EKT

46 minutes ago, Zan1 said:

Hi all, resurrecting a bit of an old thread here but I wanted to get some advice.

 

I've been scheduled for my IR-1 interview in the second week of January. Prior to this I was stuck at the NVC for pretty much bang on a year, so the I-864 and tax transcript I originally submitted (and for a joint sponsor too) are over a year old at this point. Same deal with the police certificate that I submitted. 

 

I see on this page that I'll need to submit an new police certificate so I'm in the process of organising that.

 

Does anyone know if I'll need to update the two I-864 and tax transcripts? This page here says that I don't need to provide them at all because I originally submitted them to the NVC, but I was intending on printing them out and including them in my documents packet just in case. It's going to be a right pain if I have to provide updated ones at this stage so I'm hoping that the ones I've already submitted will suffice.

 

Thanks for the help! 

Hey! My I-864 and financial evidence was 9 months old at the time of my husband's interview and we were told by the Consulate not to update it. You could email them for peace of mind. Congrats on making it to the final step!!

1 minute ago, Louis10182 said:

Thanks. 

 

I have emailed the consulate - so I guess tomorrow I will begin harassing the NVC!

Good luck! I just re-read your earlier post. If you haven't already added/updated any documents in CEAC since the RFE DON'T change anything until you call NVC due to the reason I mentioned above about the document review date. Call them first and see if they can re-check what you already supplied.

On 5/11/2022 at 10:13 AM, Sammy.NZ said:

My husband just had his interview!!! Approved! Wooooo!

 

They asked him when we met, when we got married, what we do for work, what were his plans for work after arriving in the U.S. - all pretty basic stuff. They asked him why I didn't join him at the interview and he told them I'm flying back on Friday so have lots of packing to do and they thought that was understandable. Oh & they asked him about living in Germany as he lived there 2 years and asked if he had lived anywhere else overseas.

 

It's been 456 days since we first lodged our petition.... feeling lighter today

CONGRATS!! I hope you had an uneventful trip home and your husband is not far behind  

2 hours ago, Louis10182 said:

Hi 

 

I just received a RFE for police certificate. I know others had issues with this. What did others do to ultimately get the NVC to DQ despite not being able to upload the police certificate themselves? Also was there away to not have to wait the full three months again?

 

I updated a copy of the form and email from the police confirming that they mailed it to the Auckland Consulate. 

So sorry this is happening to you. Easily the most frustrating part of applying from NZ. When we got this RFE, I also emailed the consulate at AucklandIV@state.gov to confirm they received it and passed it on to NVC. Make sure you include your full name and case number when you email. Then I would call NVC (expect to wait on hold for ages) and stress that what you submitted the first time was correct and ask if they can flag it to be reviewed by a supervisor instead of going back to end of the line. Unfortunately whenever you upload new documents in CEAC, the most date becomes your place in line. Saying that, occasionally people just seem to get lucky and get a quick second review so fingers crossed that happens for you!

Edited to add: I just re-read your post. If you haven't already added/updated any documents in CEAC DON'T change anything until you call NVC due to the reason I mentioned above about the document review date. Call then first and see if they can re-check what you already supplied.

4 minutes ago, ztiberiusd said:

Great tip, thank you. When would you expect it to be issued? Friday? 

Probably Friday, although I've seen a few that were on Monday. 

2 minutes ago, Sammy.NZ said:

Congrats to you both! Will you let us know when she gets her visa in the mail! Curious how long my husband should allow for between post interview and flight. 

@ztiberiusd congrats on a smooth interview! In case you don't know, you check the visa status here to see when it's issued: https://ceac.state.gov/ceacstattracker/status.aspx

@Sammy.NZ they seem to issue the visas on the Friday after the interview (occasionally Monday the following week) and courier them the same day. Definitely get an overnight courier bag with tracking! The only delays I've heard of were parcels that got held up with the courier. But I suggest booking flights at least a couple of weeks after interview to avoid unnecessary stress!!

13 minutes ago, Sammy.NZ said:

Yooooo - those who have been interviewed at Akld already, did you drop of docs to Consulate ahead of your interview as per below:

We live in SI so flying up, could maybe drop off docs a day or two before but definitely not a week....  Thoughts?

Step 2: Bring required documents to the consulate BEFORE your interview

 

It is important that you provide all required original documents and any missing items to the U.S. Consulate General in Auckland prior to your interview. We’ve created a checklist that will tell you what to bring. Please print the checklist below and bring it with the listed documents to the consulate the week before your interview any time between 8:00 a.m. and 12 noon Monday through Friday, except public holidays. Please place everything in a single envelope with your case number and full name on the outside, and address it to “Immigrant Visa Unit.”

