crobot

Lived in Greece her entire life. Lived in Spain for school for less than a year, and has traveled within the EU, US, and Canada. Police certificates were provided for both Spain and Greece. Aside from the general "Is this normal?" question, I'm mainly curious if holding a government security clearance could cause my fiance's visa application to be subject to additional scrutiny/background checks - adding additional delays to the process following the interview. My gut says yes, but I'm genuinely curious if there's anyone here in a similar situation as myself, and whether or not they saw slowdowns at the end here like we are seeing, or if their turnaround was just a couple days like a lot of the folks who share their timelines online.

Apologies for the rambling post, but I was wondering if anyone has any insight or personal experience that might be relevant to our current scenario here: My fiancée had her K-1 visa interview on the 10th (10 days ago) in Athens, Greece. At the conclusion of the interview she had the following exchange with the CO: She was not told that she was approved, we were not issued 221(g), and prior to the interview with the CO, they took her passport during the document check portion of her appointment, which was not returned. She provided a return address during that check, prior to the actual interview with the CO. Currently, we're nearing the two-week mark - but when we check CEAC, the status still shows as "READY - Your case is ready for your interview...". I know from reading here, that it reads "ready" until it doesn't and that once things start moving, it'll change to Refused/Administrative Processing/Approved/etc. However, we’re stressed because looking at other timelines/Facebook/WhatsApp groups, we're seeing folks told they're approved *at* the interview, and turnarounds frequently in 1-3 days. Meanwhile, we continue to sit at "ready", ten days following the interview. While I realize that you're not actually Approved™️until you have the visa in your hand, we've seen so many recent accounts of people leaving the interview after being handed an "approval letter", or being told by the CO that they were "approved" or "recommending approval" - with CEAC being updated the same or next day, and visas in hand shortly thereafter. We've also talked to other folks who interviewed at the Athens embassy in the last year, and their turnaround time was within the first few days as well. We emailed the Embassy this morning to ask if there was anything that they needed from us and were told that based on their records, our "case is pending for review" and that we "will be notified once they complete that process". So here's what I'm wondering: Looking at the quick turnaround time that others are seeing between interview and approval, is what we're experiencing normal? Should we be concerned? In the email we sent, we mentioned we were told "two weeks" and asked if that was still an accurate timeline, but they did not address that question in their response. Could the fact that I hold a security clearance cause the visa process to slow down at this final step? The feds are already aware of my fiancée and her family - the proper information was disclosed on my latest renewal. I would have assumed that any background checks required would have been part of the process at some point in the **nineteen months** we've been waiting, but I guess it's possible that it would be the embassy actually GRANTING the visa to dig deeper into her and her family as part of the process (if that's even a thing that they consider or have flagged)? Part of me feels like, if the clearance was prompting a deeper look into our file and if that was something that the embassy did (and not USCIS/DHS prior to sending it over to the NVC), that it would occur during the administrative processing phase (which our status does not read). Is it possible we're in AP regardless of CEAC says? Does anyone here have any experience going through this process while holding a clearance? Did you hit any snags or delays that you suspect might have been related? Is this even a thing that could slow things down at this step? Looking back at the wording of the COs response ("we're waiting for clearances"), I find myself wondering why that word didn't ring any bells until today when it hit us that that maybe that might explain the delay? It's certainly an oddly phrased answer to "can you tell me if I'm approved, especially considering we'd submitted all the appropriate police certificates ahead of time, so what "clearances" would they be waiting on? So yeah, curious for people's thoughts re: the interview-approval timeline, or if anyone has experience with the clearance aspect of this. Thanks!

And boom, there's the notice. NOA 2 - 07/28/2022 NVC Left - 10/11/2022

Good luck today everyone

There is no requirement that you need to have a lease back home to enter the US on a tourist visa. It would, by definition, still be a visit as his fiance would need to return home to complete the interview, medical, get all the local paperwork in order, etc. His fiance has been approved entry into the United States a visitor, and there is no legal reason why they couldn't visit and spend time with OP while they wait, as long as it is within the rules and guidelines laid out by the visa that OP's fiance already has. It is obviously up to the discretion of the border agent as to whether or not they're allowed in. But if OP's fiancée has a return flight scheduled, and intends to fly back home (which again, they would need to do in order to complete the K1 process), whether they've "given up their apartment" or not is irrelevant to what's being discussed. They can visit for 30 days, or four months, or however long they'd like to visit within the rules of their visa. Again, this is not true. There's a massive thread here documenting folks who have successfully used a tourist visa to spend time with their partner while waiting for the K1 process to complete:

