Cookie88

The DOS website states NOT to upload any new/updated police certificates to NVC. I know they tend to contradict their own rules at times, so I wanted to confirm on here as per everyone's experience with this process. I have renewed police certificates so that they are valid on the date of the interview, do I not upload these to NVC then? I don't want them delaying my visa on the basis that they need the new ones uploaded to the portal first.

Secondly, the same page stating the above also says not to bring the AOS/financial evidence submitted to NVC - is that accurate? I thought applicants were required to bring a copy of the signed AOS form and the financial evidence to the interview?

1 hour ago, David L Visa said:

Both payments went through successfully despite the website issues.

 

I've started filling out the DS-260 form and it also crashes sometimes when going to the next page. And you can only save a page if everything is filled out, no partial page save.

Yep. Same happened to me on the address/social page. Not sure why they lumped that all under one screen when they have restrictions on saving and being logged out. In the end I wrote up everything separately in a doc so I just had to copy paste it over, so that I was quicker inputting data. I also did not click on 'next address' or 'next social handle' (or whatever the phrasing is) each time, instead I would pretend I'm done and click next so that it saved. 

We got our IL’s today. For those who are trying to keep track:
 

DQ’d: 7th March

IL received: 17th March

Interview Date: 30th May. 

11 hours ago, David L Visa said:

I was able to log back in and submit the 2nd fee after waiting maybe 15 minutes. This time clicking "Continue to Receipt" did not result in an error. It took me to a page with a message and a continue button which then took me back to the login page. No additional receipt page came up. It now shows both in process so it seems to be somewhat working.

Look under your payment receipts page and click against the processing transaction. Check there's a number next to the 'transaction ID' field. If it's blank, it's going to keep your status as 'processing' for a few days before releasing it to 'rejected' status and making you submit again. I had this happen to me. It effectively blocked me from trying to re-submit my payment until they cleared the failed form from their system to rejected. Their system never even processed the form properly as there was no transaction ID against it, so I knew it was going to need to be re-done when they allowed me to.

4 hours ago, kozem said:

Thanks @Ryan H. My petition is yet to be approved. Is there a way, before the file reaches NVC i can get the consulate changed? Trying to save extra months that would go in rerouting of consulates.

It doesn't take months to reroute. When you get approved and get your welcome letter by the NVC, just submit a request through the NVC inquiry form. Do not pay fees or do anything else before this. They'll respond in 2 working days. 

4 hours ago, Dreamer25 said:

 

 

Ohh I didn’t know! I got DQ’ed on Feb 27th, so it’s been only a couple of days. I was hoping to hear something in late March.

Let us know when you get the IL please! No one's been reporting anywhere on any platform as of late Jan so it's been hard to track current timeline. I was DQ'd on 7th March so I'm just a week behind you. 

3 hours ago, Dreamer25 said:

No, I am patiently waiting for my IL. I think it takes at least a month

It was only taking two weeks for an IL from end of November to end of January. But haven’t seen any reports of an IL since end of January so it’s been hard to gauge what the timeframe is right now! When did you get DQ’d?

Did anyone who got DQ’d in February get an IL yet? 

On 2/23/2025 at 1:59 AM, Josh B K said:

@emeditz congratulations!

 

@Josh B K Did you get DQ'd yet? If so, what was your timeline from submission of docs to getting DQ'd?

Thank you! Yes, I had my husband start filling out the regular I-864 after my last post on this thread. I figured it was better to be safer than sorry with a potential RFE. 

Thank you for clarifying household size. I read so many things online on how my I-864 would only show 2 people, myself and my husband sponsoring me. And the children's I-864's would only show 3 people - my husband, myself, and the one child. It was beyond me what the logic was for calculating that way and not having all 4 of us in each I-864. Thank you for clarifying that each form SHOULD have a total of 4 after filling in respective boxes depending on principal applicant.

17 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

I would assume they are not linked for interview dates.  

Ok, I'll put a request in for us to be interviewed together. Thank you!

Thank you for your input @JeanneAdil.

I have a second question too. With regards to our situation above, is the household size going to be 

1 - person on this affidavit (spouse)

1 - yourself (sponsor)

2 - dependent children (with their own CR2's in process simultaneously)

4 - total

Do we count the 2 children with CR2's in process under dependent children (they were not claimed during tax filing). 

And with that, would each child's household size be listed as:

1 - person on this affidavit (child with CR2)

1 - yourself (sponsor)

1 - spouse (CR1)

1 - dependent children (second child with CR2)

4 - total

?? 

I am getting confused. I am going to take the liberty of asking @pushbrk for his very clear and direct input! 

1 minute ago, nastra30 said:

Are the CR2s his children? How old are they?

Stepchildren. They're both under 10.

We are 3 people immigrating on separate visa applications - CR1, CR2 x 2

My husband earns above the federal poverty guidelines for a household size of 4 people (if you include us 3 and him). So no need for joint sponsor. 

Does he qualify for the I-864EZ? I am getting mixed responses on whether or not we qualify because of the stepchildren immigrating too. I thought the rule was he can't if he's sponsoring derivatives immigrating together, but they are not derivatives. We each have our own individual cases going on at the NVC stage. 

On 2/16/2025 at 5:49 PM, Crazy Cat said:

I would answer "no".  They are not immigrating as part of your case as derivatives.  However, you need to contact NVC and the consulate to ask that you all be interviewed together. 

