C@m

What's the consensus here? Photocopy or certified copy? I'm guessing to be safe submitting a certified copy is the way to go? Any reason they would reject a certified copy but accept a photocopy?

10 hours ago, Simplytex said:

I'm very glad it went smoothly for your fiance and you! Did you travel with her from Russia/Istanbul?  (btw, if you already wrote a recap of how everything went, feel free to just link me it instead, and I'll shut my trap.) Just very curious with the continuous changes of policy etc., so completely understand that your situation may not apply to me/others, but always nice to have some good news for a change!

Also, how was your travel/entry to Russia if that's what you ended up doing - there is this thread of people's post-February experiences with entry, clearly it's something that is an additional level of anxiety so dunno if you have any wisdom to impart there as well?

 

Thank you!

I had no issues going into and out of Russia. I flew from IST->SVO->VVO on Aeroflot about 3 weeks ago. Customs in Moscow was the smoothest, quickest immigration entry I've ever been through (was nearly as quick as Global Entry!). There was absolutely no line, walked right up the immigration officer and gave her my IST and VVO tickets. She said nothing to me and I said nothing to her (aside from "hello" in Russian). She had me sign the migration card and then gave me my copy to hold on to. 

Leaving Russia was (strangely) slightly more difficult than entering. The immigration officer spent a lot of time looking at my passport, looking at me, back at my passport, using some sort of ruler thing to examine my passport, etc. After a while she stamped my passport she asked (in Russian) whether I was going directly onward to the USA from IST.

That said, I don't have much to offer for advice for going to Russia other than make sure you have FRESH, CLEAN $100 USD bills (the bank spent about 30 minutes examining ever bill and rejected on with the small staple holes in it). Also, I'd advise exchanging a small amount at the airport itself and the rest elsewhere (better rates). I had a long layover in SVO before my VVO flight and forgot to exchange cash and the terminal itself (once you're through security) has no money exchange facilities so I was unable to purchase and food/drink. My fiance finally helped by talking to someone at a cafe in the terminal and transferring them money via some phone number/account number (I guess it's like Venmo for Russia). 

When going to Warsaw, make sure your fiance has the appointment confirmation and ds160 confirmation page handy to provide to the immigration officer. 

Just now, Simplytex said:

Oh, nice! Did you have a pre-existing Polish visa (Schengen, humanitarian... something else?), or did you have to get a Schengen visa from a different EU country, if so where?

My fiancé had a Greek Shengen visa that she got about a year ago.

24 minutes ago, Simplytex said:

Hey, any update on how your Schengen visa/entry went? What route did you take?

It went well. We went from SVO-IST-WAW. At immigration in Warsaw they asked what my fiancé was doing in Poland and asked to see proof of our interview at the US Embassy. No issues after showing the ds160 confirmation page to them. 

1 hour ago, Simplytex said:

Well, news wasn't great today that Poland has announced they are no longer going to be issuing visas to Russians... Not that it was easy already, but that's just another strike against anyone trying to get their US visa's done there. At this point, I wonder if the Dept of State will actually do something and shift new Russian processing to a different embassy, or if we'll see a little more leniency with requests to other embassies...

Pretty concerning news indeed, not due to the “Poland may stop issuing visas to Russians” part, but because this may cause difficulties with Russians entering Poland with valid Shengen visas. My fiancé and I are planning to go there in 2 weeks for her interview. We just hope we won’t have issues getting in now. Unbelievably bad timing

No it does not.

Not required for passing the interviewing and receiving the visa; required to get on a plane to the US. 
 

Look into getting Pfizer in Istanbul or Warsaw

Oh that sucks, sounds like a lot has changed in the last couple months. You used to be able to schedule an interview without a case number.

Unfortunately the timeframe has ballooned. The soonest availability interview date is currently January 30th. I would snag it while you can. Yes, I'd say ~4 months from NOA2 -> ready for interview is accurate. 

You'll get your case number once NVC receives your case. For whatever reason (they probably mail them in batches) it takes about a month from NOA2 for NVC to actually receive the physical NOA2. Just keep calling NVC after about 3 weeks of NOA2 and see if they received it. They'll know what it arrives at their facility, then it'll take another week or two for intake and case number.