She absolutely could move back in with parents and then visit you, there are no rules against living at home versus renting a place. A few things though - the keyword is visit. She'll need to go back home before the limit on her visa, and also because the interview, medical, etc will all take place at the American embassy in China, not here in the states. She will need to have a return flight home. My recommendation would be to have the flight scheduled for a shorter stay than a longer one, as a longer stay will subject her visit to a higher level of scrutiny. Again, it's allowed, but again, all of this is at the discretion of the CBP person at customs. If you approach this not as "how can I have her stay with me for the entire time we're waiting for our approval" but more "I'd like her to visit for a month or two because we haven't seen each other in a very long time", customs will scrutinize her entry a lot less. If I were in your shoes, I'd say that she should have a return flight booked a month or so out, versus one booked out nearly six months away. Once she's in the US, and things are going well, you can always reschedule her return flight further out. That's what we did the last time my fiancee visited. Her initial stay was for three weeks, but things were going so well, we ended up pushing back her flight twice, and she ended up staying almost the full three months her visa permitted. There's nothing wrong with doing that as long as her stay is within the limits of her current visa. As for how long it takes to get the K1 after the visa, I can't speak to the embassy in China, but you'll often hear stories from couples whose visas approved on the spot. As for the cats, can't help you there, but I think the requirements for bringing a cat into the country are a lot less strict than dogs. Best of luck!

This is not true. While it can be difficult to obtain a tourist visa like a B1/B2 after initiating the K1 visa process, OP's fiancee got her visa beforehand, so it is currently valid and legal to use. There is no rule that would prevent her from visiting the United States on a tourist visa while her K1 is pending. It is not immigration fraud as long as she follows the rules of her existing, current, and valid visa. Like I said before, my own fiancee has visited the United States twice while our K1 was pending. The first visit was for two months and the second for almost three. There is 159 page long thread on this forum titled "Yes, you can visit!" which is full of folks describing how they were able to visit the United States as a tourist while their K1's were processing. If you have a valid tourist visa, you can enter the United States, at the discretion of CBP (as always), regardless of whatever other applications you may have pending. Everyone telling OP that this isn't an option doesn't know what they're talking about, full stop.

While I can't speak to the 10-year tourist visa specifically, it is absolutely allowed (and common) for people with pending K1's to visit the United States while waiting for approval. For example, my fiancée (Greece) and I filed in June of 2021. Since then, she has visited twice with a travel waiver without any issues (aside from us having to stay together in Canada for 14 days due to pandemic travel restrictions at the time). To be clear, this may not be the case for someone with a B1/B2 like your fiancée which I believe allows her to stay twice as long as the ESTA travel waiver allowed mine - maybe others could chime in. But, generally speaking, tourists can still visit the US even after establishing a desire to emigrate. People recommend that travelers be ready to provide evidence of ties home such as employment contracts, leases, etc, but even that is often overkill. My fiancée, for example, had had just moved back home before she first visited, having just completed a graduate degree. As such, she had no lease, no job, no continue education. She was stressed that'd be an issue with customs, but they waved her right through.

I-129F form submitted in June, 2021. NOA1 was received June 7, 2021 NOA2 was received July 28, 2022. A paper copy of the approval arrived by mail for both NOA1 and NOA2. However, I (petitioner) received no text or email notifying us of NOA2 - we found out because we were manually checking our case status daily. The G-1145 "e-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance" was provided with my email and phone number. I've confirmed that the form was filled out with the correct information. I have a my.uscis.gov account, and I added our case to it immediately after receiving NOA1. I've confirmed that both my email and mobile number are listed under Account Settings and that Notification Preferences is set to "Email and mobile". I've looked through my Gmail inbox as well as spam folder, seemingly the only USCIS email I've received was the "Email confirmation instructions" email from myaccount@uscis.dhs.gov back when I set up the account. I seem to recall getting a text from USCIS for NOA1, but that was over a year ago and is not on my phone any longer (may have deleted it, may be misremembering). A few questions: Is this unusual, or just SOP when dealing with USCIS? Common issue? Any suggested fixes? What is the email address that USCIS case notifications typically come from Is it worth it to contact USCIS? In my experience troubleshooting "I didn't get the email you sent" is almost always futile, especially when you're certain sure looked everywhere for it and didn't screw anything up... Just trying to get an idea if this is a common occurrence, if there's any fixes, if I should be worried that we're never going to get any sort of electronic updates on our case, or if I should just consider this par for the course and not worry about it. Thanks!