KK_Shanks

42 minutes ago, Boiler said:

You can mention you will let them know when you become work authorised?

I did mention it, but will have to see how it plays out, not being able to do anything for possibly up to a year might cut my desirability off at the knees.

3 hours ago, OldUser said:

Deliver the news when you have passport with visa in hand. Nothing is certain until then. Good luck!

Courier bag arrived at work on Monday morning (yesterday), had passport and papers in there. I gave him the bad news, he was pretty bummed, but he was happy for me.

Not so much of a job offer, more that my boss doesn't want me to go and has asked if I can keep doing what I am doing now but from another country. But it seems the answer is a resounding no, so I'll be delivering him the bad news on Monday. Thanks for the advice guys and gals, I'm glad I didn't go with my intuition and end up getting myself in trouble.

But in good news, I checked the consulate for updates on my visa application today and WooHoo, I have an approval status, I checked my courier bag and that is on its way to me too. Very exciting, but also scary.
 

1 hour ago, Boiler said:

When you have EAD you are authorised to work. You do not need to wait for GC, you need to sort out the contractual situation taxes etc

I will be entering on a K1 visa. Does that give me the EAD?

I have no intention of breaking the law so I would like the legal answer if it is known.

All going well, I should have my visa approved in the next week or so and I am planning to move to the US in mid September. (yes it is within the 6 months of the medical)

I talked to my boss about me moving to the US and he has asked if I would be interested in continuing working for him but remotely in the US. I would like to help them out if possible, but obviously I cannot get a green card until I have got married and completed AOS which I plan on doing ASAP.

Does my lack of green card stop me from legally working US based jobs only or does it stop me from working ANY jobs when I live in the USA?

If I cannot work ANY jobs then so be it, but I would like to help my boss out if I can, and if i can't, I'll probably help him out where I can for free to keep myself busy rather than be <DELETED> sitting around and playing video games all day (as fun as that does sound, it's not very productive)

TIA

 

1 minute ago, ArshH said:

The officer told us on the day of interview that we are approved and today i see on visa tracker visa has been issued .

 

but havent received any email from consulate yet

Give them a day or two to send an email.

1 hour ago, ArshH said:

Hey all 

 

just a quick question 

Do we receive any email from the consulate after the visa is issued about the passport is ready for pickup or delivery??

If your visa was approved on the day of your interview you will receive an email once it has been printed and posted back to you.   

On 3/18/2024 at 12:33 PM, Jane Grady said:

Hi everyone,

 

My K1 case has left the USA and is in transit to Sydney, Australia. We were approved by USCIS and have NOA 1 and NOA 2. Our case currently says in transit (to Sydney). I'm guessing it could be 4-6 weeks?

 

In addition, can anyone share their sydney experience with the medical and interview questions? I'm the beneficiary and live in NJ. My fiance lives in Queensland. He will have to fly to Sydney for the medical and interview process. Can anyone share how long it took between the medical and interview process? In other words, will my fiance need to stay in Sydney for 10 days? We put our case in last July 3rd and are anxiously waiting.  Thank you.

Jane and Sean

Based on my experience in NZ, I would allow at least 2 weeks, if not 3 weeks between the medical and interview and surely, it would be far cheaper to fly twice QLD to Sydney than to stay in Sydney for over a week.

So I went to my interview at the consulate on Friday 5th April as planned, I believe the interview went well, I had all my paperwork checked and plenty of questions about our relationship, and I think they gave everything the tick, at least as far as I could tell (found it hilarious that they didn't check any of the evidence of relationship that me and my fiance painstakingly compiled - LoL)

However, because they had not received my medical results from Citymed, they declined my application and on hearing this, my world imploded. After getting over the initial shock of being told I was declined, I did my best to understand what the next steps were but my brain was spinning and I don't think I took it all in. I think they said they will re-review my application once my medical results arrive. But they gave me back my passport (keeping all my other paperwork) and I was told I would need to return my passport when they re-review the application. But I'm not sure if I need to take the passport there in person or whether I can courier it to the consulate. Flying up to Auckland for another trip adds a significant cost to an already sizeable bill for flights, medical and application.

