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1 hour ago, Quimat said:

I didn’t realize there was an ave/day on the side on the spreadsheet so this is helpful to know. I’m always cautiously hopeful because this process is such a mystery most of the time. This week’s numbers were fantastic, though.  

Yeah, I keep the Weekly tab open rather than the Daily one too – I'll glance at Daily, but trying to predict the variances between daily progress makes me a little crazy. It was a good week at the immigration factory this week though!

37 minutes ago, SaraClaire11 said:

Good to know, it's only 3 days difference and had they kept our original appointment it wouldn't even be an issue.

 

We had an RFE in January of this year and had to submit new letters of intent, I have copies of these for him to take to the interview. Do you think we should make a completely new one?

 

Thank you, it's a relief knowing it's FINALLY booked (our timeline says 663 days after NOA1) so hopefully no one has to wait as long as we have! 

I'll let someone with more experience answer that – I would personally make a new one out of pure anxiety, but that's me, and you may not need to! Good luck!

I believe the consulate has the authority to extend the validity of a NOA2. Pretty sure all you need to do is get new letters of intent to marry from you and your partner (signed) and take them to the interview with you. Congrats on getting your interview scheduled!

I am currently living in Halifax, NS as a temporary foreign worker, and have been since May 2022. I'm fairly sure this means that when I go back to England for my eventual interview, I will need a Canadian police certificate. Does anyone have any tips on securing the correct certificate, since I gather a lot of people end up with the wrong one? I've heard something about Commissionaires maybe being able to help?

Sorry that this is such a wide-ranging question, and thank you in advance for all your help.

2 hours ago, Fe.Ta said:

Thank you!

Take it one stage at a time.  Focus on K1 first.  Then, once approved, you can take a look at what needs to happen for AOS as soon as your S.O. gets to the USA.  After that, enjoy freedom for about a year and a half, just gather documents in the meantime, and focus on ROC then.

For AOS/ROC, your field office is where you get the interview, but that is not the same as the service center.

 

For example, when we did our AOS, it went to the Missouri Service Center (MSC).  Once it was ready to be scheduled for an interview, it was sent to our field office (Orlando, FL).  Had Missouri decided to just approve it without an interview, we would have gotten the approval from the service center, which has a different processing time than the Orlando, FL field office.  The same thing with our ROC.  We are currently at the Potomac Service Center (this is in Virginia and it is the worse one out of all of them).  If they decide to interview us again, then our case would go to the Orlando, FL field office.  But, the processing time is based on Potomac first, then (when it is transferred) it will depend on the field office.

I hope that makes sense.

Thank you for this – it does make sense, and it's extremely useful to have this insight into how things happen further down the road. You are also totally right that I need to breathe and focus on what's in front of me! The joy of Visajourney is that so many people have already done everything I'm doing; there's such a lot of wisdom here and it is a comfort.

1 hour ago, Fe.Ta said:

We hear you!  BTW, it does not get any better as you continue the journey.  LOL

We are at the ROC level and we see this all the time.  While USCIS advocates "first comes, first served", that is not the case.  The have no pattern, logic, and they do not act the same across the board between officers, service centers, and field offices.  *SIGH*

I still struggle with this now.

I am so apprehensive about what comes after this stage – like, at least at this point in the journey we have dedicated data-gathering projects, you know? There's a degree of insight, even if it's limited and imperfect. I've seen how long wait times are at the field office we'll probably be using for AoS/RoC (San Francisco) and it fills me with anxiety. Sending you strength.

2 hours ago, FromMexico W/Love said:

And they are on pace to do it again in April. 

I don't pray and never really have, but god, imagine if they did that!

Yeah, some absolute scenes on the spreadsheet today! I remain super grateful for all the insights (and how about March getting over 5000, right?).

1 hour ago, pilot787 said:

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with USCIS, it's way easier with NVC. I think I sent request Dec 22nd through the inquiry form, and January 3rd we were in the new consulate. When we were sending request, we attached his passport picture, and the birth certificate. Montreal is really bad. I heard even for K-1 visasa. 

Yeah, we were heavily spooked by the levels of AP at Montreal! There's an entire subthread in the Canada regional forum about it. The letter to USCIS is already on the way, on the advice of the lawyer we consulted, but I agree with you that NVC will be the route that actually works, haha.

Just now, pilot787 said:

Hey! We don't live in Paris. We reside in Canada, but when I asked NVC if we can transfer to Paris based on my husband's French citizenship, they said yes. And just asked for proof of his passport. Took us only a week, the whole process, from e-mailing NVC to getting switched to a new consulate. However, we lost our DQ date from Montreal, and DQ changed to the new date, when we switched consulates. Hopefully, it will be helpful for you. 

This is really helpful – I am also not resident in the UK right now (temporarily on a working holiday in Canada), so it's a big relief to know that citizenship is what matters.

To update anyone still following this thread, we did send a letter to USCIS indicating that I intend to relocate back to the UK before our case goes to the consulate. I have no idea if they will do anything about it, or if we'll hear anything either way. But whatever happens, we plan to submit an inquiry to NVC about it when we get to that point. (We're K-1, so the DQ date won't be a problem for us.)

