tinypyramids

holy ####### marm, i was hoping it would work out for you soon and you wouldn't have to deal with your fiance's student visa expiring! as difficult as the wait has been for me, (though it's not much longer...sarah arrives tomorrow!) i can't even imagine the insane stress you two went through. congrats and best wishes on your happy life together.

We're in the final stages of getting Sarah moved over here, as she now has her plane ticket booked! Exciting! Of course now we're in a bit of a panic stage as there's a few things we still need to figure out, the main one being how to transfer money from her Lloyds account to one that she opens stateside. It's not so much how to do it as how to do it cheaply, because I think Lloyd's charges 2% plus some flat fee to do the wire transfer, and I imagine some banks over here would charge additional fees on top of it. Obviously there's no way I'd want her carrying that much cash over the border, so that's out anyway. How have you all handled transferring money from the UK to the USA?

Well, just a hair over 7 months from posting the forms and a year of being long distance, Sarah's visa was delivered to her yesterday via courier! She'll be here for good 12 days from today! Thanks to everyone for the help and support in answering all my questions, it was much appreciated, and good luck to those who don't have their approvals or visas yet. The wait is hard as hell but just be sure to keep the reason you're doing it in the front of your mind, and you'll realize it will all be worth it in the end.

Sarah had her interview on the same day and also received a courier text today!

The nightmare is finally coming to an end

Good! I'm so glad!

When is Sarah planning to fly?

We won't know for absolute certain until she actually books the flight tomorrow, but sometime during the week of November 9th is most likely.

Sarah had her interview on the same day and also received a courier text today!

The nightmare is finally coming to an end

Congrats to Ian and Lisa!

Sarah just called me moments ago. Despite having a 9am appointment, they didn't actually call her up until about 2pm! On the other hand, we're approved!

Oh god Sarah's interview is TOMORROW.

It feels so bizarre to know that in about 6 hours, Sarah will be off on the coach to London and that I can't be there to support her We know that the UK interviews are usually a walk in the park (her J-1 certainly was) but it's hard to not be incredibly nervous given that this is probably the most important interview in our lives to date.

So it looks like we're nearly done gathering all the forms and such together for the interview, and I wanted to post this final list to see if everything is in order.

1) Copy of Sarah's medical and recipt

2) Original interview letter

3) Supplemental information about Sarah's old J-1 including the DS2019, as well as an old green card she had until she was 11 through her parents

4) Passport, Illinois state ID (from the J-1), social security card, extra passport photos, long form birth and adoption certificates, UK police certificate

5) Support information: My I-134, a letter from my employer, 2007 and 2008 tax returns (as I've only been actively working for a couple years), and a bank statement to support the I-134

6) Evidence of relationship - skype call logs, facebook messages, photos, boarding passes from my trips to the UK, some cards that Sarah sent me, etc.

7) Additional information about the time Sarah spent on her J-1, including a lease, paystubs, and her 2008 US tax return.

Am I missing anything glaring? Reading most of the interview experiences it seems to basically be handing in the passport and I-134 and that's it, but I feel it's best to overprepare rather than underprepare.

I was under the impression that you don't need police certificates from the USA. I think they do those checks as part of the petition approval but I'm not 100% sure.

Also, on a side note, Sarah got her interview letter in the post today which confirms the date that DoS told us last week. Interestingly, she also got a letter from the embassy requesting that she bring info on her past J-1 to the interview. Weird because she did the J-1 through London as well, you'd think that they could just pull that up on the computer. Anyway, all she needs really is to fill out some form and to bring in her visa form that says that she's not subject to the two year rule. Hope this won't land her in AP

You don't need police certificates from the USA.

Did Sarah overstay her J-1? If she never had any problems immigration-wise with her J-1, then it should be no problem at the interview. They do see all the information on their systems, maybe they just want to ask her a few questions about it which is no big deal. Hopefully she won't be put in AP, don't stress!

She did not overstay her J-1, I think they're just trying to make sure she isn't subject to the 2-year foreign residency rule. Her passport alone should prove that she didn't overstay even one day beyond the grace period.

Hi Everyone, I have a question and I can't seem to find the right answer. According to the instructions on the police certificate it says that you need a certificate from every country that you have lived in for more than 12 months. Therefore I need a police check for the 3 years I lived in the US. I researched the topic on VJ and people are saying that you don't need one for the US because they do their own background check on you but it was in reply to a 6 month stay here. I'm currently here til Saturday on vacation and really need to get it sorted before I leave.

Has anyone else had this problem, if so I would be really greatful if you can point in the right direction.

thanks

Amanda

I was under the impression that you don't need police certificates from the USA. I think they do those checks as part of the petition approval but I'm not 100% sure.

