Moscowmojo

Correct, I dont think it had any effect on our case.

5 hours ago, AnaBanana12345 said:

Good for you. Hope you will get the interview soon! And I also hope those who had DQ in early March will get good news on interview soon!

 

Does anyone know if your timeline of getting an interview is affected if you submitted document that showed as "missing" in civil documents after you have received a letter stating your case is DQ? I received the letter on DQ status and then in two weeks saw there was a document missing and I uploaded it (it was the marriage certificate of my parent), but now I wonder whether it will affect anything relating to me getting the interview letter... 

That happen to my case, they wanted additional docs after the case was DQ.  It was basically the same document we already submitted regarding dissolution of the marriage, but they called it something else. I submitted and it showed submitted status all the way up to the interview.  It was never an issue for us.

1 hour ago, aerodnight said:

@Simplytex @Runner19 my congrats guys! Glad to see that all of us are soon going to be done with all that hustle. 

 

@Simplytex You are quite unlucky, you got appointment date one day after the deadline for tax filing(April 17th), so you might be asked about 2022 taxes. Neither me or my joint-sponsor have filed tax returns for 2022, so I'm glad that we're scheduled 2 weeks before the deadline

I will be submitting my Taxes as "Married filing Jointly" for 2022 even though my wife didnt arrive until Feb 24th of 2023.   As we were married in 2022, you can attach a declaration to your tax return (as U.S. citizen) that your spouse was a nonresident alien, but they choose to be treated by the IRS as a resident alien.  You will need a Social Security # or a ITIN number from the IRS.  When my wife went through border control, they said she would receive her SS Card and Green Card in 3-4 weeks.  If we dont receive the the SS card by the tax filing deadline, I will file for an extension.  I am not a tax attorney so dont take this advice to the bank, but this is my plan to save money on taxes at this point.  You get an automatic tax deduction of $24,400 for filing Married Filing Jointly.

59 minutes ago, Simplytex said:

Good news, we finally got my wife's interview date! 

We also got April 18th! 

Great news for both of you!  My wife had her interview last Tuesday at the KZ consulate and arrived here last Friday!  Everything went smooth!  You are close to the finish line)

On 1/30/2023 at 8:36 PM, CyberKnight13 said:

@Simplytex and @Moscowmojo, thank you both for the flight information, it is extremely helpful!

We may travel to Yekaterinburg via train and take a flight from there.

My wife is taking the train to E-burg on Feb 15th and flying to Almaty on the 16th.  I will let you know how it goes)

14 hours ago, Simplytex said:

Looks like Red Wings is the airline serving that route Yekaterinburg to Almaty 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koltsovo_International_Airport if you go down to airlines section you can see all the routes

@Simplytex is correct.  She will be flying on Redwings, cost was about 17,000 rubles ($242) for a one way.  This route is only available on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  My wife owns a travel agency, so this part of the process is easy for her).  Yekaterinburg has a very nice airport too.

1 minute ago, Lynxyonok said:

May I be as curious as to ask the full itinerary?

Qatar to Washington sounds brutal.

She will fly from Ekaterinburg to Almaty for the interview and if all goes well, it will be Almaty to Doha to Seattle. The flight from Doha to Seattle is 14 hours...I know, I have taken it a couple times)

31 minutes ago, Lynxyonok said:

Likely not as those airline employees tend to get overrun quickly.

 

It's also important to know as to which airline. E.g., Turks check everything at the check-in desk whereas Serbs rely on transfer desks.

Right... She will be most likely taking Qatar Airlines.  I will do a number of screen shots and web addresses and get those to my wife just in case they give her any problems at the ticket counter.

@stacys I understand, you had an appointment in Warsaw therefore the NVC already transferred the case and now the case has been moved to KZ.  We received our appointment letter from the NVC, not the KZ consulate.  Has your case number been change to ATA?  I think you proceeding correctly by writing the KZ consulate.  They have responded to my inquires pretty quickly (2 - 4 days). Best of luck.

7 hours ago, CyberKnight13 said:

This is exactly what I mean, they say one thing and require another. We weren't going to go to Moscow for the medical anyway because we refuse to touch Sputnik V but the confusing information is frustrating. We are going to do it all in Almaty, if we can ever get there.

