We initially got DQ'd in August 2021 and had an interview booked for Sept 2021. The interview was canceled though due to the lockdown. I think in normal times, DQ to interview is like a month but lately things seem all over the place. 

Fingers crossed you hear something soon! 

Hi everyone, my husband had his interview today and just wanted to let you know what he was asked: 

-What does he do for work, what will he do in the US

-Who was his sponsor and joint sponsor

-Where will we live

-Where was I right now

-What do my parents do for work

-Did my parents come to our wedding

-General convo about our kids

He brought tons of documents with him but they didn't ask to see anything. He said the whole thing took like 5 minutes, they told him he'd passed and they said they will get his passport in the mail at the end of this week. 

If the person who works at the University of Nebraska is on this forum, my husband was behind you

Good luck to everyone, hopefully this process will start moving a bit faster now that we are in Orange!

Hi everyone, just wanted to say that we got the interview letter today! He's booked for January 5th. It looks like they send the interview letters out on Thursdays from what I can tell. 

I'll update our google doc, hoping to hear more of you got an interview letter too, fingers crossed

@kg_nz and @rycilla congratulations to you both! What a great day. Thank you so much for taking the time to update us  

I'm SO happy that things are moving along now after all this time! 

21 hours ago, EKT said:

Maybe this will be helpful for those who want to update their info over the next few weeks to get an idea of when interviews will be scheduled/rescheduled (the VJ timeline dates seem a bit less relevant right now due to the closure). Consulate rec'd is the date when your documents physically arrived at the consulate and for K-1s I gather this is the date packet 3 was completed/received by the consulate. Sorry if I forgot anyone and others please feel free to jump in!

 

 

VJ Name	Visa category	Consulate rec'd	Interview scheduled	Interview date	Visa issued
kg_nz	IR-1/CR-1	Aug-2021	17-Nov-2021	08-Dec-2021
Joshandsarah	K-1		18-Nov-2021	15-Dec-2021
MelanieR18	IR-1/CR-1	22-Nov-2021
rycilla	IR-1/CR-1
Vamp.nz	K-1	17-Nov-2021
EKT	IR-1/CR-1	26-Nov-2021
kas & jewel	K-1
Jovany&Divya	K-1

 

Just quote the most recent version to update, unless someone wants to set this up in google sheets and post a link. I couldn't figure out a way to do it anonymously.

 

 

Great idea @EKT thank you for making this! I've added in mine  

@kg_nz hi! Thank you so much for posting, it is good to hear your story. Hoping all goes well for you guys on December 8th. 

After I saw your post, I replied back to B's email where she told me that they are only opening in the Orange for interviews. I asked her to double check and clarify on when they were going to do in person interviews. She sent this reply, which makes way more sense:

Interviews are being scheduled in order of when the documents arrive in our office. The mail is dated, and we are scheduling interviews in order of arrival in our office.

I wish they weren't so vague about this stuff and had consistent messaging, this whole thing has been super stressful. But yes, at least we are getting somewhere now

31 minutes ago, JoshandSarah said:

Melanie, are you on a CR1 or IR1 visa??

@JoshandSarah my husband is IR1. They must only being doing K1 interviews then, maybe those interviews are able to socially distance more than IR1 ones or something haha who knows.

Good luck at the interview,  hope it goes well for you guys and keep us updated!  

19 minutes ago, JoshandSarah said:

How come I have an interview on the 15th then? I’m confused 

@JoshandSarah Right?! It is so confusing. Did you reschedule your interview through the UStraveldocs website?

Hi everyone, I emailed B yesterday and got some unfortunate news today:

The U.S. Consulate General Auckland will remain closed to routine immigrant visa applicants requiring in-person interviews until Auckland enters the orange level of the COVID Protection Framework / Traffic Light System. Please keep in mind that this situation is dynamic and we may cancel future appointments if Auckland returns to a state of lockdown.

18 minutes ago, EKT said:

 

 

 @MelanieR18 have you guys received a date? It seems like you would be one of the earliest DQ dates in Auckland... Seems like they should be able to do this with certainty now that they know traffic lights will come into play on the 3rd.