Also, on a side note, Sarah got her interview letter in the post today which confirms the date that DoS told us last week. Interestingly, she also got a letter from the embassy requesting that she bring info on her past J-1 to the interview. Weird because she did the J-1 through London as well, you'd think that they could just pull that up on the computer. Anyway, all she needs really is to fill out some form and to bring in her visa form that says that she's not subject to the two year rule. Hope this won't land her in AP

Sarah is adopted but she wound up getting a copy of her real birth certificate...and it's been a bit bizarre for her to find out her bio parents' names. Not sure what's going to happen on that front, as I'm leaving it entirely up to her to figure out if she wants to contact her bio dad or not.

At long last, Sarah has her interview date in London. October 21st Funny thing is, it's exactly one year to the day of when she had to go back to the UK after her J1 expired.

called DOS as soon as i woke up and found out that ellie's interview is on october 22 at 10am

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Hi guys, how long did it take for you guys to get your interviews after sending packet 3 by the way?

allison.

Sarah sent her's in in late August and we just got issued an interview today (called up the state department and found out) so it was a little over a month.

On that note, Sarah's interview is October 21st for those keeping track.

Finally an update. Sarah's interview is scheduled in London on October 21st at 9am! Found out in a state department call. The end is finally in sight!

Another day, another DoS call, another "no interview date scheduled" status

My friend, its only been since the beginning of the month like me.....i'm gonna give the guys in London till probably the 20th THEN we start phoning the DOS and i'm sure we'll have more progress then. And those folks who need to see if London's received the info, call the NVC and see when they sent it off. There is instructions on how to do the tracking on VJ just look. Also book the medical as soon as you get your CASE NUMBER which the NVC sends you that paper saying its sent you to the embassy, its on there....good luck

Big difference is that you sent in your packet 3 at the end of september. Sarah sent hers at the end of August, London says they received it on September 3rd. You can see why I'm a little anxious.

Another day, another DoS call, another "no interview date scheduled" status

Sarah called the rip-off line today and they said "6-8 weeks until you get an interview letter" and then hung up. That would scare the hell out of me if I didn't see you all getting your interview notifications in much quicker time than that.

Called DoS today and it seems that London finally acknowledged that they received packet 3 on September 3rd (glad it didn't get lost in the post!) but no interview has yet been scheduled. I've told Sarah to call the rip off line tomorrow to see if she can get an update as that will be 28 days since they received it.

do you have the DOS number? and would it be worth me calling them???

Did you send the forms and checklist special delivery? if so, this means it must be signed for and you can check with your receipt number.

X

The number for DOS is 202-663-1225. When the automated voice comes up, push 1, then 0 (the menu is INCREDIBLY long unless you know the shortcut). If you already called the rip off embassy line I don't think DOS will have any more information for you.

I talked to Sarah and it looks like she did send the forms special delivery, but she didn't know that you could track special delivery shipments online. I'm not sure if she knows where the recipt is, unfortunately

Called the state department again, still no interview date for Sarah For those of you who called DOS after you sent back packet 3, did they say that the embassy received packet 3 from you? They said that they sent packet 3 on August 11th, but no status updates since then. We sent in the packet 3 forms about 2 weeks later via overnight. Do you think it's time to call the embassy's extortion line?

What is the DOS? and should i call them??

I returned all the forms needed for package 3 and the checklist, had my medicals too and it has now been 4 weeks since. I have called the 1.20per minute phone line on several occasions and everytime they say it takes the embassy 4 weeks to update anything. I wanted to make sure they even got my forms and checklist but they say they cant advise me of that!

Any advise from anyone would be fantastic. This last stretch is really fustrating and making me sad!

X

Department of State. It sounds like from what you said that the embassy won't update anything until after they issue an interview date, which means that it's still fairly likely that the embassy is still sitting on Sarah's forms, which is good news in that things are probably still progressing, but bad news in that I have no idea if the posties just flat out lost her forms or something

Called the state department again, still no interview date for Sarah For those of you who called DOS after you sent back packet 3, did they say that the embassy received packet 3 from you? They said that they sent packet 3 on August 11th, but no status updates since then. We sent in the packet 3 forms about 2 weeks later via overnight. Do you think it's time to call the embassy's extortion line?

Just called the state department and Sarah still hasn't been scheduled for an interview yet. We're not at the point of worry yet because we sent in her forms on 8/26 and it's only been 23 days so far. Still quite anxious though.

Sarah had her medical today, and despite having to get one more jab than she thought she would (I think an extra MMR in addition to the HPV (which we knew about), she's not sure), it all seemed to go pretty well. I've posted her the remainder of the paperwork on my side (the affidavit of support plus some additional relationship evidence) so once she gets that, all we have to do is sit back and wait for her interview. We're quite nervous...considering that the posties seem to have lost her packet 3. You can bet I'll be calling the state department at least once a week.

Vik got a text so he called the courier service that said that they are going to deliver something to him tomorrow... his passport with visa- maybe?!? The DOS and the London Embassy had no information to share... except that the embassy said that his file was being forwarded the NVC .... any ideas? Could it be that he is getting his visa so soon?

Sounds like you're getting the passport back with the visa in tow. No idea why they mentioned the NVC, but I can almost guarantee that it's the visa.