Scholastic

My fiance has their interview next week at the embassy in Ankara, Turkey (excited!!). On the embassy notification we received this week it notes to bring this document

"Letter of Intent to Marry within 90 Days from Petitioner (Original)"

It is worded confusingly (as is with any government related info :D).

Do they want the original that we sent to USCIS? Because we don't have that anymore. 

I assume their "original" means they want a non-photocopied signature... 

Also does the Letter of Intent have to be from last year or should it be re-written and the dates set to this year?

Does anyone have experience on what they have done for this when they or their fiance went to the interview??

We have checked our application status on CEAC and it says "Ready" from Sept 15. But neither me nor my fiance have received any communication from the embassy regarding anything. The last notification we received was from NVC when they notified us that it was "In Transit" to the embassy. For Turkey, I have read on their consulate page that they will contact us regarding "packet 3" and scheduling the interview appointment. It seems like this embassy works the slowest compared to others I have read here. 

Does anyone have an idea on how long it should take for the embassy to reach out to us since our case is "Ready" in CEAC?

7 hours ago, Pranav469 said:

How long have people been waiting to get a response from NVC for an inquiry? I sent an inquiry about my fiancés case on Sept 3rd but it seems there is a backlog.

Using their inquiry form, it’s about a 2 month wait to receive a reply. 
https://visawhen.com/nvc (last graph)

Checked CEAC today and our case shows “Ready”! So excited as it has been almost 1.5 years since filing the K1 application. 
 

It says on CEAC that I (or my fiancé?) will be notified by the embassy for next steps and scheduling the interview. One thing though, I (the petitioner) never received any physical mail stating my NVC case number - I only received it after inquiring about it via email. 
 

I did get notified via email once NVC sent it out to the embassy and the case was “In Transit”. Not sure what to do next as it is “Ready”, still playing the waiting game until they contact me 😅

2 minutes ago, Onder said:

I think you can use your NVC case number to submit the DS-160 and pay the fee. After that you will be scheduled for an interview. I am curious about the waiting time at Ankara since my fiance will be going there too.

Oh that’s interesting. I didn’t know you can complete the DS-160 before the embassy contacts us. To pay the fee, however, don’t you need an invoice ID?

i’ve heard the tourist visas at Ankara are taking a very long time to schedule interviews. I hope the same is not for us 😬

2 hours ago, Onder said:

Did you get an interview date? 

No. 
 

I think what happens is once the embassy receives the application, they review it and then they will contact us for further steps including scheduling the interview. 

Checked CEAC today and our case shows “In Transit” to Ankara embassy

16 hours ago, Parisaaa said:

Woww you got really lucky. Hope everything moves smoothly for you.Can I ask when did you send the last inquiry to NVC?

Last I sent was on August 18. And I received a reply to my inquiry on August 26. 
Based on the meaning of the NVC case number, I found that the case number was created on August 22. 

On 8/28/2022 at 12:56 PM, Parisaaa said:

Also, just found this timeline, https://www.visajourney.com/index.php?showuser=401605 , they got their NOA2 on May 12th and still nothing. This makes me feel better since our cases is still in the normal timeframe based on it.

That user might have not updated their timeline.. they might already be too busy celebrating 😅

I am at the “NVC Receive” step of the timeline and also this past weekend finally received my NVC case number. Checking it on the CEAC site it says “At NVC”

On 8/23/2022 at 4:11 PM, Parisaaa said:

Hi @Scholastic . Our embassy is in Ankara as well and we received our NOA2 on May 25th, still haven’t heard anything at all. I’m thinking it’s the embassy that is taking so long because some of the other people who received their NOA2 at the same time as ours have their interview date scheduled by now. Do you know anyone else whose embassy is in Ankara and they’ve heard anything?

Filled out the inquiry form and received this reply today

Dear Sir/Madam:

The National Visa Center (NVC) has received your petition and will send detailed instructions soon.

So at least I know that they received my application but not sure what “soon” means. Could be hours or months lol

23 hours ago, Parisaaa said:

Hi @Scholastic . Our embassy is in Ankara as well and we received our NOA2 on May 25th, still haven’t heard anything at all. I’m thinking it’s the embassy that is taking so long because some of the other people who received their NOA2 at the same time as ours have their interview date scheduled by now. Do you know anyone else whose embassy is in Ankara and they’ve heard anything?

I thought we receive the case number once NVC sends it to the embassy. I didn’t receive any case number yet, so I assume it’s not even at the embassy yet. 

Unfortunately, I don’t know of anyone else whose embassy is Ankara

Received NOA2 on June 22, and still haven’t received any case number. Our embassy will be Ankara. 

1 hour ago, Angied said:

Could you give me the example email you wrote to the congressman?

I just followed the letter on the link below. Never got a response from my congressman but I was persistently sending it every 1-2 weeks for the past 3 months 😅

2 hours ago, KikeCa said:

Congratulations!  🎉🎉 When was your NOA1?

May 17

18 minutes ago, Amelme said:

Oh dear God... I'm mentally Dead...

It will be like that for the next 2-3 weeks, due to 4 July holiday. I assume a lot of the case workers will be on vacation during this time, not to mention the summer holiday itself 😕

They seem to have suddenly slowed down again. Could be due to a shortage of staff who are taking holidays these next 3 weeks which includes 2 federal holidays. This Sunday (19 June) is a holiday and since it’s on a Sunday that means it is observed on Monday. Then 2 weeks later is 4 July and a lot of staff will likely be on holiday that whole week. At this pace, they’ll finish May by the end of August if we are lucky

Looks like they pushed things back again. 3 days ago my inquiry date on the USCIS website showed June 29 and now it is August 09 🙄

The wait on this is ridiculous. There are many that have decided to come via student visas (F1), I personally know several. They come and decide not to go to the school they enrolled in and then legally get married to their fiancé and file an "adjustment of status". MANY are doing this where I am, because it only costs a few thousand dollars (for the university expense) and it is time sensitive as the visa can be issued 120 days in advance. Obviously the USCIS believes something such as our K1 is not time sensitive and the USCIS gives less of a **** if it ends up destroying the relationships. None of us know when they'll get to our case or if our case will again be pushed back several months and the stress is really taking a toll on a lot who see that other visas are given priority.