@EKT no date yet for us either, I'm super confused about the whole thing..

After we got that email from B asking for the civil documents to be sent, we couriered everything to them and they got it yesterday. We also created an account on ustraveldocs (the visa scheduling site mentioned on the consulate website) and requested an interview that way but we aren't able to book anything through there at the moment, the 'schedule an interview' area is not clickable.  I called the customer service for ustraveldocs and they said that they had to 'escalate it to the embassy' and aren't able to book us over the phone. So I'm really unsure of the next steps. I was thinking of emailing B again to see what is going on but it doesn't look like that will help based on what she emailed to @rycilla  

Because they know what date that we are going to the traffic light system, I don't know why they aren't making bookings now. It's so frustrating. 

20 hours ago, EKT said:

I also think there could be regional differences that they’re not mentioning, ie people in Auckland might be able to go for interviews in early Dec after the move to traffic lights before the border opens on Dec 15th. This is simply speculation as we haven’t received an email and@MelanieR18 are the same category as us and originally had their interviews scheduled on the same date. That or the Consulate is just not doing things very systematically!! We will get our documents organised at any rate. 

 

@EKT I think you may be right about the regional thing. The email came out in the morning so it was before the December 15th announcement and so maybe they were just contacting people within Auckland at that time. Who knows! Hopefully now that the Dec 15th date has been announced, they will start emailing everyone else around the country. 

It's just good to know that they are going to open soon after all this time, I'd started worrying that they wouldn't open in the red traffic light for a while, the not knowing has been driving me crazy! 

Hi everyone, I got an email from B this morning! Great news, sounds like the embassy is opening up soon. They must be getting things lined up for when we go to the red traffic light setting

1 minute ago, rycilla said:

@MelanieR18 I emailed the other day asking about how to go about rescheduling, and B said they will provide full instructions once it's possible. "We will give you the information to access the calendar, and you will pick the date and time that works with your schedule." <--- directly from email. 

@rycilla great, thank you! Finally feel like we are getting somewhere

YAY! This sounds very promising. If retail can open, surely the embassy can open too. Do either of you know how to reschedule our interviews? Does the NVC do that or is there anything we need to do from our end?

@EKT yes please let us know what B says! Fingers and toes crossed for good news.

7 hours ago, EKT said:

We just got the interview letter overnight! I fully expect this might still be cancelled at any moment as I know they are not conducting interviews until Level 2 but it is a step in the right direction!! 

Congrats! We got a letter too! What a great thing to wake up to. Ours is on Sept 15 but I'm also expecting for it to be cancelled with the way the lockdown is going. At least we are nearing the end

On 8/18/2021 at 9:56 AM, EKT said:

😭😭😭

 

The Government of New Zealand has announced that all of New Zealand has moved to COVID Alert Level 4  at 2359 on Tuesday, August 17th.  Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula will stay in Alert Level 4 for seven (7) days, while the rest of the country will be at Alert Level 4 for three (3) days. For detailed information about the New Zealand government response to COVID-19, please visit https://covid19.govt.nz/ .  
 
The U.S. Consulate General in Auckland operates under safety measures as outlined by the Government of New Zealand. Given the announcement, all appointments for the next week, through Tuesday, August 24, have been cancelled. U.S. citizen and visa services will resume once we return to Alert Level 1 or 2. 

I'm so sad about this lockdown!! Fingers crossed it doesn't last long. 

Does your case status say sent to the embassy yet or is it still at NVC? Mine is still at NVC, hopefully they are still sending the cases across even though we are now in lockdown. 

On 8/11/2021 at 2:14 PM, EKT said:

Welcome!! I emailed them too and got a similar response 😂😂 They must get that question a lot. I thought about ringing NVC but their main recording specifically says “we can’t predict when interviews will be scheduled” so I decided it probably wasn’t worth waiting an hour+ on hold!
 

Hopefully we both manage to score September interviews. Would love to be there by Thanksgiving if not earlier!

