PedroDaGr8

7 hours ago, marislet said:

I called NVC and they gave me the case number and the Invoice number.  She said my case is being sent to London today.  I tried to put my case into the non-immigrant part of the website and it said invalid case.  When i tried immigrant, it said "Your case is in transit to the Consular Section. Your interview date was provided to you by the National Visa Center. "  what does that mean??    I thought my fiance sets up the interview date?  So confused.

Also, for some weird reason your case starts as an immigrant case before switching to non-immigrant status. In fact, that is one of the ways that you know your case is fully approved (such as after an RFE) is when your case switches from Immigrant to Non-immigrant and you get a new case date.

Google Duo - By far the best video call we have tried, better than Skybe, FB, WhatsApp, QQ, etc.

For Voice - WhatsApp, QQ, Line

For Text - QQ, WhatsApp, FB Messenger

16 hours ago, syndreamer said:

Update: 6 months later, still no word from AP on whether a final decision has been made. Email them every month asking for case update and they give me the same answer. Time to lawyer up.

Have you contacted your congressman? That seems to help quite a bit in certain cases where they are dragging their feet.

I have used TransferWise to transfer to Vietnam a few times on behalf of my wife when she didn't want to bring $1000s through customs (fear of tea money being required, you know the drill). It ended up being around a $15 fee for $1000 sent based on the current exchange rate and it gets there pretty fast for a wire transfer (often shows up in their account in a few days, more importantly at the exact number of VND they say).  There is also Transfast which is around a $9 fee for $1000, but we couldn't figure out how to send to my wife's families bank. 

For example, sending US$1000 to Vietnam:

Transferwise - Recipient gets: 22,396,514 VND

TransRapid - Recipient gets 22,545,000 VND

The previous G-325A was VERY VERY easy to fill in your address history for the past 5 years. The new I-485 is....well not. One, it asks not just month/year but also the date. Plus it only has two slots and then tells you to fill in the rest in section 14. Section 14 requests a page number, part number and section number for what isn't being filled in. For address history, there really isn't a section number for this part, so I guess you leave that blank. Secondly, there is just a blank paragraph of lines. No structure to enter, so you are left to figure out how to easily structure your entries. As of right now I am formatting in the following manner:

Previous Physical Addresses:
1000/100 Sukhumvit Rd. Bangkok,

Bangkok, Thailand (01/01/2015-12/31/2015)
 

1001/101 Sukhumvit Rd. Bangkok,

Bangkok, Thailand (01/01/2014-12/31/2014)

Any Better ideas? There is only a limited amount of space to fill things in.

Looks like the new AoS form mirrors what they did with the K1 forms, namely getting rid of the G-325A

Maybe this thread would help you:

On 6/14/2017 at 5:29 PM, Lvcomedian said:

Hello,

 

Thanks for your suggestions.  I will definitely check in to St.Louis hospital for the vaccinations.  By the way, how much did your girlfriend's medical examination cost at Bumrungrad? Also, did she have that done recently?  Thanks again!

Actually, I turns out I was a bit wrong. She just said Thai Red Cross instead of St. Louis, because St. Louis didn't know what to do with the form. So at Thai Red Cross, just show them the list from the US page and you will get to see a doctor. The doctor will tell you which one you can take and which one you need to take the blood test for. She said maximum for ALL of the vaccines and tests was a couple thousand baht. Much much cheaper than Bumrungrad, then just bring all the details of your vaccines and tests to Bumrungrad where they will sign off on it 

1 hour ago, sweets1234 said:

Hi! Just wondering is it ok to download Tax transcripts online from IRS page or they need to be ordered differently? And if it is ok just to download them from IRS, should we get Return Transcripts or other type? I heard that Schedules C, D, E or F should be included, I didn't see much of that in Return Transcripts, I saw that there is C and a little information on D schedule, but will the Return Transcripts be ok for self-employed? Thank you! 

The Return Transcripts which you get online are the exact same as the ones you would receive in the mail, just faster and easier to get. The Return Transcipt is supposed to contain everything you have filed with the IRS, so it should be good enough (it is what the IRS recommends for Immigration purposes).