I'll be honest, hearing my application was declined was probably one of the lowest points of my life in recent years. I would have much rather they worded it that the application was put on hold pending medical results because that would not have been so much of a shock to the system. If it is of any relevance I did receive notification from Citymed 3 days before my interview to say there was no issues with my medical and they would be forwarding the results to the consulate, so I had no reason to think they wouldn't be there already.

I guess it would be good to know, has anyone else from out of Auckland have their application declined pending the medical results and what did you have to do with your passport when they got back to you and roughly how long did it take to finish the process?

Just had my K2 medical yesterday at Auckland Citymed at 1:30pm.
Great experience. For a nervous time, they treat you with respect and are very professional and quick.

Timeline (give or take a few minutes), appointment was at 1:30pm, I got to Citymed about 1:10pm

I caught a flight from Wellington to Auckland, landing around 12pm.
Went straight out the front of the airport to catch the Skydrive bus which got me to Skycity about 12:50pm.
Walked from Skycity to Citymed in about 10-15 minutes at a casual stroll pace. It's all downhill.
Reception checked my paperwork and the nurse called me in to put me through the paces of taking vitals and measurements.
Doctor called me in and did a bunch of questions about my medical history, things like hospital stays, medications, family history, pysch issues, drug/alcohol dependencies, STD history etc Then a bit of a check for breathing, heart rate and reflexes. Nothing major or invasive.
Back to the nurse for a couple vaccination updates and blood draws then off to radiology out the back of Citymed for a chest x-ray and I was done.
15-20 minute walk back to Skycity for the bus back which got me to the airport around 4pm.
(Don't forget to hand over your paperwork to the front counter at Citymed when you leave)

So I think that my timeline was pretty much as good as it could get at 4 hours from airport doors to airport doors.
But I would definitely allow more time than 4 hours for bad traffic or flight delays or longer wait times at Citymed.

All in all I 100% rate the Citymed experience. I thought it was going to be a bit clinical and stiff, but they were super nice.

On 3/2/2024 at 1:42 PM, ArshH said:

It takes me to IV scheduling request and after i hit submit it takes me back to home page. And there is no option to schedule the appointment. I have attached the screenshots . 
 

Thanks

Did you complete the application and pay the fee?

On 2/29/2024 at 6:19 PM, ArshH said:

Can anyone help me with scheduling the appointment from the usvisascheduling.com.

I have created the profile but i do not see any option to schedule the appointment.

I got email from consulate to schedule the appointment from the website but i do not see the option.

If anyone can help

 

Thanks

Show me a screen grab of what stage you have got to. (cover any personal details)

On 1/24/2024 at 7:42 AM, visacats said:

At the moment, although I am still researching this, I am intending to declare my Kiwisaver on FBAR and form 8938 (so I will still be fully disclosing my global financial position) but not complete forms 3520/3520 or go down the 8621 PFIC rabbit hole because I believe the US-NZ tax treaty explicitly protects Kiwisaver from taxation by the US.

How did you go with your first tax filing?

I still don't know what I'm going to do with my assets over here in NZ. It sounds easier to just sell my house and send the money over to buy a house in the US. Shame I cannot just wind up my Kiwisaver and do the same.

So I'm a complete idiot. I just checked back on https://www.usvisascheduling.com/en-US/ and there was the option to schedule the appointment. I have no idea if that was always there and I just missed it or it has only appeared recently.

I have not received any notification from the US Consulate that I should schedule the appointment which is what I was waiting on this past 3 weeks. So I'm scratching my head.

Anyhow, if you are reading this and have been waiting for the go ahead from the consulate to schedule your appointment, go the website above and see if you too have the option to schedule. It was the easiest part of the process so far and I did it in 2 minutes. I was scared to press submit for half of that time because it seemed just a little too easy.

First flight to Auckland and last flight home to Wellington is booked for the 5th April and I've just emailed the doctor to schedule my medical.

I hope the rest of it is this easy.

12 hours ago, Kiwi_Bdan said:

 

For the CR1/IR1 Visa:

 

I got Documentarily Qualified on the 19/05/2023, received NVC email on the 31/08/2023, for an interview set for the 13/10/2023. It took exactly 1 week after this interview to receive my visa in my passport from the courier.

It took 3 months to receive an interview date after I was qualified.

