JLVS22BR

Hi @chrisbonatto, hi everyone!
 
Sorry for taking this long to come back here and share with you in details how was our interview. I’ll do a brief recap for those who stop by and read this for the first time.
 
I applied for an EB2-NIW on June 10th 2021. On June 17th I received the I-140 confirmation, and 6 months later in January 19th 2022 the petition was approved by USCIS. Texas Service Center processed my application, and unfortunately, I was one of the cases where the petition got stuck at the TSC and took an eternity to be forwarded to NVC. My attorney had to raise multiple services requests, and my case only moved forward after the Ombudsman intervention. Almost 6 months after approved, my case was forwarded to NVC on July 5th 2022, and on July 21st I received my welcome letter from NVC.
 
I paid for the NVC taxes on that same day, and in the following week me and my wife filled our DS-260 forms. Since it’s a paper filled case, we had to send our documents through mail to NVC, which was done by my attorney in August 3rd. A couple weeks later, on August 18th, I received a checklist from NVC (aka RFE) regarding our birth certificates. It’s been only a couple years since birth certificates were standardized here in Brazil, and we guess that because of the differences between mine and my wife they asked for another one. We updated our documents and sent them again on August 25th. Then on September 19th I finally received from NVC the Documentary Qualified (aka DQ) e-mail.
 
It took over 3 months to receive on December 29th the Interview Letter for an appointment at the Rio Consulate on February 15th 2023. We did our medical exams in Brasilia on January 18th and went to the ASC (aka CASV) in Rio on February 14th (just one day before the interview). We choose a hotel that was two blocks away from the Consulate (it’s called Windsor Asturias) and that proved to be the best choice that we could have done regarding where to stay. Since our interview was really early in the morning (7:20 a.m.) and it’s advised to be there at least 15 minutes before the scheduled time, we could start our day with no rush (we had breakfast, dressed up, and walked the two blocks with all the peace of mind). You can’t enter the consulate with any electronic devices, and staying that close from the consulate means that we didn’t have to ask for a uber or a cab, and more importantly we didn’t have to leave our cellphones with the keepers outside on the street (we just left them at the hotel).
 
But now, let's get down to business! Interview day and at 6:50 (ish) a.m. we arrived at the consulate. There was a small line for non-immigrant visas, but the security guard asked us to stay there until someone from upstairs come down to let the immigrant visa applicants to come up. A lady came down, scanned the back of our passports (they put a sticker on them when you go to the ASC/CASV) and welcomed us in. We went through security and then were asked to take the stairs and go right to the immigrant visa section. When we got there, a young man handed out to us a form that asks some basic questions, like applicant/petitioner names, current and future addresses, case number, etc. He also handed out a paper listing which documents they needed and also in which order, and asked to put those documents accordingly inside each passport. At this moment we noticed that they were not strictly following the interview scheduled times, but were putting people in line based in the order that we handed back the documents. Since we were the first to complete this part, he put our documents and two different folders (one for each person), handed them back to us and asked for us to sit in the first couple chairs of the first row in the room, and said that as soon as someone called “next” on the booth we could go.
 
After 15 minutes someone called us and we went to the booth. It was a Brazilian officer, not the consul yet, but certainly a higher ranked employee than the first one that just organized our documents in order. She had a cart behind hear full of cases, probably all the cases to be interviewed that day, but strangely my case wasn’t there. She spent a lot of time trying to find our case, but since she was not finding it, she asked a colleague to continue the search while she started with us only checking the data on her computer. She probably did that to not delay any longer, and a couple minutes later they brought my case to her. At this moment, she asked us to confirm our names, parents’ names, dobs, and finally she replaced the police and birth certificates in the process with the updated ones that we brought to the interview. The old ones (sent to NVC several months before) she just handed back to us. She was pretty straightforward all the time, but when answering about my parents’ names she made a small joke that lightened up the mood a little bit (I must confess that as calm as I was trying to be I was still a little nervous). She kept our passports and original certificates, and told us to wait for the Consul to call us.
 