On 6/13/2017 at 0:49 AM, Lvcomedian said:

Hello Everybody,

My fiance' and I will be submitting the K1 Visa Packet 3 this month to the Bangkok U.S. Embassy as soon as we receive the Thai Police Certificate; By the way, last month when my fiance' ordered the certificate, she was told that it will take 30 business days to receive it.  At any rate, we want to prepare in advance for the Packet 4 (the medical exam etc.) requirements so I'd like to know if anybody has had both the medical exam AND vaccinations at Bumrungrad Hospital and the total cost; The Packet 4 information shows that the medical exam cost at Bumrungrad Hospital is 6,300 baht, but immunizations could cost extra.   Also, has anyone had the vaccinations at another hospital to save costs, then had the medical exam at one of the approved hospitals as listed in Packet 4?   I've read some posts on Visajourney where people have mentioned going to Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute to get the vaccinations because the cost is quite reasonable.  Unfortunately, my fiance' doesn't have any vaccination records, but I definitely want her to get all of the required vaccinations in Bangkok so that she won't have to do it in the U.S.A. when we do the AOS (Adjustment of Status).  As you might imagine, vaccinations are much more expensive in the U.S.A.  Anyway, thanks in advance for any answers and insight that you can provide on this topic.

Yes, you can get the vaccinations done elsewhere to save a LOT of money. My fiancee went to St Louis I believe to have her vaccines done (I believe a titre test for a couple that you should have too much of also) and it saved her a good amount. Bumrungrad still found one that they wanted her to take anyways. Unless you want to wait a LONG time, she will only get the first round of shots in Thailand, as a few of the shots have several boosters to follow. So some shots in the USA will be a must.

9 minutes ago, luisarm1234 said:

I just have a question, my fiance and I got engage in Laos last month and we obtain an engagement paper and it got translated into English and got stamp. I just wanted to know if this was enough for USIC requirements of " The translator must sign a certification that the English language translation is complete and accurate, and that he or she is competent to translate from the foreign language into English" 

Thanks for the help!

Did they provide you with a document stating what USCIS requested? If it is only the stamp and the stamp doesn't say this then no it is not complete. 

On 5/30/2017 at 3:13 AM, Calvinf1 said:

No we are still in AP. We were told the BKK US Embassy had to send the documents except the Myanmar passport to the US embassy in Yangon for additional processing and its waiting on them for the determination  and send everything back. My fiance had to get her Myanmar passport back to do a visa run and send the passport back to the embassy. Now its just more waiting.

I'm glad you were able to get it back to do the run. The wait sucks, I hope that the embassy in Yangon hurries up for you.

7 hours ago, arken said:

While it's definitely frustrating when one's loved ones are denied a visa, based on what you described, it seems like the officers have legit concerns over your relationship. And please, don't just assume she will get visa easily after marriage. Don't repeat the similar mistakes of not knowing each others details. They expect one to know each n everything about the another even if we think those are not important.

i definitely agree with you to go for spousal visa route, but take this monthslong processing time to discuss each others all aspects (at a minimum everything about each others hobbies, families, addresses, work, education, likes/dislikes) so that in case those things are asked during the interview. People have even been asked how many times they had sex.

good luck.

Exactly this! My fiancee and I looked up a lot of the example questions and made sure that she knew the exact details for anything they could ask. We didn't want there to be an issue. In the end it didn't matter, but that is a whole different story. For a normal process, with a legit relationship you NEED to make sure that you do your homework and practice for anything that might be a gotcha. 

Q1: I would put N/A in the fields. It is seldom good to leave fields blank (blank = you forgot. N/A = means intentionally no answer)

Q2: Legal Alien Not Allowed To Work. You CANNOT work until you get the EAD, which if you want it quickly, you must file for when you file for Adjustment of Status. Otherwise, you must wait until the end of your Adjustment of Status and you receive your green card.

Q3: I would put N/A in the fields. It is seldom good to leave fields blank (blank = you forgot. N/A = means intentionally no answer)

Q4: Correct you say no.

Q5: Use the address your SS card will be mailed to. 

Not-having a local number will not be an issue with any of the processes, though it will make your day-to-day life much easier. 

On 5/12/2017 at 3:59 PM, Calvinf1 said:

Hi Pedro,

 

I have many question for you! What is you timeline from the point your fiance went to the interview to getting the visa?

 

My fiance is in similar situation as you, she is from Myanmar but works and lives in BKK. She works in a family flower business with her mom. 

 

I've been stuck in AP for over a month now. My fiance went for her interview on March 23. She got a 221g and they asked for a Thai police paper and my updated w2 (when I submitted my packet 3 I had not received my most updated w2). We hadn't obtain a Thai police but had a Myanmar police certificate. She also had to fill out additional paper on her family (for Myanmar nationals). No problem we can gwt this done fast. April 3 my fiance got the Thai police paper. I faxed her my w2 and she sent everything in. The post office confirmed delivery April 5th. Thinking we beat the Songkran holiday and hoping for good news after the holiday. Now on May 12 we are still stuck on AP. 

