lvjeremylv

Sorry, my bad - I meant the DS-260!

It's not a big deal if you didn't tick the box on the DS-260.  Fill out the application and have her take her passport with her endorsed visa to the SSA office and apply.  She'll get it within about 10 days.  
 
Sign up for USPS Informed Delivery.  If you watch her MyUSCIS account and see the greencard status change to card is being printed, you will probably see the envelope turn up in your Informed Delivery before the information is updated in MyUSCIS to say the card has been mailed.  

The box to tick is on the DS260 at the NVC stage.

Our timeline looked like:
paid for green card before Dec, 2023
Entered USA on Dec 30th, 2023
SSN received on Jan 9, 2024
Green card received on Feb 3, 2024
 
if the SSN card takes more then 14 days,  recommend you go to a local SSN office and request a SSN.

You can do the medical after. But yeah it is much easier and less stressful to have everything in place and then the interview is the last thing. You get approval then you're good to go, no more needing to wait and worry.

Just an update to this.  Had the interview on Monday and the only paperwork they wanted to see were the civil documents that were uploaded (marriage cert, passport, divorce stuff, birth cert, etc).  No financial paperwork nor anything pertaining to the affidavit of support was mentioned.  Individual results may vary.

Hello,
 
Had my interview today.  Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It was on point and helped me a lot and knew what to expect throughout the appointment. 
 
How long did it take for your NVC status to update post IV interview?
 
Office took my passport and said congrats your visa has been approved and returned all the documents.
 
My NVC status is still showing READY and haven't been updated.
 
Thanks much!!
 

@Ivjeremylv thank you for your explanation. And yes I’m referring to DS 260, affidavit of support and civil documents. 
thank you so much for your response. I hope Christmas and new year holidays don’t prolong the process. 

Hey Jeremy. I took with me pretty much everything I had submitted previously online plus some supplemental stuff from since then. I was of the feeling it's better to have and not need then need and not have. 
 
But yeah all I needed in the end was the civil docs. You're correct and I didn't need the financial papers. Biometrics was just fingerprints. 

That's correct. It's just fingerprints. 

I was in for my appointment at the US embassy in London today. I thought it would be useful to share my experience. 
 
My appointment was at 8am. I arrived around 7:30am to be faced with sizeable queues. There are three queues that I could see. 1 on the left hand side for us citizens. 2 on the right. One of those to check in after which you would join the other longer queue. As you have an appointment you can go straight to the front of the check in queue. Make sure and have your ds-260 confirmation printed to show along with your passport. 
 
Security step is next. I had a small back pack, bottle of water, phone, keys, wallet and documents. I just had to open the water bottle to take a sip I guess to show it was nothing dodgy. 
 
Then walked through the courtyard and into building where there is another queue. This one is to get your ticket number. 
 
After this take the elevator to the first floor. Once there I was directed to sit in the main area but soon noticed that I should've been round the corner. Left out the elevator then left again to the very end. There are instructions on the ticket. 
 
I was in the first few appointments of the day and was seen around 8:02. This initial counter visit was to take my docs. Passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate, police record and passport photo along with my biometrics. Was asked when I planned to move to the US. Was asked for my confirmation that I had set up passport delivery. I didn't have this but confirmed that I had done it. Was then told to sit down again. 
 
Was called up again around 8:30. Confirmed my name, date of birth, asked how and when I met my partner, what she does for a living, where in the US she lives, does she or I have any children or previous marriages then that was that. Congratulated me, returned my docs and told me the passport would be sent in 3-5 days. Was out of there by 8:40am.
 
All in all it was really straightforward and both people I spoke to were friendly.  
 
Delighted this is finally coming to an end. Good luck to everyone else on the journey. 

After reading your comment about availability cropping up yesterday for early Jan we quickly cancelled and were able to instantly rebook for Jan 10th. Thank you very much for the heads up, this has saved a lot of stress over the holidays!
 
An FYI for anyone reading due to the title. The Embassy wasn't much help but after calling the London Visa Medicals they said it doesn't matter if you reschedule your visa interview to a separate date, provided it's within the 6 month validity the medical results are applicable.

Well yes, that drive to London all the way from the northeast is a long one isn't it? My husband took his dad along and made a buddy roadtrip out of it. 😝
 
As far as pitfalls goes, well the number one thing is always going to be vaccinations. Can your wife get the ones required from the GP before having the medical? Get proof of all that is received. That's what my husband did. Otherwise you'll be at the mercy of Knightbridge's high prices.
The summary is discussed toward the end of this thread 
 

I have seen it discussed endlessly for various COnsulates, of there is a given time I have not seen it.

Congrats @lvjeremylv and @Speedy troy for getting the DQ - now just the medical and interview to go, you're on the home stretch.
 
After getting the DQ it took about 10 days for my interview letter to be sent through. You can't schedule your medical until you've got this, but you'll probably be given an interview slot about 6-8 weeks out, so you'll have plenty of time to get it done beforehand.

Take everything you used for anything during the immigration process, including the originals of everything uploaded at the NVC stage.  No need to "limit" what you take.  Take it all.

Congratulations, you can start the medical as soon as you receive your interview appointment, it has a validity of 6 months and you don’t know when the interview will be scheduled so you can wait until you receive your interview appointment, looking at how UK nationals are being schedule faster yours won’t take long. Ours is more than a month now and we are still waiting for an interview at the Brussels Embassy. 

Depends on which embassy your looking at. In the UAE the embassy runs a telegram channel where they publish which months DQ they're currently processing. Currently they're interviewing DQ from Sept 2022.
 
UK seems to be fairly consistently about 4-8 weeks. I assume this info would be available from NVC or the embassies?

No error messages here. Just the same 4 month processing time that I'm sick of seeing 🤦🏻‍♂️

No error messages here. Just the same 4 month processing time that I'm sick of seeing 🤦🏻‍♂️

Oh good so it's my dumb phone. 💀. Thanks!
 
Edit - correction. It was my dumb WiFi. For some reason it didn't work at home now that I'm on data it's working. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thanks for starting the thread! I finally submitted our I-130 online last night after reviewing the answers about a million times. I know this process can take a very long time so I'm just hoping I don't get any requests for evidence to slow things down even more.
 
I saw mention of an NOA1 above with a reference number. When I login mine shows...
 
Submitted on September 11, 2022
Receipt # IOE(I'll omit the rest lol)
 
Is that what you're referring to? Or will it be something different?
 
Good luck to my fellow September filers 🙏🏼

Thanks for starting the thread! I finally submitted our I-130 online last night after reviewing the answers about a million times. I know this process can take a very long time so I'm just hoping I don't get any requests for evidence to slow things down even more.
 
I saw mention of an NOA1 above with a reference number. When I login mine shows...
 
Submitted on September 11, 2022
Receipt # IOE(I'll omit the rest lol)
 
Is that what you're referring to? Or will it be something different?
 
Good luck to my fellow September filers 🙏🏼

Yes, that PDF receipt notice with IOE number is your NOA1.
 

Hi everyone!
 
I couldn't find a Sept 2022 thread so I created this one, so we can follow each others journeys and don't feel alone in the process. We filed ours on september 3, receive the NOA1 the same day, and our case has being actively reviewed By USCIS since september 6.