Passed Interview in Minsk

[cjgator 2]

amber I left you out. I'm sorry. I want to personally thank everyone who wishes me well. I saw your post earlier, I just realized that I left your name out of the responses.

All the best to you.

Chris

wonderful news!!!

[sasha414 0]

i wish you all the best, congratulations

[Cuchita 1]

Congratz!!!!

[CJ Vasani 0]

many congrats my namesake...I am glad to be done with the horrors of USCIS as well...well, at least for now.

[cjgator 2]

CJ, good to hear from you again, brother. Yeah, just spoke with Natasha a couple of hours ago, she has the visa now. Next step, get her on a plane & get her over here.

Yeah, I need a break from USCIS & NVC for a while. Those clowns have caused me more stress & expense than my ex-wife.

Take it easy, man. Best of luck to you.

CJ-G

many congrats my namesake...I am glad to be done with the horrors of USCIS as well...well, at least for now.

[Monica&Isha 0]

congratulations cjgator! I hope you and your wife have a wonderful life together! Finally!

[cjgator 2]

Monica & Isha thank you. Best of luck to you two.

CJ

congratulations cjgator! I hope you and your wife have a wonderful life together! Finally!

[I Miss Her 0]

Natasha passed her interview 4 hours ago. She said it was very brief, officer was very nice. She'll get the visa tomorrow after 3 pm Minsk time.

I'll update the VJ timeline later, but for those of you keeping score:

Time from Marriage to Visa: 1 year, 4 days.

Time from I-130 NOA 1 to Visa: 341 days

Time from I-129F NOA 1 to Visa: 334 days

Time from I-130 NOA 2 to Visa: 72 days

Time from I-129F NOA 2 to Visa: 71 days

I'm very happy, but I offer NO thanks to the USCIS system that made this wait so long and the NVC staff who screwed up our package transfer to the embassy, adding an extra six weeks to the wait. YOUR SYSTEM IS BROKEN - HORRIBLY.

Kudos to the Consular staff at American Embassy Minsk. They were awesome, and they did their best to re-assure us and make up for NVC's f-ups.

God knows I hope the Obama administration does something to make this process work better.

And, for any of you who want to defend USCIS and leave a smarmy response about my hammering them (there are a few ususal suspects on here who typically do), I have a message: GO POUND SAND. I don't care what you think.

Finally: Lisa, Narnia, and all of my K3 friends who gave great advice and kept me quasi-sane through this completely insane process, you all deserve the majority of the credit for getting us to this point. For those of you who are finally with your spouses, I'm very happy for you, and for those who are still waiting, I hope it ends soon for you. You deserve it.

-CJ

Congratulations

[cjgator 2]

wow:

sasha, cuchita, I miss her:

Thank you all, lots of love to you, and best of luck!!

C

[aliska 0]

cjgator,

First I want to say C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S!!!!!!!!

I haven't been on visajourney that long, and I don't regularly post, but of course I've checked out the Belarus cases to get an idea of what I'd have to go through. Your case is particularly interesting to me because it's similar to ours (also, I'm from the Tampa Bay area too, originally).

I was really surprised when I read that your wife's K-3 interview took place in Minsk. From their website (and even from Warsaw's) it looks like it's still impossible to get an interview at all there. I really thought we'd have to go to Poland either way. That's why, when I completed the I-129F, I even entered Warsaw as the consulate we would be applying to. However -- I just called and got the NVC case number a couple of days ago and it begins with MSK, so I asked the operator if that meant it was sent to Minsk, and she said yes. I don't trust that answer, though, because she said it so quickly, as if she didn't really check. Next, I got the letter from NVC saying that it was sent to Minsk, but when I checked the DHL tracking website (using the date I was told it was sent and several days before and after that date just in case) I saw no packages at all to Minsk and 3 to Warsaw. Soooo, after seeing that you had a lot of trouble with NVC, I'm now getting worried. Of course we'd rather go to Minsk than Warsaw if possible.

Did you also get a letter saying that your case had been sent to Minsk? I'll call the Minsk embassy tomorrow and see if they have it.

Anyway, it was good to hear that the people at the Minsk embassy were nice, and again I'm very happy for you and Natasha!!!

--aliska