We went back to our chair, and probably 10 minutes later the consul called us. We were waiting for her to greet us so we could know if we had to answer in English or Portuguese. Oddly, she didn’t say hi or good morning, and went straight to ask us to take the oath (in Portuguese). After that, the first question that she made was which were my intentions on moving to the United States. Before I could finish my answer, she then asked me what was my field of expertise. After that, she asked if me or my wife ever had overstayed our time in the US. Then she also asked to both of us if we ever had problems with the police here or in the US. We answered a unison “no”, then she asked for us to read our fingerprints. Finally, she just said “visa approved”, and that was it! My wife thinks that she was kind of rude with us, but I just think that for some reason her day started off bad and she was short of patience, but nothing else. We had a great experience, and in less than two hours we were back to the Hotel, happier than ever and ready to enjoy a day at the wonderful beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
 
Later in that same day, I checked the CEAC and saw that our visas were issued. On Friday (2 days later) I’ve received the e-mail with the tracking code saying that our passports were mailed back to us. I guess they will probably arrive tomorrow! We bought our tickets, and in this very same day a month from now we’ll be finally heading to the United States after this 3-year bumpy and thrilling immigration journey.
 
As an anxious person, I know exactly how it feels this endless wait. There are so many things at stake. Me and my wife have been planning for this moment to arrive for years! We sold our house and our cars, we’ve been saving money like hell, and had to give up countless things in order to get as ready as possible. You give and give your best but the lack of updates makes hard to keep the hopes high throughout the time. But as my attorney always said to me: you must trust the process. Some people get their case figured out a couple months before, others a couple months later, but your day will come and all this distress will be left behind.
 
If you guys have any questions, please let me know. I wish you all the best!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share with you that we arrived at the US today safe and sound. It took no longer than 10 minutes with the CBP officer - she opened the sealed envelopes, checked a couple documents, and asked some quick questions. Then she stamped our visas and said that we were good to go. I hope for you all that everything goes as smooth as it was for us!

I’m DQed since December 7th and no IL as of it now. I know people from November that haven’t got their letters. But for other E visa types it seems to be normal. Is it only EB2 vidas that are “stuck”? 

Thank you.
I have an EB-3 unskilled approved.
PD January 20th 2022. 
Waiting for interview letter. 
Now with retrogression in effect, the interview appointment will take longer, I believe. 
Tks.

Hi @I767 it is EB-3 unskilled

Hi RVS.
Is your EB-3 visa under skilled worker or unskilled?
Thank you 

Great news, good luck on your new journey. God bless!

Thanks for the update Marcus. Can you tell us what exactly "Expedite" means? Does it mean you time from being DQ to receiving the Interview letter will be shortened? 

Very nice! It will come soon. If you don't mind me asking, what was the basis for the expedite?
 
 

Updating my status.. there was a development as follows:
 
Rio de Janeiro - US Consulate
 
Email sent to NVCExpedite@state.gov - Mar 7th
NVC Acknowledged and Replied - Mar 8th
Consulate Approved Expedite - Mar 9th
NVC Confirmed Case Sent to Consulate and changed status to "In Transit" - Mar 15th
 
Still waiting for the Consulate to receive my case and schedule the interview/appointment.

You are correct. The EB visas in Montreal have been DQ'd in January 2021, even though there is evidence of people DQ'd in August 2021 receiving IL now. I am transferring back to Rio and hoping for a faster timeline. 

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share with you that we arrived at the US today safe and sound. It took no longer than 10 minutes with the CBP officer - she opened the sealed envelopes, checked a couple documents, and asked some quick questions. Then she stamped our visas and said that we were good to go. I hope for you all that everything goes as smooth as it was for us!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share with you that we arrived at the US today safe and sound. It took no longer than 10 minutes with the CBP officer - she opened the sealed envelopes, checked a couple documents, and asked some quick questions. Then she stamped our visas and said that we were good to go. I hope for you all that everything goes as smooth as it was for us!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share with you that we arrived at the US today safe and sound. It took no longer than 10 minutes with the CBP officer - she opened the sealed envelopes, checked a couple documents, and asked some quick questions. Then she stamped our visas and said that we were good to go. I hope for you all that everything goes as smooth as it was for us!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share with you that we arrived at the US today safe and sound. It took no longer than 10 minutes with the CBP officer - she opened the sealed envelopes, checked a couple documents, and asked some quick questions. Then she stamped our visas and said that we were good to go. I hope for you all that everything goes as smooth as it was for us!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share with you that we arrived at the US today safe and sound. It took no longer than 10 minutes with the CBP officer - she opened the sealed envelopes, checked a couple documents, and asked some quick questions. Then she stamped our visas and said that we were good to go. I hope for you all that everything goes as smooth as it was for us!

