ABertozzi

Hi everyone, I had my interview today (it was originally scheduled for April 17th but I asked for it to be moved up) and I got approved! I should have my passport back in about 1 week and am scheduled to fly on April 19th. The best of luck to everyone else!

That would be funny, maybe we'll run into each other. Let's see if they confirm April 4th for me. Yes, I'm Austrian, applying for an IR-1 visa so the kids and I can join my husband in the States. What about you?

That's great! I'm actually in contact with them to move my interview a bit earlier and I might be there on April 4th too!

Hey, I'm going to be interviewing in Vienna and received my interview letter this morning. The interview date is April 17th. Did you get a letter too? I was DQ on Feb 21st.

Awesome, congratulations!

Hi everyone, I got my interview letter this morning! This was much faster than expected, but the date is very far in the future - April 17th. I'm a bit surprised since they previously said the wait time is a few weeks only. But I did get into contact with them and most likely the are going to be able to offer me an appointment in early April, they just have to wait for my file to get there. I'm so glad to finally have an "end date", now I can really focus on getting the medical done, all the documents together and start getting rid of all the stuff in the apartment. I hope everyone gets DQed and their ILs fast!

This really depends on your situation. I had a lot of additional documents, some were necessary (police certificate for a country which wasn't listed under "required"), others were me playing it safe (a lot of explanation letters - e.g. about why I don't need a PC for a certain country, why we are not providing proof of income for my husband etc.). I also used the comments a lot. I think if you have a very easy, simple case, then not much else is needed. But as soon as there is just the tiniest possibility of doubt, I think it might be best to play it safe and give them more information about it, so if they have questions, they don't need to send an RFE. That's my take on it.

Thank you!

By the way, does anyone know how exactly the whole interview scheduling process works in detail? I know the embassy wilm tell NVC about their available appointments, but does this happen once a month or how often? I'm trying to figure out what my timeline might be. The embassy in Vienna told me that they have capacity and that the wait time is a few weeks only. So that leaves the question about how fast the NVC and the embassy exchange information. Unfortunately I have barely any info to go on since there are so few cases and even less who post about it.

Well I was a bit unsure too, but the consensus seems to be that if it is uploaded under the additional documents section (which for me was the only section allowing uploads anyway), it shouldn't reset the timer. And I've submitted additional stuff 3 different times since the "main" submission date (when I clicked submit on everything and nothing was outstanding under required docs). It seems that adding docs like that doesn't change your spot in the line - but of course that's just my experience! Anyway I had no choice, otherwise it would have been an automatic RFE. Thanks for the congratulations

I GOT DQ'ED!!!!!!!! I'm so happy!!!! And I was cutting it so close, I still uploaded the last missing documents (the corrected affidavit of support of all things!) yesterday night. I feel so lucky that they accepted everything! I really hope everyone else gets DQed too! I will let you all know when I get my interview letter, I'm hoping it won't take too long since Austria is not supposed to be very busy, but who knows.

Thank you! I really hope so too, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. I'll keep you all posted!

Hey, You can add me, I submitted on February 2nd. I have since uploaded stuff under additional docs and will have to add more this week (including the corrected affidavit of support of my joint sponsor - under additional docs), so it will be interesting to see if that changes my timeline and also if I'll get an RFE because of that. By the way, they updated the processing time: Current case review time: As of 13-Feb-23, we are reviewing documents submitted to us on 24-Jan-23.

Yes, that's what I thought. I will add my income just in case. It might help them feel more secure about me not becoming a public charge. Thanks for your help!

Thank you! My husband is not very good at this kind of stuff, that's why I'm trying to be that A student instead. From what I gather, our approach should be fine with regards to the guidelines, but I'm just wondering if the Consular Officer will question the stability of the income, since he doesn't have that benefit of being able to show past income on this level. And if that is the case, it might be better for us to add my income, IF they accept the proof I mentioned earlier. Do you think that could be a problem or am I overthinking this?

Hi all, I thought I'd share an alternative method of getting the Italian police certificate. Instead of sending a letter to the addresses in Rome, I decided to go a different route. I had lived in the province of Bolzano, in South Tyrol, which is bilingual (German and Italian). Since my interview is going to be in Austria, I wanted to get around having to translate the Italian police certificate. Therefore, I decided to give it a try and contact the Procura in Bolzano directly via email, explaining what I needed, that I had lived there and have friends who could pick it up for me (and who could buy those official stamps you need in Italy, marca da bollo). They just emailed me two forms, one for applying for the certificates (the Italian police certificate consists of two separate certificates) and the other was an authorization for having my friend pick them up. I sent them back as required, they then contacted me by email shortly afterwards, letting me know that they are ready and then my friend went to pick them up. Unfortunately, only one of them was available in German, the other one not, but at least that is one less document to translate. Plus, I didn't have to worry about any letters with money in them arriving at the correct place etc. I hope this can help someone in the future!