@Crazy Cat We only had to pay one AOS fee. When on the payments page in the CEAC portal it automatically said at the bottom '1 AOS fee for 3 related cases' - I am assuming we are already linked? When the payment was processed under the one account, all 3 accounts automatically showed as payments in process for AOS.

Still waiting for the payment to show up as paid though. I've been wondering if the actual I-864 form will need to be filled 3 times or just once then, if they only took one payment for all 3 of us? I guess time will tell. I'd always been told we need to pay 3 AOS fees so we're already surprised they applied the single fee to all 3 of us automatically.

2 minutes ago, emeditz said:

09/19/2023 initial filing

02/19/2025 active reviewing 

02/19/2025 approval 

17 months total 

 OmG!! Finally!!! Sooo happy for you and your wife!!! I hope the next part of this goes a lot smoother

9 hours ago, Romantic18 said:

hi i am in similar boat, 

my wife will have consulate interview for my spouse(foreign) cr1 interview soon.

Embassy sent us a list of documents to bring and they are asking for ORIGINALS of tax transcripts that we uploaded to NVC.

 

I downloaded tax return transcripts from irs WEBSITE as pdf and uploaded them.

 

Can I bring the SAME pdf file to interview as print? 

Is there an ORIGINAL form of these documents like sealed envelopes from IRS?

I don't think there's any originals per se. The 'original' is digitized. You get to print copies of the original online. 

22 hours ago, Dashinka said:

If you included the information from the 2024 tax filing on the I864 you need to include some evidence of that or you risk an RFE.  Personally, I would not wait, I would choose option 3, submit the I864 with transcripts for 2022, and 2023 (2021 is not necessary if 2024 info is included), and a copy of the return filed for 2024 along with copies of the W2s/1099s, then also take a copy of the transcript with you to the interview.

 

Good Luck!

Thank you! this is very helpful.

My spouse filed his 2024 tax return on the weekend. The IRS website where you grab the transcripts from shows it still under process. From what I read online, it can take a few weeks for the transcript to become available.

Do we wait for this transcript to submit our documents for I-864 or should we just include transcripts for 2023,2022,2021 instead and take the 2024 one with me to the interview? 

I was under the impression we had to show proof of relationship for the DS-260 part of the CR1/IR1 visa process too, but in the required documents they haven't asked for anything other than official civil documents.

Should I be uploading things like evidence of visits made to see each other/pictures/chat snapshots etc to the DS-260 application under 'Other' documents category?

For the kids CR2 applications all they've asked for is the passport and their birth certificate - is that really all I need to upload for their DS-260's???

Also, am I supposed to check the box 'did anyone help you fill in this application?' for the kids DS-260's? And list myself as the 'prepare'? I see conflicting information on this online. 

And as for the signature on the kids forms, do I sign with my own? 

For the benefit of any lurkers reading this now or later, I have reluctantly answered 'no' to the two questions about the kids immigrating with me / joining me later. I asked a lawyer and he also said this is only a yes for derivatives. 

I say reluctantly because they could be a bit clearer in their choice of words, or at least have a 'not applicable' checkbox for IR2/CR2 applicants if they don't want to change their verbiage for whatever reason. 

Thank you @Crazy Cat!

On 2/16/2025 at 4:50 AM, Josh B K said:

@Cookie88 On the Monday morning after my post, the upload magically started working. 

After uploading many documents, here's what I discovered about the two errors. 

1) Error: "Webservice unable to scan file" - If you receive this error, give up. It seems to indicate a system error. For this error, I just waited until the weekend was over and tried again on Monday morning. 

2) Error: "Invalid Image Detected" - This error seems to be related to the specific file you are uploading. Usually, "printing to a PDF" and saving as a new file, resolves the problem, but not always. 

I am having error #2 again since yesterday, and "printing to PDF" doesn't resolve the problem. I sent a message to Ask NVC. 

Thank you for the detailed clarification! I am still filling in DS-260 so not quite there with this part yet, but wanted to know in case I run into the same issue. The CEAC portal overall has been very glitchy so far in many matters.

Thanks. I wish they would be clearer in their wording in what they are asking. The children are immigrating with me. If this is solely for who is included within this application, if I click 'No' it then populates a new question and asks 'Is the child immigrating to the U.S. at a later date to join you?'. I would then have to say 'No' to that too technically if my first response is going off of derivatives. It doesn't say anywhere 'immigrating with you' means on the same application only. It's so confusing. 

I am confused on how to answer this as I am a CR1 and kids are CR2. They are not derivatives. One place online said if they are not derivatives you have to answer no to the DS-260 question "Is this child immigrating to the U.S with you?". I want to double check on here how accurate that is? Because the kids ARE immigrating with me, even if they're under their own individual case numbers?! 

16 hours ago, Goodnews2023 said:

It took 3days from approval to receiving a letter from NVC for payment. We are working with attorney which is making the process easy. Gathering documents then set up interview and biometrics at the embassy. This was the hardest wait, the rest should go easy. All the best for those waiting. I’ll clock out. 

Thank you for updating us on this. I was wondering, did it take 3 days from when the status officially changed to 'approved' under the account, or from the date you got the approval document? I ask because we have 2 different dates. We got lots of emails for 'actively reviewing' on Monday 3rd, and found the approval doc in the documents tab with an approval date printed on as 2/3. The status on the account didn't change until 2 days later to show they're all approved, and the status message also claimed we were approved on 2/4. I know this is only a difference of a day, but I have been curious as to how people are calculating how many days it took between approval and NVC welcome email.