animax

For anyone else who encounters a question about this, it was no problem at all. Visa was approved and we entered the US together with no problem. Thank God!

2 minutes ago, OldUser said:

Usually 6 months passport validity is needed for travel to many places.

Can you give a link to to where you get this information about 8 months from?

 

Hi OldUser! This is what I thought I had read elsewhere. The source is the invitation letter we received from the Embassy via email:

Quote

 

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS

 

1. Application form: DS-160 must be filled out online at https://ceac.state.gov/genniv/

 

2. Child’s DS-160:  If your child is immigrating with you, Form DS-160 must be completed for the child.  

 

3. Travel passport: Full photocopy of passport must be provided. The beneficiary’s passport must be valid for travel to the United States and must have at least eight months validity beyond the issuance date of the visa. Children may be included in a parent's passport, but, if over the age of 16, they must have their photograph attached to the passport. Please do not send your original passport. You must present your passport at the interview date.

 

4. Petitioner Identification Document: Please provide a valid, government issued identification document for the petitioner. 

 

5. Birth certificate of Beneficiary: Original and photocopy must be provided. Applicants born in a country other than their country of citizenship must present a birth-certificate from the country in which they were born. If the birth registration took place in a country other than Armenia or US, an English notarized translation of the foreign document is also required. 

There are other things in this invitation letter that are clearly incorrect (request police certificate from Iranian applicant when US State Dept. does not require this, as well as incorrect phone number and email address for embassy which are now inactive.) I am really hoping this is not a strict requirement, but it makes me so nervous to notice this at the last minute without time to renew her passport. 😟

Hi everyone,

My fianceé and I are just about ready for our interview, but I had a question regarding the required passport validity for being approved for our K1 visa. According to the invitation letter we received from Armenia, my fianceé's passport needs to be valid for at least 8 months after the date the visa is issued.

Unfortunately, my fianceé's interview is in about 10 days, at which time her passport will only be valid for 7 months. I just realized this last night. 😟

Does anyone have experience or knowledge to know the consequences of this? Would we be rejected? Would we be better off to reschedule everything? In searching online, I got the impression that this might not be a strict requirement, but a rule-of-thumb. We are both traveling from different countries, so rescheduling is something we would really like to do as last resort only.

I emailed the embassy, and have not received a response yet, but I'm hoping one of you might know more on this issue before I hear back.

Thanks!

1 minute ago, Mike E said:

The seConf error is nothing to worry about. The first error’s explanation doesn’t make sense. I can understand 10/1 to 1/10. I can’t understand.  1/1 to 10/10

Oops, you're right! 😆 I fixed the dates I mixed up in my example.

And thank you! I suspected it's no problem but it helps so much to hear it from someone who knows a lot more than me.

Hi everyone!

We are finishing up our DS-160 for our K1 visa and had a question about the employment and education history section.

When we were filling in "previous employment," we noticed that we made a couple minor errors for my fiancee's (beneficiary's) employment history on our original I-129F petition:

• Due to an error in converting between different date formats, we accidentally reported employment start date of "Janurary 10" as "October 1", etc.
• We listed occupation as "IT Engineer" when the proper title was actually something like "Software Analyst"

My understanding is that employment history is not really important at all for K1 visas, and this is all probably really inconsequential.

Is there any issue with just putting the correct info on the DS-160?--and only addressing the discrepancy if there is some question about it?

12/1/2022 NOA2

1/31/2023 Inquiry sent to NVC

2/3/2023 Inquiry response with case number from NVC

2/5/2023 2nd inquiry sent to NVC to transfer case to different embassy

2/9/2023 2nd inquiry response with new case number for transfer

2/14/2023 Case "In Transit" in CEAC

2/16/2023 Case "Ready" in CEAC

We have most of the DS-160 done, but are just finishing gathering some old employment info. My understanding is that this isn't really important for K1, but we'll still make sure to include accurate information.

For Armenia, https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-am/iv is really insistent on stating that we need to wait until we receive the letter from them with instructions to try to schedule an appointment. So we'll work on being prepared for that. It seems like it shouldn't take so long!

1 hour ago, Poppy65100 said:

Same here!!

And same here! What a great Valentine's!