Yah! That was super quick. You need to courier the documents up at least a week before so I would just send them now. Just make sure he keeps his passport for the medical and to get into the consulate on the day along with his interview letter. 
 

53 minutes ago, Sammy.NZ said:

WE JUST GOT DQ'D !!!!!!!!! 🎉

So thrilled - any recent info on how long we should expect to hear about interview scheduling from Akld Consulate and how far out they are booking? 
Also if anyone has booked a medical recently - let me know if it was hard to book and if there was a long wait. 

OMG congrats!! Hole in one! My guess is you will hear from NVC later this week about an interview in May (usually a Wednesday so probably the 18th or 25th of May). They always seem to send out the interview letters around the 20th of the month on a Thursday or Friday US time. Fingers crossed for you! 

On 3/26/2022 at 7:30 AM, ztiberiusd said:

Here's another tangentially related question for those who recently went through the process. 

 

With the courier package that you sent up to the Consulate (or dropped off) the week before the interview, what financial and relationship evidence did you submit? 

 

There's something on this page which states "Every visa applicant, no matter their age, must bring certain documents to the interview, including photographs, and the original or certified copy version of all civil documents submitted to NVC. You do not need to bring your Affidavit of Support or financial evidence you submitted to NVC". 

 

Meanwhile, the information provided here clearly states to include "The appropriate Form I-864 Affidavit of Support for each financial sponsor along with a photocopy of the sponsor’s IRS transcript or most recent U.S. federal income tax return, and any relevant W-2s."

 

I know that this is already visible to the CO within the NVC file, so it seems a little silly to include it, but I don't want to ignore their instructions (albeit contradictory to another set of instructions on the exact same website). I'm considering including a copy of the first linked page with that section highlighted. 

 

I am planning on including my 2021 tax return along with a recent pay stub to show my domicile in the US and prove I'm working etc. I'd be curious to hear what others have done. 

 

Also, how much relationship evidence did you include during this section? Obviously with New Zealand being a low fraud country I'm not going to attach thousands of pages of text logs, but also I don't want to send nothing and have them ask about it. Should I just recycle the photos and info I used for the I-130? Again, would be great to hear what others have done. 

 

Thanks guys. 

We sent my original I-864 and all supporting evidence that had been uploaded to CEAC in our courier parcel with everything else. It was 9 months old by the time he had his interview and I emailed the consulate to ask if it should be updated but B said no. 

We didn’t send any additional relationship evidence, however in my husband’s interview letter and/or the Auckland specific instructions on the State Dept website (I can’t remember which one) said to bring more relationship evidence to the interview so he brought about five A4 pages worth of family photos spanning the last 5 years. It also said to bring additional evidence that he can support himself financially so he brought a letter from his current employer stating his position and salary as well as IRD income summaries for the last two years. They didn’t ask for any of this at the interview though.

Also, there’s no need to complete or bring any paper forms to the medical despite what the instructions say. It’s completely electronic. You just need your passport, passport photos and any immunisation records. 

2 minutes ago, BahamaBaby said:

What is the latest in terms of how long it takes the medical to reach the consulate? Would help understand how much of a gap we should leave between medical and interview. 
 

Also, is the consulate usually quick in sending back the passport with visa in the prepaid satchel? 
 

Guessing NZ consulate is open again next week - their website still says closed till March 25 which is today, hoping things are back to normal from next week! 

It's all done online now and it only took 2 days for CityMed to upload the medical report to eMed when my husband had his interview in January. I think it's then assigned to a CO to review and attach the report to the applicant's case so I would leave at least a week's gap between medical and interview.

My husband only had his medical the day before the interview and it wasn't in the system at the time of interview, which we expected. He was told he was approved pending the medical report and his visa was delayed by about a week. Normally when an applicant is approved at the interview on Wednesday, the visa is issued and sent on Friday of the same week or early the next week. His visa was issued the following Friday (9 days after the interview) and arrived on Monday so he still had his passport and visa in under two weeks.

13 hours ago, ztiberiusd said:

Got an email this morning. Interview scheduled for April 27!! Yay! 

Yahh!! Congrats

58 minutes ago, ztiberiusd said:

Thanks for that interview! Tried contacting consulate to ask if it was possible to schedule the interview for that date but they told me to contact NVC, who I highly doubt would reply in time. 