Hi all, We just had our case approved at USCIS and I'm now getting the final things ready for the NVC stage. For that, I have a few questions about the I-864. Our situation is as follows: My husband (USC petitioner) lived overseas with me until the middle of last year, then moved ahead of us and started working as an independent contractor (1099) for his brother's company. However, this only started around late August/September and was also interrupted for most of December, when he came to visit us. So the income on the upcoming tax return will be far below what is required. The AGI from previous years is 0 due to the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, plus it would have been too low anyway. His brother is now willing to hire him as an employee (with W-2) with an annual salary that would meet/exceed the income requirements. If he shows an employer letter and whatever paystubs he has by the time we can submit to NVC, would that be enough? Or do we need more, considering there is no past qualifying income? I might be able to help show them that we will have enough income, but the question is if it makes sense and how exactly to do it. I started working as a self-employed virtual assistant this past November and have two clients - I am not their employee, but a truly independent contractor (able to work wherever I want, so this will continue once I move and they are aware of this move), so I invoice them for my work, rather than receiving a salary. I do not have any tax returns (not even foreign ones) to prove this, since it is so recent. I could ask them for letters, stating our agreement (including how much I get paid approximately) and the intention of continuing our business relationship. Is this something that would be useful? Or does it complicate things and we risk an RFE? I could also provide the invoices I sent out so far, plus a copy of the bank account with the money coming in. Thanks in advance for your advice!

Hi all, I'm very excited to report that we were approved!!! I received the "We have taken an action on your case" email today, but the approval notice date is Jan 12th. Here's the timeline: PD/NOA1: March 31st, 2022 AR1: March 31st, 2022 AR2: January 12th, 2023 NOA2: January 12th/13th, 2023 Regarding the NOA2 date, it's a bit strange because the notice itself says Jan 12th, but in the case history it says Jan 13th. And the email notification about AR2 came yesterday and the one about the approval came today (and I totally missed both because my phone has been acting up and didn't send me the notification about the emails). We were at the Texas Service Center, though initially at Nebraska, it was transferred at some point along the way (we had an address change in July, so maybe that's when that occurred). I am beyond excited, because I did not expect any movement this early. I was hoping for it, but never thought this would happen. Here's hoping everyone in this group gets approved soon, best of luck to everyone!

Yes, you are right, it was for international transfers that the CU had this complicated system. I didn't realize it would be different within the US and am very glad to hear that. That's at least one less complication to deal with. Thank you!

Thank you for your answer! I have to admit that I have no idea how it works and what the difference is, but I will have him speak to his credit union and figure it out, so that we have the correct information on hand. Thanks again for your time!

Hello, My I-130 has not been approved yet, but I'm trying to prepare what I can for the NVC stage. I know that for paying the NVC fee you need a US checking or savings account. My husband (petitioner) has an account with a local credit union, however it uses another credit union to process the payments through. So he would have to enter first the routing number of the secondary CU, then the account number which I guess refers to his local CU, and then another account number, which is then his account number at his local CU. Does anyone know, if this setup will be possible or are there only two fields (one for the routing nr, one for the account nr)? Alternatively, is a transfer through TransferWise possible (using that dedicated US account, we previously used it for IRS purposes)? I appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Hi everyone, I also applied in March. PD, NOA1 and active review all on 03/31/22 Initially we were at Nebraska but then transferred to Texas. I keep checking the VJ estimate and now it's saying April to May 2023. 😭 Congratulations to everyone who got approved! I really hope it won't take until May for us.

Thank you for your quick answer! Unfortunately, it is turning out to be more complicated than expected due to the criminal background part, so at this point I will let it be and wait it out. Thanks for your feedback though!

Hello everyone, My husband filed an I-130 petition for me on March 31st and since then there has been no movement on the case (it immediately said "active review", but that is clearly a lie). The waiting has been driving me crazy and so I started reading through lots of things in the IR1 forum. This lead me to the discovery of the K3 visa and that apparently it can help speed things up. Now the thing is that we are already 7.5 months into the process, with an estimated 4 months to go according to USCIS. Since it's going to take us a little minute to compile everything needed for the petition, plus mailing it in, we may be getting closer to 3 months until a potential approval of the I-130. It seems almost not worth going through the trouble of trying this now, but what are your thoughts on this? I know it is free, the only cost would be the postage and the new passport pictures. Maybe for some context: The main reason why I am getting antsy is that we have two young children and we used to all live together here in Austria, but my husband had to go ahead of us because of better work prospects in the US (unfortunately not one of those expedite/DCF kind of cases). Since this is taking longer than I hoped it would and the older daughter is missing her dad so much, I'm again looking into what I can possibly do to speed things up. On the other hand, I'm also trying to get things ready for the NVC stage, so once we are approved, we can upload everything quickly. There's actually quite a lot of things to work on, like police certificates (in my case from a total of 4 countries, 3 of which seem to have a slightly complicated procedure), figuring out details for the Affidavit of Support etc. Am I better off spending my time on that? I appreciate your advice/thoughts!