 

Good luck to you and your wife! 

Now we have the question: With the airline verifying the passengers is eligibility to enter the US, will they understand that an immigrant visa from a country (Russia) that has a Covid waiver understand that she is eligible?  Nothing is easy for Russians in the process.

@Runner19 Thanks for the info I went to the registration link and I am attaching what I saw.  It says if you "opt" to have it delivered enter the address.  I was planning having my wife stay in Almaty until the visa is ready and picking it up at the Consulate.  Maybe i need to write them to verify if that is possible.

4 minutes ago, stacys said:

I-130 was submitted in December 2020. Approved in February 2022, DS-260 was submitted in May 2022, and all supporting documents were accepted in September 2022. We received appointment invitation for Warsaw mid January 2023 with a scheduled date February 7th. They literally gave my parents 3 weeks to get to Poland

I wrote two emails asking to transfer their cases - one to Jerusalem and one to Almaty. While I was waiting on Jerusalem to respond, Almaty replied back that they had requested both cases. That was on January 19th. As of today both cases are in Almaty but  now i do not know how to schedule my parent's interviews. Almaty is pretty responsive. I'll wait and see what they say 

You dont schedule the interview date, the NVC will work with the Almaty Consulate to schedule it and will notify you of the date.

46 minutes ago, Runner19 said:

Hey! My parents have not received their interview date yet, we were just notified that their interview location will be in Almaty. My understanding is that NVC will schedule the interview and we don't have any control over it. We still need to create the accounts with UStraveldocs once the interview is scheduled. When was y'alls DQ date? Interesting to see what Almaty says. 

Why do you need to create an account with Traveldocs?  I have not do that and we have an interview date.

On 1/19/2023 at 2:59 PM, Simplytex said:

Interesting, thanks for sharing. That's the first time I've heard of this happening. My wife got DQ Dec 20th as well, but haven't seen anything yet.

 

Btw, I wonder if, when you do get the interview scheduled, they say the medical can be done in Moscow, or if it has to be in Almaty (some other people going to KZ have said they won't accept transferred medical, unlike Warsaw.)

I received this email from the consulate in KZ.  

Greetings!
 
Please be informed medical exam must be done in the panel physician clinic of our consular district, which is IMC Almaty +7 727 3786464.
 
 
Best regards,
 
Consular section
U.S. Consulate General
97 Zholdasbekova str., Samal Towers
Almaty, Kazakhstan, 050059
 

14 hours ago, CyberKnight13 said:

Thank you!

 

We called Moscow back in the fall and they told us that she can do her medical there but will be required to receive the Sputnik V vaccine (both doses) which we refuse to get. We called Almaty (both IMC and International SOS) again today and were told that IMC is the only one in Kazakhstan authorized to do the medical exams for immigrant visas for the U.S. Embassy/Consulate. International SOS did not get their contract renewed. IMC does not require you to have COVID-19 vaccines and they do not do them as they only have Sputnik V which is not approved by America.  

Thanks for the information!  My wife did her medical exam in Moscow as IMC said it would be valid for KZ, that was wrong info.  KZ requires the Medical exam in Almaty, so she is scheduled to do it on 2/17, Interview is 2/21.

On 1/19/2023 at 3:11 PM, Runner19 said:

@Moscowmojo, what was your DQ date? Our IR5 cases were just transferred to Almaty automatically, trying to figure out the timeline for interview there. Thanks!

Our case was DQ on 12/16/2022.  The NVC moved it from Warsaw to KZ the week before and we received the interview date on 1/9/2023.  Good luck with your case!

If I remember right, I didnt have to pay another filing fee because we already paid for the I-130.  Maybe Simplytex could verify.  I received the Notice of Action from the Nebraska Service Center.

5 minutes ago, BenNomad said:

Could be you just got very lucky. Who knows. Is there any logic in this process? USCIS says I still have approximately 5 months to wait their decision. But those are just statistics of course. Interesting that your "actively reviewing" status update came two months after submittal. They have been "actively reviewing" my petition since the moment I submitted it! Maybe someone accidentally deleted it?  

 

In any case, it's good news for everyone that you were able to transfer the case from Poland to Kazakhstan. I'm going to try my luck in Egypt. 