 

Her interview went really well and was told the additional documentation request are just formality. My fiance speaks perfect American English and answered everything they had asked. There are other applicants from that day that she befriended has already gotten their visa after they got the 221g that day. 

 

My dilemma is my fiance was in Thailand on a visitor visa that is about to expire. Shes been doing visa runs for several years now. The embassy is still holding her passport during AP. If we don't get the visa back soon then she will be paying 500 bht per day penalty. I would hate to ask for the passport back to further delay the process. But we dont get the passport then she can't extend her Thai visa and therefore become illegal in Thailand. 

 

I have emailed the embassy 2 times explaining the situation but only received canned response saying its still in AP and don't make travel arrangement. I guess no one cares at the embassy about peoples real life dilemma. I'm at a lost on what to do and my girl is going to be illegal soon. This is truly a nightmare. I know at this point there is nothing I can do and giving up is the only option. Don't want to put my fiance in danger with Thai laws. You are lucky you got everything so quickly. Makes me wonder what the eff are they doing or if they are still hungover from Songkran.

 

Hey Calvin,

Sorry for the delay, we were travelling down to Portland over the weekend. That really really sucks, is there a reason she didn't want to process it in Myanmar? 

Here is our timeline by date:

• March 30th - She was scheduled to have her interview, receives the 221G
• March 31-April 4 - Case is continuously touched until the 4th. We have a suspicion our case was approved at this point and they never contacted us (they didn't have her passport either)
• April 10th (10 days later) she emailed them to inquire on if there was any updates and anything she could do to move things forward
• April 10th (about 3h) - received their response saying we were approved. 
• April 10th - During her afternoon break she shipped out the passport, in an attempt to beat Songkran (which failed).
• April 11th - They received her passport according to the Post Office
• April 17th -She emailed to confirm they received it. They issued an evasive answer about Songkran backlog (they love evasive non-committal answers)
• April 21st - The case shows its first time of being touched, after receiving the passport, without us emailing them. We assume this is when they processed receiving her passport.
• April 24th Evening - The case changes from Immigrant Visa to Non-Immigrant Visa and a new case created date is given
• April 25th morning (less than 12h later) - Case flies through Ready --> Administrative Processing --> Issued. We were surprised how fast we went from basically "Immigrant - Ready" to "Non-immigrant - Approved"
• April 26th - She receives her passport in the mail. No email with tracking info or anything was sent out. She just checked her mailbox and boom it was there.
• April 29th - She travels back to Vietnam to visit with family and friends.
• May 2nd - She arrives in the USA, without issue. 

Now, why are you emailing the embassy? This case is technically between her and the embassy, you are only tangentially involved at best. Which is why they won't even let you back in the interview area with her, even if you wanted to be. Your portion was taken care of here in the states with USCIS beforce it was transferred to the NVC. Did they touch your case when you emailed them? If not, then they weren't even looking at the info and were just giving you a generic answer since you aren't the principle party. She should be the one emailing them. Have her email the visabkkiv@state.gov (not sure which one you emailed) and include the case ID, which has the format BKK2016XXXXXX, in the subject line. They typically respond within 24h (often as fast as a few hours) and every time my fiancee emailed them, they touched her case, which means they actually looked at her details to give an answer.

Let me know if you have any other question.

Hope that this helps some. Cheers and Good Luck!

From my experience, they will not just take your word. For my fiancee, if she couldn't prove it via documentation (or by titre testing) then she was considered as not having it. She went ahead and found the most affordable place to get her vaccinations, then brought those doctors notes to the medical exam. The civil surgeon signed off as her having been already vaccinated for those. There was a disagreement on one of her vaccines about if it was acceptable or not (an older one she had documentation for) so she went ahead and got that one at the civil surgeon's office. 

4 minutes ago, dmatosin said:

K1/K2 Visa in Guangzhou China. Today is April 28th. We received NOA2 on March 7th, March 22 NVC sent paperwork to Guanzhou, China. On the CEAC site it says Ready with April 3rd being the Last Update. I assume this means that on April 3rd they received our paperwork at the China Consulate. 

 

We check the status every day on the CEAC and it continually says ready. I read that many people in China on the timeline had their packet 3 within a week. But ours has been a month now. 

 

Should we just wait for the Packet 3?  The NOA2 form says it expires on July 5th. Any help or guidance would be appreciated. 

 

Email them, we had a similar issue with the embassy in BKK. Literally the day after we emailed them things started moving forward.