1 hour ago, bonshawn said:

Did they email you a Case Tracker number AND Invoice ID?

Word for word, here is what they provided to us:

Quote

Dear Sir/Madam:

 

The National Visa Center is ready to accept fees, documents, and forms in support of this immigrant visa application. We will send detailed instructions to the petitioner, principal applicant, and/or attorney of record soon. Thank you for your patience; we look forward to working with you.

 

The invoice I.D. number for visa petition ABDxxxxxxxxxx is: xxxxxxxx

 

The beneficiary I.D. number for [redacted] is xxxxxxxx.

37 minutes ago, Mishekebeshe said:

Please let us know if you were successful to change the embassy. I would like to also change it from ABD to Yerevan once our I-130 petition is approved

I promise I will update this thread as soon as we get a reply! Good luck!

3 minutes ago, powerpuff said:

That field is always ignored, for everyone. I put a different consulate there but they automatically assigned it to the one where I was living at the time (based off “current address of beneficiary field”). Once my case got to NVC I sent an inquiry asking them to change the consulate and attached evidence of residency for that country.

Wow! I didn't realize that! I'm glad it worked out for you and it really gives me even more hope we have a good chance of transferring.

Thank you guys for the help!

It seems like we did the right thing by sending another inquiry to NVC and asking if it could be changed/transferred. Hopefully we stand a chance of fixing it because of how early we discovered this!

I don't 100% understand how it ended up like this: whether they ignored our answer on the I-129F, or if they simply don't pay attention to it when assigning the embassy/consulate for Iranian applicants. It doesn't seem fair to ignore it, because traveling to a foreign country is already a big burden for Iranians, and even more so if the country is chosen arbitrarily.

Hi everyone,

My fiancee is Iranian and, as there is no (active) U.S. Embassy/Consulate in Iran, we have to be processed through either:

• U.S. Embassy Ankara, Turkey,
• U.S. Consulate General Dubai, United Arab Emirates, or
• U.S. Embassy Yerevan, Armenia

On our I-129F, we wrote that we wanted to apply to Yerevan, Armenia.

We received our NOA2 December 1.

I sent an inquiry to NVC this past week and got our case number on Friday.

However, our case number starts with ABD and we are concerned this seems to indicate Abu Dhabi and not Yerevan. (?)

Are we interpreting the case number correctly? Does anyone have any experience with a situation like this, or any advice?

I sent another inquiry to NVC and am awaiting their response!

Thank you so much.

Just now, LA1234 said:

Nice, congrats that's great news that NVC is moving along with the cases. Did NVC also email you the "Invoice ID Number" or just the case number? Were you able to log in to CEAC with just the case number? On the CEAC website did you log into the "Immigrant Visa Check" or "Non-Immigrant Visa Check?

 

Thanks

Nice, congrats that's great news that NVC is moving along with the cases. Did NVC also email you the "Invoice ID Number" or just the case number? Were you able to log in to CEAC with just the case number? On the CEAC website did you log into the "Immigrant Visa Check" or "Non-Immigrant Visa Check?

 

Thanks

Thanks! We got the invoice number as well and can log into CEAC and see "AT NVC" status. I guess for some strange reason we have to use "Immigrant Visa Check"--"Non-immigrant Visa Check" doesn't work.

On 2/1/2023 at 10:38 AM, SaraClaire11 said:

Please, asking for prayers.

 

Today is day 520. Overnighting the RFE to California didn't help because it's still in transit.

 

Praying the packet arrives safely and is approved quickly. I am losing faith and hope in all.

I know it's so easy for anyone else to say, but you are on your way and you will make it. ❤️ Don't give up hope, don't overthink it! Just keep going and soon you guys will make it. The hardest and longest parts of your struggles are all over and soon these hard days will just be memories, believe it or not.

Our NOA2 was 12/1/2022. I submitted an inquiry on Tuesday 1/31/2023 and today (Friday 2/3/2023) they replied with our case number! I can't believe it!

Hope you had your interview and everything went well.

Wish you the best! 🙏

On 12/1/2022 at 1:47 PM, Catperson_rx said:

One more questions that just crossed my mind: since there is no US embassy in Iran, can the applicants pick the country (Armenia, UAE, Turkey) or does NVC pick that for us? 

