interview waiting time...

[relshamy 11]

Hello everyone,

My fiance and I got approved for an NOA2 on Dec. 10th. We are now working towards the interview. My fiance is from Egypt and will be dealing with the American embassy over there. Does anyone know how long we usually have to wait to get an interview scheduled? I am just worried because he has a pharmacy exam to take in mid April in the USA. That exam is only offered twice a year. Does anyone know if I can expedite the interview date? Anyone here had experience with the Egyptian embassy? thanks guys

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Sorry to have to say this but I would not count on him making the pharmacy exam until he has the visa in hand and is actually here. There is pretty much no way to expedite the process unless you're already married and having a health crisis. Pregnancy won't do it. His circumstance in his country won't do it. Unless there is a civil war then he'd probably file under a completely different visa process for refugee if it came to that.

Anyways

From this point your petition goes onto the NVC and processing can take anywhere from a week to four months because it goes to the Embassy level. At the Embassy level they'll get to it when they get to it. Our processing at the NVC level took a month and at the Embassy level it took several years but we were delayed for extenuating circumstances.

Also consider that Egypt is in a period of unrest right now and the US Embassy in Cairo has had to close down several times since the start of the revolution because of their proximity to downtown and Tahrir Square. They've also come under attack and the walls were breached when an anti-Islam Youtube video was posted online and the Egyptian Media started circulating it causing genuinely massive anti-Western protests. That has passed but now the protests and mass demonstrations are about the new President Morsi and his grab for power and his push for the constitutional referendum among the unrest. So the security situation for the US Embassy in Cairo is still fluid. It's operating most days but some days it shuts down or offers limited services. I suspect that you probably know all this if you're marrying someone from Egypt though.

Here is the US Embassy in Cairo's website. Link Check it daily and it will have the Emergency messages for US Citizens and emergency updates about their operations.

There is also links to their facebook page and youtube which you should also link yourself to. They also have a Twitter page and they update their social media faster than they do their website but they keep it pretty updated.

Once he gets to the interview stage at the Embassy level, which could be anytime in the next several months, it's typical for a male from a MENA country to have Administrative Processing and Administrative Review (AP/AR) The current average for the US Embassy in Cairo is 6 months. We call it the blackhole that is known as AP/AR. Where one is stuck in the darkness for an indefinite period of time, not being given any information about your visa status, except generic messages, and you're forced to wait it out. Some people's AP/AR has taken a period of 2 weeks, and this is rare, while others have taken several years and that's including on the K1. Part of it we suspect is because the Embassy wants to test the resolve of the couple wanting to be together. The other part of it is background checks and name checks. If their name comes up in any sort of database and is similar to another person's name they have to look into it and this can tie a person up for several months. This is the known part about what they're doing. One can guess at the many unknown things they're looking into. Another part of it can also be home visits. Where someone comes to the place where he lives and asks about him. They may talk with the family about their knowledge of the marriage, or with friends, neighbors and employers for information. In some cases there has been more than one home visit that has occurred during a period of waiting several months for the visa in hand.

So a lot goes on between the issue of the NOA 2 and the visa in hand and from the point you're at the average wait for those going through the US Embassy in Cairo is around 9 months, but I'd say it's going to be longer with everything going on there currently.

Edited December 16, 2012 by Dr. A ♥ O

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Under the Egypt Portal on VJ you'll see someone recently posted a thread about AP in Cairo. One response to that posted a list of cases with AP timelines for the last year. LINK I can't verify how accurate that is or if they've been making it themselves. You might PM them and ask. From their information it seems much quicker on average now than what I have provided. I didn't do the math however.

Otherwise I use the search function for timelines stats on VJ that is provided by those who willingly update their timeline information. This information is only provided by those who use it on VJ and does not include all the immigration cases going through the process, so it's just a sample.

Timelines for the K1's - Egypt for the last year, Link.

You can look at processing times for K1 petitions at the various stages where the beneficiary is from Egypt.