There's a post about the Montreal Consulate here on VJ where users say there is a huge backlog over there. You might take a look before reaching a conclusion. I have the feeling that Rio is moving faster with the cases.

Hi everyone! I really appreciate the kind words. Thanks for all the support along the way! Our immigration packages arrived yesterday, basically a week after our interview. I guess that if wasn't for the Carnaval holidays, it would have arrived by monday. Ever since I started reading about immigration I've heard about it, but to be honest I've never seen one before, so here goes! It's one big package, containing one sealed envelope for each visa holder, and a plastic bag containing the passports left at the consulate. There is a piece of paper attached to each envelope with information about the person to whom it belongs.

Hi @chrisbonatto, hi everyone!
 
Sorry for taking this long to come back here and share with you in details how was our interview. I’ll do a brief recap for those who stop by and read this for the first time.
 
I applied for an EB2-NIW on June 10th 2021. On June 17th I received the I-140 confirmation, and 6 months later in January 19th 2022 the petition was approved by USCIS. Texas Service Center processed my application, and unfortunately, I was one of the cases where the petition got stuck at the TSC and took an eternity to be forwarded to NVC. My attorney had to raise multiple services requests, and my case only moved forward after the Ombudsman intervention. Almost 6 months after approved, my case was forwarded to NVC on July 5th 2022, and on July 21st I received my welcome letter from NVC.
 
I paid for the NVC taxes on that same day, and in the following week me and my wife filled our DS-260 forms. Since it’s a paper filled case, we had to send our documents through mail to NVC, which was done by my attorney in August 3rd. A couple weeks later, on August 18th, I received a checklist from NVC (aka RFE) regarding our birth certificates. It’s been only a couple years since birth certificates were standardized here in Brazil, and we guess that because of the differences between mine and my wife they asked for another one. We updated our documents and sent them again on August 25th. Then on September 19th I finally received from NVC the Documentary Qualified (aka DQ) e-mail.
 
It took over 3 months to receive on December 29th the Interview Letter for an appointment at the Rio Consulate on February 15th 2023. We did our medical exams in Brasilia on January 18th and went to the ASC (aka CASV) in Rio on February 14th (just one day before the interview). We choose a hotel that was two blocks away from the Consulate (it’s called Windsor Asturias) and that proved to be the best choice that we could have done regarding where to stay. Since our interview was really early in the morning (7:20 a.m.) and it’s advised to be there at least 15 minutes before the scheduled time, we could start our day with no rush (we had breakfast, dressed up, and walked the two blocks with all the peace of mind). You can’t enter the consulate with any electronic devices, and staying that close from the consulate means that we didn’t have to ask for a uber or a cab, and more importantly we didn’t have to leave our cellphones with the keepers outside on the street (we just left them at the hotel).
 
But now, let's get down to business! Interview day and at 6:50 (ish) a.m. we arrived at the consulate. There was a small line for non-immigrant visas, but the security guard asked us to stay there until someone from upstairs come down to let the immigrant visa applicants to come up. A lady came down, scanned the back of our passports (they put a sticker on them when you go to the ASC/CASV) and welcomed us in. We went through security and then were asked to take the stairs and go right to the immigrant visa section. When we got there, a young man handed out to us a form that asks some basic questions, like applicant/petitioner names, current and future addresses, case number, etc. He also handed out a paper listing which documents they needed and also in which order, and asked to put those documents accordingly inside each passport. At this moment we noticed that they were not strictly following the interview scheduled times, but were putting people in line based in the order that we handed back the documents. Since we were the first to complete this part, he put our documents and two different folders (one for each person), handed them back to us and asked for us to sit in the first couple chairs of the first row in the room, and said that as soon as someone called “next” on the booth we could go.
 