 

I wrote to about 8 different embassies to see if they would take our case, Romania and Kazakhstan were the two that responded positively.  I didnt try Egypt, some embassies only take Citizens or Permanent residents of that particular country.

3 hours ago, BenNomad said:

Congratulations! Glad for you! How long did it take for the i-130 to be approved and which processing center did it go to? I submitted online in June 2022, got a confirmation letter from the Texas processing center and haven't heard a word since. It's been almost seven months! 

That is crazy you havent heard anything yet.  I submitted on 8/18/2022 and it was approved and sent to NVC on 10/24/2022 so it took 67 days for the approval.  The NOA came from the Texas Service Center, the approval Letter came from the Nebraska Service center.  I submitted everything online.

We just received an interview date for my Russian wife at the Kazakhstan consulate for 2-21-2023.  Total time from submitting the I-130 to interview date was 6 months and 3 days.  We are very happy with the progress, she should be here before the end of February!  i requested and moved our case from Warsaw to Kazakhstan in mid December 2022.

The United States is trying to identify countries that are more accessible than Poland, in which Russians could obtain American visas, US Chargé d'Affaires a.i. in Moscow Elizabeth Rud said in an interview with RIA Novosti.  The article is in Russian but the video has her speaking English.  Here is the link to the article.

The US is looking for an affordable country for issuing immigrant visas to Russians

 https://ria.ru/20221128/vizy-1834655753.html?in=t

8 hours ago, Master5 said:

Hi @Moscowmojo! What's the email address you used for contacting Kazakhstan embassy? I can't find any email address for IV enquiries on their website. My wife got a Schengen visa refusal recently (yes, we showed 400,000RUB in her account and travel reservations, bunch or other supporting docs), so I'm trying to transfer the case to some country where you can actually travel to.

 

BTW, Romania does require a visa for Russian citizens as well.

 

Now imaging traveling like that with little kids as in our case!

Yes, you are right, Romania requires a visa for Russian citizens, but its pretty easy to get one.  10,000 Rubles and two weeks and its good for Bulgaria and Bosnia too.  My wife had a Bulgarian visa which would have allowed her into Romania.  Although with Romania you still  have the issue of no direct flights from Russia and no connecting flights through Europe, except for maybe Serbia.  I will say the American Embassy in Romania was very quick in their responses and friendly and could be an option for some. Bulgaria refused our request to move our case there from Poland as they only accept Bulgarian residence.

4 minutes ago, Simplytex said:

So, I've heard that number thrown around a lot as a defacto-standard for Russian's trying to get Schengen visa... Just FYI, I don't think it's true because my wife doesn't meet that threshold (I told her to start spending down Rubles as they basically aren't transferable these days.) Instead, when applying for the visa, I included a letter stating that I would provide financial support, and copies of my bank statement, payroll info, etc. Didn't have any issues with it.

 

Btw, there are minimum standards but not to the level of 300k rubles, usually depends on length of stay, etc. https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/schengen-visa-application-requirements/means-subsistence/

Regarding the Schengen, from my understanding, it all depends on the country you are applying to for the Schengen, every country has different requirements.  I our case we were looking at Italy as the best option and the Russian Visa company recommended she show at least 300K roubles for our length of stay.   I think some European countries want to make it as hard as possible for Russians to get a visa.  We ended up not applying for a Schengen, so I have no personal experience with it.

1 hour ago, Master5 said:

Speaking about Serbia: anyone can share the email address to contact them? Serbian embassy website doesn't seem to have an IV section.

Serbia refused our request to transfer our IR1 case from Poland, they only accept legal residents of Serbia and Montenegro.

11 hours ago, S86 said:

Hello VJ, 

My wife's paperwork just got DQ. Can anyone one tell me on average how long does it take for them to schedule a visa interview in Warsaw? Also does she have to go to the interview alone? Can me and my child join? Is getting a visa to Poland impossible? Can I switch my interview to Turkey?

 

Thank you

Your can transfer your case to another Embassy, but I dont think Turkey will accept it. Many countries only accept legal residents of that country.  We transferred our case to Kazakhstan from Poland.  Only took one day to complete the transfer.  Poland is a nightmare for Russians to travel to right now and you must get a Schengen visa and that is time consuming and expensive.