3 hours ago, Donelson said:

Thank you so much pedroDaGr8 and what if the person diagnosed HIV+ does it really means the person also positive with TB? I'm sorry if I'm asking too much just to clarify everything about this situation, he has gone on for his interview and his passport still remains with the consular until the test results is out.

A positive HIV test does not guarantee they will test positive for TB, only having TB will give a positive test result. Now certainly being HIV+ will make it easier for you to catch TB, but it isn't a guarantee that you will catch it.

If the sputum test is positive, they will need to undergo treatment until they are 100% clear.  Latent or active doesn't matter, they have to be TB negative, a latent infection is still an infection (and one that could become active at any time).  It took my fiancee's friend around 6 mo to complete the treatment IIRC.

On 4/21/2017 at 1:13 PM, BigRedCat said:

I've been looking thru old threads trying to figure this question out but I'm not too sure yet. I was hoping someone can help? 

 

My fiance is currently in Moscow and we are waiting for NOA2 - so it looks like we might have our interview in maybe July. I want to bring her to the US to visit until its time for the K1 interview at which time we will both return to Moscow. Would it be possible for her to apply for B1 tourist visa? She doesn't currently work (lives with her mom) since I support her so I'm concerned that could be an issue with the B1 interview. From my research I know the embassy wants to make sure she will return to Russia - so what is the best way to approach this? Show our I-129F paperwork to show we want her to legally immigrate or not say anything at all about the fiance visa? 

 

Any help would be appreciated as I want to do this asap (I understand there is a 52 day wait for embassy appointment and I want to fly her to the US as soon as I can if possible)

 

Thanks! 

You should have made sure she had a B visa before filing for K1. My fiancee had a B-visa previously and we made sure to renew it before we filed for the K1. The issue is that by filing the K1, you are declaring that she wants to eventually live with you in the USA. The B-visa requires that you have ZERO intentions to stay in the USA and this must be demonstrably so. It must be actively evident that she won't stay here for good when she visits. While they are NOT mutually exclusive, your case is a prime example that they are not mutually exclusive, they are very very closely related. The hard part is being able to demonstrate that she you two are NOT trying to do an end run around the system, bring her here on a B visa, get married and file for AoS. On top of that, she has to demonstrate that she is not a risk for staying in the USA for any other reasons as well. Quite simply, you just stacked the deck against you in about the WORST way possible

We were finally approved by the BKK Embassy after a rather crazy right. Were very surprised to go from Immigrant Visa - Ready for interview through the various steps to issued in 12h, followed by receiving the passport back within 24h after that. 

Your fiancee's income CANNOT be considered in any way as he does not have a job here. Your father MIGHT be able so sponsor you (depends on the household size, meaning is he married, any other kids besides you, etc.) but not all embassies accept sponsorships IIRC. 

2 hours ago, Ben&Zian said:

 

Hah! I have heard and seen some easy interviews done on here like 3-4 minutes but not to even have one.

 

Well despite all the chaos glad to see it is done with and congrats on managing to keep your sanity during all the randomness.

Thanks and yeah we were both surprised. We actually believed that the email was in error, that maybe the mistyped the number or something. We didn't fully believe it until everything started updating, then boom it is all done. We had just never seen a approval without an interview and one where they approved it without them having the passport in hand. I mainly typed this up so that if someone else does a google search for a similar topic and finds this, they can see the results. 

Figured this would be of some use for the random person that experiences this. 

First off, if you are going through this process, prepare your documents WAY in advance. The police report in Vietnam took a LONG time (5 weeks), unless you wanted to give a US$1k bribe, the Thai documents took around 2-3 weeks (bribe was impossible). To avoid a lot of the following stuff that we had to go through, get your documents validated by the Vietnamese Embassy. 

11 hours ago, soprano82 said:

Hello all,

 

I am planning on submitting my K1 application for my fiancee tomorrow, but I wanted to see if anyone could confirm if there needs to be any documents indicating that both of us haven't been married before to fulfill the requirement that proof of prior marriages have been terminated? From everything I have read, I don't think that is necessary and I am not sure how I would even obtain such a document. However, I wanted to double check before sending off my petition. Lastly, I wanted to see if there are people to sign for the petition at the lockbox if I send the petition via USPS with signature required? Any assistance or advice on this matter is very much appreciated and thank you in advance.

At this stage no, depending on the country for the consular interview your fiancee might. I know that in Thailand and Vietnam, they request a certificate of eligibility to marry as part of the evidence for the interview, but I don't know if any countries in Europe require similar.