Hey! What did you put for this section on your petition?

8 hours ago, fenerbahce1907 said:

Monday Update

 

It seems , they have a technical issue.

 

125500: 1 Expedite(Denied: 1) (1 new / 0 in progress)
127000: 1 RFES, 1 Denial (2 new / 0 in progress)
127500: 2 RFESs (2 new / 0 in progress)
128000: 2 RFESs (2 new / 0 in progress)
129000: 2 RFESs (2 new / 0 in progress)
129500: 1 RFES (1 new / 0 in progress)
130000: 1 RFES (1 new / 0 in progress)
131500: 1 RFES (1 new / 0 in progress)
 

11/21/22: 12 Total Updates: 10 RFESs, 1 Denial, 1 Expedite(Denied: 1)

Total for this month: 823 Untouched, 1749 Approvals, 688 RFESs, 148 RFERs, 337 Denials, 54 Expedites(Denied: 54), 141 Withdrawals, 93 Others

 

It's so sad and disappointing. 🥺 But thank you for always providing these updates.

58 minutes ago, ChantalStewart said:

Think my batch 27500 is lost somewhere, losing hope 

56 minutes ago, Mar_ia said:

Yes, I think we belong to the same batch. Trying not to be really antsy about it, but it does feel crappy when you saw someone approved/case updated that is ahead of your date filed. 

We're in this range too! It does feel horrible sometimes but there is no reason to give up hope. More than likely, our approvals are coming any day now! 

We will be the same situation and I wondered the same thing! Did you read this on the U.S. Embassy in Armenia website?

Quote

Iranian Applicants

 

How long should I plan to remain in Armenia?
We understand that you have traveled a long way and therefore we process visa applications as quickly as possible. If your case is approved and does not require additional administrative processing, your visa will normally be ready 5 business days after your interview.

I really hope it's true!

How often are you guys checking your case status on the USCIS website while waiting for NOA2? I hope for your sanity you aren't checking as often as I am! 😅

17 minutes ago, Will Schu said:

Salaam!

Here's the thing I found out with Yerevan so far.

They expect to communicate with your fiancee. My emails go unanswered, and they'll reply to her within one day. 

When we got the invitation letter, they asked for her email address, and only then did they actually send the invitation document and other information.

 

We did get an interview. Finally!

What she had to do is send them a completed copy of our DS-160, and make her case to get an interview date because our petition is expiring soon. USCIS puts 4 months on the petition, and the NVC ate up 2 months. Yerevan responded in less than one week after the NVC forwarded our case to them.

The free appointment slots are not up when you go through the AIS system to register your DS-160 and pay the MRV fee. They'll open up slots after your fiancee emails them (no phone and they only like to reply to fiancee).

Hopefully, that will change and you'll be able to schedule when you guys in the  information--but be prepared for the stress.

 

From what I can gather, the NVC is mostly contractors. It's probably a safe bet they drag their feet and complain once they accumulate too much to do--so be prepared for any communication dealing with the NVC to be next to nothing. Their inquiry information does say to contact them if you have not received any word 6 weeks after USCIS sends their case to them. Make sure you do! The only communication was the K1_FTP (K1 forwarded to embassy)--and it will be a Rich Text File format. The only way I found out they received our case was through the inquiry system. They never sent any notice.

 

Message me with any questions you have. I'll do my best to respond as soon as I get them.

Make sure to scan your NOAs and keep good copies of everything. Once your case gets to the NVC make sure to start preparing everything you can (start now if you guys can). After the case makes it to Yerevan do your best to move on everything as fast as you can.

 

Good luck!!

-Will

 

 

I deeply appreciate all your help! I hope the rest of your case goes smoothly now and I am so glad to benefit from the things you learned the hard way! With some luck, these days will all just be some memories for us soon. I will be sure to come to you if I have any problems or questions. Take care!

Did the appointments suddenly become available? Were you able to schedule an interview? My fiancee is also Iranian and we will have her interview in Armenia too! We are waiting for NOA2 still (August 2021 NOA1), but it would be so helpful if you could pass along anything you learned to help us through this stressful process. Wish you guys the best of luck and I am sure you will finish this hard process soon! You are nearly there. 🙏