Assuming for K1. If so:

Check out similar timelines here: https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/k1list.php?cfl=0&op1=5&op2=d&op3=1&op4=2&op5=5,6,8,10,11,13,14,15,16,17,18,20,21,22,25,26,27,28,108,110,111,208,210,211&op6=All&op66=All&op7=Russia&dfile=No&adv=0

Check out my timeline. For us the wait from NOA2->Warsaw was about 1.5 months. Another 2 months after that before the "instructions for interview" came (you're only eligible for your appointment when this comes)

The doctor in Warsaw didn’t care whether we had an interview scheduled or not. They asked for NVC number though. So, you can feel free to get the medical done anytime, but remember that the validity of the k1 visa is bounded by the validity of the medical exam (6 months). 
 

Also, I’ve heard that if you show up for your interview without having received the interview instructions email from the embassy, they will cancel your appointment.

7 minutes ago, Mike20090622 said:

Not from embassy I think, will call Kazakhstan embassy tomorrow and this is the email 

 

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for writing to the US Visa Services Desk.

We understand that you wish to change your country location.

We have changed your country location from Russia to Kazakhstan. Please ensure you have a valid MRV Fee from your current country location in order to schedule your appointment. Please note that you cannot transfer the MRV fee from your previous location if you have one.

We hope this information is helpful to you.

Please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TG7Q9MD to share feedback on the services we provide.

Sincerely, 
US Visa Services Desk

Yeah, this is just US Travel Docs stating they've changed your location based on your request. They'll change it to whatever you ask them to change it to, but it doesn't mean that the Embassy in Kazakhstan will accept your k1 case. 

Just to confirm: You received an email from the US Embassy in Nur-Sultan stating that they approved your request to transfer your K1 case from Warsaw to Nur-Sultan? Changing locations in ustraveldocs does not necessarily imply the former, and we haven't really heard of many success stories of people's k1 transfer requests being accepted in Kazakhstan so I'm just confirming. If that's the case, that's great news for you! What reasoning did you provide them to transfer your case?

14 minutes ago, slavaskii said:

Anyone else notice the TravelDocs page for Poland is down? You don't need an account to access it; just google "TravelDocs Poland" and click the first link. I'm getting a 404.

Try: https://cgifederal.secure.force.com/?country=Poland&language=English

38 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

you can not do anything till the embassy has the case

no way to schedule an interview when they know nothing about your case

the embassy will notify u to fill out the ds 160 when they have your packet

This is actually incorrect. Warsaw is a self-scheduling embassy when it comes to k1s. You’re free to schedule an appointment as soon as you pay the MRV fee. That said, you’re supposed to wait until the embassy tells you to schedule the appointment.

1. You don't need Poland to issue a visa. Poland is part of the Shengen region, thus any visa issued by a Shengen country is sufficient to travel to Poland. Many have been obtaining visas from Greece, Italy, or Hungary.

2. The NVC will automatically mail your approved Russian K1 petition to the designated Embassy for Russian K1 Visas, which is Warsaw, Poland as of right now.

A couple of things:

1. Can you provide a source that states that Russians can no longer acquire Shengen visas? 
2. Is NVC saying they're going to hold your petition then instead of sending it along to the designated Embassy for processing k1 petitions (which at this time is Warsaw, Poland)?
3. I believe you're free to contact any embassy you want and ask them if they'll accept your k1 petition for processing, but it doesn't mean they're going to say yes. Have you reached out to any of the embassies you mentioned and asked if they're willing to accept your case?

7 minutes ago, Milkman199 said:

Hey, it seems that there is a bottleneck but things are still moving forward! We received our NOA2 on February 16 and just (5 minutes ago) received an email from the NVC saying that our application is now em route to the embassy! We will all make it sooner rather than later

Congratulations! That's great news 👏   so it's taking about ~2 months to go from NOA2 to en-route to embassy then. Was this the first communication from NVC or did they contact you when they received the approved petition? I ask because they're supposed to email you the case information once they create the NVC case number. This also gives you time to contact them to update any contact (address/email) information for the petitioner or the beneficiary which might've changed between when you filed the I129F and when it was approved. Can you update your timeline?

36 minutes ago, Mhousto3 said:

Joining this thread. Received my noa2 March 4 and have received nothing from NVC. I’ve called nvc a few times and keep being told that they haven’t received my file from Uscis. Is there anything I can do?