Oh yea, they probably have that response saved by now

I'm in one of those Americans in NZ facebook groups, a girl posted that her partner was about to have his interview so I asked her how long it all took. She said that after they got DQ, their case took two weeks to be sent to the embassy and then the interview was booked for three weeks after that. Surely we can't to too far behind, we're hoping to be there for Thanksgiving too!

On 8/10/2021 at 11:38 AM, EKT said:

Just keeping this alive for anyone who comes after us to find! We received our DQ email 2 weeks ago on July 27th and currently waiting for an interview date. There have only been a few Auckland IR-1/CR-1 cases on VJ this year but I know of a couple early July K-1s that waited at NVC for about 4 weeks before being sent the Consulate so hopefully it will be similar for us. I will update again when we get a date and anyone who is at NVC stage or waiting for an interview / recently interviewed in Auckland for IR-1/CR-1, feel free to post updates here to help everyone else survive the waiting game!

Hey! So happy to be joining this thread now

I emailed the Auckland embassy yesterday asking how long it takes and this was the reply: 

I don’t have a time frame which the NVC schedules appointments. We give them available dates, and they fill them on our behalf. You can be assured that the NVC will schedule an appointment on the next available date provided.

Fingers crossed it’s soon for us though! 

59 minutes ago, EKT said:

Hey Melanie! Yes, we made the same mistake. This is the process to use (Section 14 vetting request): https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/businesses-and-organisations/vetting/vetting-process-visas

 

A few days after you submit the request you will get an email response saying that it has been processed and the results sent directly to the Consulate in Auckland. We uploaded this confirmation email and the actual request into CEAC as a single PDF in place of the police certificate. I added a comment that the results had been sent directly to the Consulate as required because I was worried they would reject it again! I also then emailed the Consulate just to check that this was the correct process and they responded that they had received the police clearance and forwarded it to NVC, although I never saw anything in CEAC to suggest that it was added to our case file. 

 

Everything was accepted at the next review so the confirmation email that we uploaded must have been enough... it is a very mysterious process!! Good luck with everything! I will send you an update on the Auckland time frames when we get our interview. Not many CR1/IR1 people on VJ but I have seen a few K1s.

Thank you so much! I really apprciate you explaining that, we really don't want another RFE so I'm determined to get this right. Agreed that it is a very mysterious process haha

Just an update for the group, we submitted on June 9th and were reviewed today so right in line with the posted dates. We got an RFE asking for three things: a 1099 from my joint sponsor, a W2 from me the sponsor (which I don't have bc I live abroad) and a request for a police vetting certificate. We should have everthing resubmitted in the next few days, hopefully the review times start moving a bit faster soon!

Good luck everyone, hoping that you are all reviewed soon 

On 7/28/2021 at 12:36 PM, EKT said:

Just got DQ email!!! June 8th resubmission

Hi EKT

Congrats!! Hopefully you have an interview soon! The Auckland consulate is pretty fast I've heard. 

We are also applying from New Zealand, I was wondering how you did the NZ police clearance? We first submitted the MOJ check which was rejected, now insteadthey would like the police vetting form. However, it says that the police vetting form only gets sent straight to the US embassy and they don't provide copies to individuals so we don't have anything to upload. Just wondering how you did it  

Thanks

Melanie

We are facing this same problem too and have put in a public enquiry but no reply yet. Just checked this morning and still the same

We also added a joint sponsor and they cannot upload any of their financial documents either. Only option is upload civil docs for the applicant. 

So frustrating! Hopefully resolved soon 🤞

1 hour ago, Nitas_man said:

Domicile?  Not sure I remember any questions about domicile in particular.  We did this twice.  We lived outside the US, filed as outside the US, used our foreign address as “residence” and US address as “mailing”.

 

All our banking / investments / CC accounts were and always have been in the US.  We had drivers licenses, car insurance, vehicles, registration, storage fees (the receipts were with our tax returns), active mobile phone accounts, and nobody blinked.  
 

Definition of domicile is where you sleep.  There is nothing wrong with being domiciled overseas if you intend to move back before or with your spouse.

 

Thank you so much, that is super helpful