10 hours ago, Elays said:

✅JUNE 2022 UPDATE AS OF APRIL 12

I have done a scan and no updates again, it looks like some kind of maintenance issue or something related, that is why CA center is not updating cases in their system but they should be processing cases and sending notifications by mail anyways📨

 

Another VJ member posted that people are getting NOA2 on the mail without seeing any update on their case tracker app, this is good news bcs they are working on cases from February and March 2022 📅

 

Hopefully CA center will update cases into their system soon♥️

 

There was some talk in another thread about the numbers from the past few days showing up soon! I don't know exactly how reliable that all is, but hopefully you're right and the cases will be added to the system soon. 

Comfortably over 200 cases every day! I'm so excited!

Yeah, I read the Q1 post the other night and was briefly startled by the estimated backlog until I realised how early Q1 is for USCIS. Hopefully Q2 (or more likely Q3) will look better on paper?

They actually did hit 4700 in March! I'm amazed and hoping the pace keeps up for April.

The whole process can be so demoralising, but you aren't alone! Your fiancé is in it with you—I take a lot of strength in knowing that I'm not doing any of this by myself—and this community is such a source of insight and affirmation, too. It's normal to feel hopeless, but the stories from people who have made it through the process are a great reminder that it's worth the stress and the waiting to be with the person you love. Hold fast! We're all rooting for you.

8 hours ago, AndiB said:

yup! To me I feel like a lot of advice is just rush into CR1/marriage and figure it out after. It's fine if you're already at a place to get married, I know a lot are and that's totally fine! I just wish they realise a lot aren't, I filed k1 'early' cause I knew we had all the time to figure it out with this wait time 😂
Sadly we're over it now though, we went from 'I don't know' to 'I'm ready' faster than we anticipated

Yeah, we went into K1 with a pretty clear understanding of the drawbacks and advantages of each process. Ultimately, we figured that being apart while actually married would be more depressing than being apart while engaged. We were also really aware of having been together for a relatively short time (like, months) and of only having met in person very shortly before we filed our I-129F. K1 has given us a bit of breathing room to ascertain that yes, we really want to do this! We've been able to 'rehearse' cohabiting, if only for relatively short periods at a time, and we've had some opportunities to travel together (a real stress test for a relationship). I understand why IR1/CR1 is less of a financial burden, in the end, but I stand by our decision to take this route; we feel so much more certain of our commitment, and it will make getting married that much more of a sure thing for us.

I have been so cagey about joining K1 FB groups and it is... I mean, obviously grim and kind of sad to know they're basically what I expected, but also a relief that I haven't invested any time into them. It's been such a relief to find VisaJourney, and honestly this thread in particular – you all are as interested in the data of it all as I am, plus there's a culture of supporting each other's progress rather than tearing it down. Happy to be here with you all!

19 minutes ago, Naterson said:

To be honest, my fiance keeps saying we can just get married in my parents' house and she'll be happy. I just don't want her to look back and be disappointed, so I think I'll try and find options that don't break the bank but make it memorable. 

Yeah, I think that's a good compromise! For our part, my fiancé has been married before, and I honestly never considered marriage for myself until I fell in love with someone in another country – so I don't think either of us is placing a huge amount of weight on the day itself. It will be enough to spend it with our loved ones and know it's the start of the rest of our lives together! (We are also very lucky in that San Francisco's city hall is stunning, haha.)

I am so amazed that you all have concrete wedding plans! My fiancé and I are probably just going to go to City Hall with his family – hopefully that will save us a little money after everything we'll be spending on immigration. I would really like to get a nice suit tailored for the special day if I can, though? Like, even if we're not doing a capital-c Ceremony, I think that would be nice to have.

12 minutes ago, AndiB said:

he does more concrete projections as he gets closer, this is probably 'earliest' you'd hear and then add a couple months for the fact USCIS is weird and spreads it out but progress is progress!!

Right! What's wild is that July was the date we were originally expecting it to be (we filed in the halcyon days of 13.5-month wait times), so this is less 'progress' than it is 'a reset of our expectations.' But I had resigned myself to an inevitable September/October NOA2 date, so this is really nice to know!

6 minutes ago, AndiB said:

November baby! 

Oh my god I could hear something by July?? I will admit I am a bit emotionally labile today but I genuinely could cry; this is such a wonderful projection and I hope it's real!

34 minutes ago, GinoNiña said:

less than 1K processed this week. not good.  and next week is only a 4day work week. 

Not great, but there are inevitably going to be ebbs and flows – we know next week will probably be lower, too, but based on the Monthly tab on the spreadsheet, even a slow week next week will put February on a par with January for cases processed. And February's a shorter month! I'm still cautiously optimistic about the overall trends, despite the slight lag this week.

25 minutes ago, AndiB said:

K1 (fiancee visa) support group

 

Also yup I know I'm an outlier, I applied expecting a yr+ and have a lot going on so can't have the timeline shortned too much 💀 10-11months for NOA2 would be ace but sooner and oh no

Honestly I'm kind of with you – I'm on a working holiday in Canada right now and am counting on the NOA2 taking at least another half a year, so I can get back to the UK for processing without losing too much of my time here. Also I love predictability, which is to say this entire process is already messing with me! I do not need it to mess with me more.