Based on my (borderline obsessive) research when we were originally waiting for our interview last year, I think Auckland usually does K-1s on the first Wednesday of the month and IR-1/CR-1s on the third Wednesday. So hopefully you will get an appointment letter later this week for an interview on April 20th. We got the email from NVC early Saturday NZ time so Friday US time and it arrived about 3.5 weeks before the actual interview to allow time to book the medical 2 weeks prior and courier documents, etc. Saying that, post-lockdown they just seemed to be squeezing anyone in anywhere they could so it might be different in April but I'll put my money on the 20th lol

1 hour ago, Jevin said:

Yeah, we ended up sending Packet 2 documents by courier. We got an email on March 1 telling us that we could start scheduling the interview, but there were no slots available on the scheduling website back then. On March 14 they released a few interview slots for early April and early May. Ours is scheduled for April 6 🤞

Nice, congrats! The IR/CR is a little different as NVC schedules the interview and sends out a letter with the date but otherwise it’s the same with interviews always happening on Wednesdays. That sounds promising there are still spaces open! 
 

@ztiberiusd in the past NVC scheduled them late in the week of 20th of the month for a few weeks later. Fingers crossed you hear something later this week about a mid April interview🤞 

22 hours ago, Bubblytea said:

hi all, does anyone have experience getting a CR1 via DCF through the Auckland consulate? Is it something they are processing at all? 

I didn’t hear of anyone on VJ doing DCF in Auckland during our IR-1 process (Feb 2021-Jan 2022). I have a feeling it’s not routinely done anymore but hopefully someone else will know. 

On 3/19/2022 at 6:54 PM, ztiberiusd said:

FINALLY DQ'D TODAY. What a fantastic feeling. 

 

Intially submitted everything to NVC on 09/19, but got an RFE. Resubmitted 12/20 and just got DQ'd on 03/19. 

 

I've been pretty out of the loop on how the Auckland consulate is moving (focusing on it too much was just driving me insane). Does anyone have any rough idea of how long we might expect to wait before we receive an interview date? 

 

I'm so thankful that we are DQ'd. The end to this process is hopefully in sight. 

I can’t help with consulate timeframes but just wanted to say congrats on getting DQ!

@Jevin did you had an interview recently? I remember you posted about sending docs to the consulate a little while back.

5 hours ago, mekbus said:

Got our I-130 approved today! Onwards to the NVC portion. 

Did you all wait for the NVC case reference number before applying for the police certificate?

Congratulations!! I’m pretty sure you need the case number to complete the section 14 form so yes, I would wait. Use the time to complete the DS-260, I-864 and write cover letters, etc. I remember it took us a surprisingly long time to pull everything together after we got our case number and paid the fees. 

Also, try to get your US tax transcripts if possible instead of your returns. You can request them online from the IRS and it will save you the delay of getting an RFP to provide W-2/1099s. Sorry if I already mentioned this to you! I’m know I’m like a broken record but it seems to trip up so many applicants/sponsors who are based overseas. 

On 3/1/2022 at 10:34 AM, R gill said:

Hi

I have send comleted section 14 overseas form to NZ police for police certificate. Just want to ask how long it took for Nz police to send me the confirmation email that they have got my detail and they will send police certificate to consulate general Auckland ? Can any one please shed some lights on this.
 

thanks in advance 

Hey, from memory I think it only takes a few days to receive email confirmation. Yes, the police report gets sent directly to the Consulate but it’s a good idea to email them to confirm they received it and forwarded it to NVC. 

27 minutes ago, kp_nay said:

Thanks for you're  reply . No she will be here in march on b1 /B2  visa and fly back to nz ( because of her work ). 

For K1 visa she cannot work in United sates until her GC is been approved ? ( We both don't want to hold our carrier because of visa situations ) .

 

Thanks 

 

Oh, I see. She already has the B visa? Hopefully someone with more experience/knowledge will comment on this but I think she might have difficulty at the point of entry if she says she travelling to the US to get married. Just something to keep in mind. 
 

Yes, the K-1 means time off work. I would allow 12-18 months for the CR-1 process. My husband just had his IR-1 issued and the whole process took a little under 12 months from filing the petition to receiving his passport back with the visa in it. It would have been only 8 months if not for the Auckland Consulate closure but we were really lucky to have our petition approved very quickly in 2 months. It’s next to impossible to predict timeframes so best thing to do is prepare for the worst (18+ months) and hope for the best (less than 12 months).