 

so unsure how this relates to K1, but they do take a while to give out interviews.

Thanks mate, good to know, I'll give it 3 months.

I just checked and I recieved my letter telling me I was qualified to schedule an interview on 16 Jan and I completed it within a day or two, so I am only a smidge over 3 weeks in. Patience is a virtue.

The temptation to start packing up immediately and putting me house on the market ASAP, but they say don't do it, just in case. It would suck to do all that and be denied a visa.

I completed the request for an Auckland interview online about 4 weeks ago but haven't had a date sent to me yet.  Should I have got a response by now or am I being impatient? 

All my paperwork has been approved up until now. It's a K1 visa if that changes anything 

16 minutes ago, KK_Shanks said:

If you read the Auckland Consulate reviews they often list the questions you will get. 

 

Also you shouldnt have to drop off any documents 2 weeks before.  They should have all gone in with your 130/230.  I'm taking a copy of everything I have sent them plus a copy of photos of me and my fiance together on our 3 visits to each other, some letters of support from our family and friends plus a snippet from the last 5 years of conversations we have had. We have over 125000 messages between us over that time so I can't print it all..

Also taking my passport and a large self addressed courier bag for them to return all my originals in when they have finished with them.   

I mean DS160/260

17 hours ago, ArshH said:

Hey congratulations on your visa approval. 
Actually we also have an upcoming interview. 
can you please tell us what documents did you include when you dropped them off 2 weeks prior 

And also what ques did they ask you?

Thanks in Advance 

If you read the Auckland Consulate reviews they often list the questions you will get. 

Also you shouldnt have to drop off any documents 2 weeks before.  They should have all gone in with your 130/230.  I'm taking a copy of everything I have sent them plus a copy of photos of me and my fiance together on our 3 visits to each other, some letters of support from our family and friends plus a snippet from the last 5 years of conversations we have had. We have over 125000 messages between us over that time so I can't print it all..

Also taking my passport and a large self addressed courier bag for them to return all my originals in when they have finished with them.   

If anyone else runs into the same issue, the official answer from the consulate was just to use the DS160 confirmation number and it worked. Once I did that it correctly referenced the DS160 in all other places. So it must have been a glitch or a generic reference that needs to be corrected but they don't care enough to correct it.

Also, I now have my appointment schedule completed, waiting for the Auckland Consulate to respond with a date.

28 minutes ago, MT84 said:

Update:  I emailed the Consulate and they very helpfully confirmed that the visa would be printed today (Wednesday) and would likely miss the NZ Post pickup and so would likely go out tomorrow (Thursday).  I was able to go to the Consulate and collect my passport.  The status in the Immigrant Visa tracker is now showing as “issued”.

Congrats

Hi everyone, long time reader, but not a long time member of the forum.

My fiance and I have a K-1 visa appliation and after a year of waiting, we have made it through to the stage where today I have recieved my notification that I am now eligible to schedule a visa interview appointment. YAY for us.

I log onto https://www.usvisascheduling.com and create an account and when I get to the visa options page, it gives me the option of Immigrant and non-immigrant as the visa type. When I select non-immigrant the post visa category does not have an option for a K visa, so instead I select immigrant as the visa type and I now have the option for a K visa. I select the K visa and the next screen asks for my DS confirmation number - but it asks for the DS 260 confirmation number.

The problem here is I filled out the DS 160 as a non-immigrant visa application because I understand that a K-1 visa is a non-immigrant visa application with the intent to become an immigrant and that a DS 260 is NOT to be used for K-1 visa applications.

So I am confused, I have 3 options but all of them seem wrong...
- Do I start the visa interview appointment application again, select non-immigrant and select a different type of post visa category? (K-1 visa is not an option I can select under non-immigrant)
- Do I enter my DS 160 confirmation number where it asks for the DS 260 confirmation number and hope for the best? (it says it cannot be modified after entry - which worries me that I might scrw up the process and rewind the process a year or more)
- Do I fill out a DS 260 and use that confirmation number? (I have read multiple threads on here that says a DS 260 is NOT for K-1 visa applicants)

I've included some screen grabs of the interview scheduling site (no personal details included) to hopefully help explain what I am seeing.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out.

\