After 15 minutes someone called us and we went to the booth. It was a Brazilian officer, not the consul yet, but certainly a higher ranked employee than the first one that just organized our documents in order. She had a cart behind hear full of cases, probably all the cases to be interviewed that day, but strangely my case wasn’t there. She spent a lot of time trying to find our case, but since she was not finding it, she asked a colleague to continue the search while she started with us only checking the data on her computer. She probably did that to not delay any longer, and a couple minutes later they brought my case to her. At this moment, she asked us to confirm our names, parents’ names, dobs, and finally she replaced the police and birth certificates in the process with the updated ones that we brought to the interview. The old ones (sent to NVC several months before) she just handed back to us. She was pretty straightforward all the time, but when answering about my parents’ names she made a small joke that lightened up the mood a little bit (I must confess that as calm as I was trying to be I was still a little nervous). She kept our passports and original certificates, and told us to wait for the Consul to call us.
 
We went back to our chair, and probably 10 minutes later the consul called us. We were waiting for her to greet us so we could know if we had to answer in English or Portuguese. Oddly, she didn’t say hi or good morning, and went straight to ask us to take the oath (in Portuguese). After that, the first question that she made was which were my intentions on moving to the United States. Before I could finish my answer, she then asked me what was my field of expertise. After that, she asked if me or my wife ever had overstayed our time in the US. Then she also asked to both of us if we ever had problems with the police here or in the US. We answered a unison “no”, then she asked for us to read our fingerprints. Finally, she just said “visa approved”, and that was it! My wife thinks that she was kind of rude with us, but I just think that for some reason her day started off bad and she was short of patience, but nothing else. We had a great experience, and in less than two hours we were back to the Hotel, happier than ever and ready to enjoy a day at the wonderful beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
 
Later in that same day, I checked the CEAC and saw that our visas were issued. On Friday (2 days later) I’ve received the e-mail with the tracking code saying that our passports were mailed back to us. I guess they will probably arrive tomorrow! We bought our tickets, and in this very same day a month from now we’ll be finally heading to the United States after this 3-year bumpy and thrilling immigration journey.
 
As an anxious person, I know exactly how it feels this endless wait. There are so many things at stake. Me and my wife have been planning for this moment to arrive for years! We sold our house and our cars, we’ve been saving money like hell, and had to give up countless things in order to get as ready as possible. You give and give your best but the lack of updates makes hard to keep the hopes high throughout the time. But as my attorney always said to me: you must trust the process. Some people get their case figured out a couple months before, others a couple months later, but your day will come and all this distress will be left behind.
 
If you guys have any questions, please let me know. I wish you all the best!

Hi everyone! DQed and waiting for an interview appointment at the Rio Consulate? Gather here!

I'm trying to keep track of the time between DQed <> Interview Letter <> Interview so we can make some predictions, specially for the EB visas.

My case was created on 07/21, got an RFE on 08/18, and was on DQed 09/19. Now I'm waiting for the IL.

Anyone out there on the same boat?
 

There's a post about the Montreal Consulate here on VJ where users say there is a huge backlog over there. You might take a look before reaching a conclusion. I have the feeling that Rio is moving faster with the cases.

Hi guys, new here. I just submitted documents to NVC and waiting for them to review. My consulate was Rio but I asked to be changed to Montreal, which I think it was a mistake now. Any suggestions on whether to keep the change or switch back to Rio? My visa is EB-1A. Thanks for the ones that got DQ and IL.

You will receive it.
Well, send a public inquiry.

That's awesome!!
Best of luck with all the medicals and interview.
 
I have not, 130 days since DQ now. I think they forgot about me lol

19/04/2023👏👏👍
Did you receive your IL @chrisbonatto?