1 hour ago, kp_nay said:

Hi , Thanks for sharing you're experience and timeline . How long does it took  you for i130 approval ? As nzl still have travel ban, so my gf decided to fly to US get married here and then she will go back and then we can start our documentations 

The I-130 approval can take anywhere from 2-12 months or longer and it depends on the service center you are assigned to for processing. The next stage at NVC (for CR-1 visas) currently takes 3 months for the first document review and it could be 6+ months if changes are requested. Is your girlfriend already in the US with a valid visa or is she planning to travel there on an ESTA? From what I’ve read on VJ, she might have difficulty at the border if the purpose of the trip is to marry a US citizen as this shows she intends to immigrate. If she’s already there on a visa (like a B-1/B-2 not ESTA) you could look into adjusting status after you get married instead of going back to NZ. 

If she’s still in NZ, you could consider the K-1 fiancé visa route which can sometimes be a quicker way to getting her there but more work once she enters the US.

The NZ border is also starting to open next month so there are other options if you want to be together in the meantime. If you are under 35 you could get a NZ working holiday visa for 12 months to wait out the US visa processing time. These are available again from next month. I did this years ago and it was a really easy online application process and approval came in a few days. 

Good luck with whatever you decide!

38 minutes ago, mcs_2021 said:

Does anyone have any input on how long it generally takes for the consulate to ship passports after the interview? It's been over a week now and our tracking number still indicates that that it hasn't been shipped yet. We're hoping to book flights soon, so we're starting to worry! 

You can check your visa status here to see if it has been issued yet:

https://ceac.state.gov/ceacstattracker/status.aspx

We also set up tracking updates on the NZ Post website to get a text/email with any tracking updates for our parcel. They sent my husband’s visa the same afternoon the status was changed to ‘Issued’

1 hour ago, Ash23122 said:

Hi All,

 

For those who have recently got DQ'd by NVC, has anyone recently received a visa interview date from the Auckland consulate yet?

just trying to find out if the interviews are being scheduled or not.

I think @mcs_2021 was DQ late December and had an interview last week. They don’t have a timeline so hopefully will post an update for those who are waiting on NVC.

I know the Auckland consulate did a few days of interviews in Dec and four days in January (always Wednesdays) for IR-1/CR-1 and K-1s. They seem to turn around visas the same week if approved at interview. 

@Ash23122 check out pages 13-15 of this thread. It looks like they asked the consulate to resend the police certificate to NVC and then the original document containing the email confirmation (which was previously rejected) was accepted in CEAC. Hopefully this will work for you! 

5 hours ago, Ash23122 said:

Our case was reviewed by NVC today (submission date - 30/10/2021) and all AOS and Civil documents were accepted except the NZ police certificate for which we had uploaded the email confirmation we received from NZ police. We even wrote a comment saying that "NZ police has sent the vetting results to the US consulate in Auckland who will then forward it to NVC". On top of that, under additional docs, we uploaded an explanation letter stating that NZ police do not share the outcome of police checks directly with the individual applicant and therefore, we are not able to provide this document to the NVC. In January, the U.S. consulate in Sydney even verified via email that they've received my vetting results from US Consulate Auckland and a copy has been sent to the NVC. 

 

After explaining all of this to NVC on the phone, I was advised that they're submitting my case for a supervisor to review and I'll be informed of the outcome in the next 6 weeks. 

 

Can anyone please share their experience on how did you get NVC to accept the email confirmation from NZ police? The representative on the phone didn't have a clue on what document needed is required to be submitted for the NZ police check which is quite frustrating. 

 

Ugh, sorry to hear you’re dealing with this.  It is a really common problem for NZ applicants unfortunately. There are quite a few posts about this earlier in the thread if you scroll back through, but it sounds like you’ve done everything right. Firstly, I wouldn’t upload anything new because it will have today’s date on it and potentially reset your processing time. I’ve also read many posts on VJ where the wait for a supervisor was a matter of days rather than the six weeks mention so maybe wait a week and call back to check in. @mcs_2021 what did you do in the end to resolve this?

8 hours ago, pushbrk said:

The six month rule of thumb is pretty accurate, but it is always a judgment call.  Don't push it.  Google  Maintaining permanent resident status USA

Thanks everyone! We’re going to try our best to make this a one way journey but it really helps me mentally to know we have options if things start unravelling and the 6 month expiry is looming. So much pressure not to mess it up after all of the waiting and hoop jumping 😅

22 minutes ago, SteveInBostonI130 said:

Rule of thumb,

 

Up to 6 months away will not receive much scrutiny by CBP.

 

6 months to 1 year away may lead to some questioning by CBP, or it may not.

 

Over 1 year to 2 years officially requires the LPR to file for a re-entry permit before departure.

 

@EKT, do you have a US address for your husband to receive his SSN card and green card?

Thanks, that's great to hear there's a 6 month window roughly. Yes, I use my parent's address in the US so that will be easy enough to organize.