This is concerning, especially since members of the "February NOA2 -> NVC" thread were receiving NVC case numbers ~3 weeks after their NOA2. I've been told that USCIS shipping of approved I-797s has been greatly delayed, and given the silence in this thread it seems to be true. My guess is that there was a surge of approvals brought on by Ukranian/Russian expedite approvals and this is causing delays. That's purely a guess though. My NOA2 was March 25th so it's only been 2 weeks for me. I don't know if USCIS has similar batch-ship dates like NVC does when they batch up the documents and mail them to embassies every 2 weeks, maybe someone can shed some light there. I do see that NVC's website says they're currently creating cases for petitions that arrived from USCIS on April 1st so it appears the bottleneck is USCIS shipping them to NVC.

17 minutes ago, StephanieG said:

Hello, I've almost completed the K1 I-129F petition for my Russian fiancé to come to the United States, however I'm unsure as to where he'll be able to go for his K1 interview when it gets to that point. The embassies in Russia are currently suspended/not working on non-immigration visas, so I'm not sure what US embassy location (in what country) he can apply through/have the interview at. I've been doing some reading, and it seems like Warsaw may be an option, but they also seem to be overloaded. Does anyone have a similar situation or any suggestions? Is Kazakhstan an option? Any advice or information would be much appreciated, thank you

As @millefleur said, the current designated US Embassy for Russian K1 interviews is Warsaw. You don't get to chose, the NVC forwards it to the US Embassy designated for processing the K1s at the time your 129F petition is approved and reaches NVC. Given that you're just now filing the petition, things may be different ~12 months from now when your petition is approved, so you should check back around that time, but again -- the NVC will automatically decide which embassy the approved petition will get routed to. 

You can contact any other US Embassy and see if they're accept a transfer from the NVC-designated US Embassy (currently Warsaw) to their embassy. People have tried on this forum and have had varied success. I don't believe anyone has had success transferring a K1 case from Warsaw to Kazakhstan.

14 hours ago, MarineH said:

I am waiting for Noa2 after expedite was approved. Let’s see how long it will take

Wooo, NOA1 2/22 and NOA2 4/22, amazing! Congrats! 
 

my fiancée is Russian and we waited 12 months for NOA2, both expedites denied 

According to this page, all Ukrainian cases (k1 and DV) are being handled by Frankfurt, so you’ll need to check Frankfurt’s appointment schedule: https://ustraveldocs.com/de/

I haven’t found a good way to check true appointment availability. Create a bogus account for each country you’re trying to check appointment availability, select new appointment, K1, and then on the left it should show first available appointment. This, however is not a true indicator of availability so you’d have to go through the entire flow to find that out (don’t do that with your actual personal data though since you’re only supposed to have one account on ustraveldocs).

18 minutes ago, slavaskii said:

Did TravelDocs ask you to insert your case number/DS-160 when making an account? 

No, the lady asked my fiancee if she had an NVC case number, my fiancee said no and then the lady said we shouldn't be trying to make an appointnment without that. After that call, my fiancee went back to ustraveldocs where she was still logged in, refreshed the page, and magically "no appointments available". Could be coincidental but seems a bit strange that before the call with the agent there was an August 18th appointment date available and after the call there's suddenly "no appointments available" on ustraveldocs website. Hours later she tried logging in again and it said her account was locked for 72 hours. So now we wait 72 hours and see if there are any appointment dates available. If the agent has somehow locked us out from making an appointment I have no clue how we're supposed to proceed.

Annnnd, my fiancee's Shengen visa expires mid september so this should be interesting...

So my fiancee and I were trying to book an appointment for her K1 interview in Warsaw (we just received NOA2). Word of advice: if you see and are able to make the appointment online, don't bother calling ustraveldocs to see if there's other availability. We did that and the lady said earliest was August 18th (consistent with what we saw online) and then asked if we'd received our NVC number. My fiancee said no and the lady said we shouldn't be trying to make the appoint yet (uh oh). After that all appointment availability magically disappeared on ustraveldocs website, and several hours later she tried logging in again and now she's locked out of her account  for 72 hours. That's what we get for trying to get ahead of the game 🙃

EDIT: The reason we called was because initially we saw there was an appointment available for June 21st, then after going through the various flows (selecting non-resident priority, etc) and making the payment the availability changed to August 18th

Joining this thread. NOA2 3/28. Any idea how quickly the NVC number is generated? Wondering if I can call NVC and ask if it’s available yet (not likely given it’s only been a few days). Trying to get a head start on everything and get the NVC number as quick as practically possible.