NOA1 Does it matter?

[mdlyons 0]

We filed my i 130 on 4th May, and my card was charged on 6th May, but we are yet to receive a NOA1 of any description. Should we worry if we don't receive one? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

We have taken comfort that the card was charge so clearly they received it, but seems a bit strange not to receive anything, as from looking at other peoples timelines they get them within a week.

[wbeem 568]

It does matter because you need a receipt/case number so that you can track your case. Did you get a notification with a case number?

[mdlyons 0]

It does matter because you need a receipt/case number so that you can track your case. Did you get a notification with a case number?

No, we have so far received nothing neither by email or in the post, it has been two weeks since my card was debited. I thought I only needed to track the case once the petition had been approved (at NOA2)?

[JFH 12,191]

Did you send a G1145 for email notification? We never received the hard copy NOA1 despite their claim that they sent it twice. But we did get the email and can track the case online.

[mdlyons 0]

Did you send a G1145 for email notification? We never received the hard copy NOA1 despite their claim that they sent it twice. But we did get the email and can track the case online.

No as yet, nothing!! and we did send the G1145. How long did it take you to receive the NOA1?

[JFH 12,191]

No as yet, nothing!! and we did send the G1145. How long did it take you to receive the NOA1?

Package was received in Phoenix on February 8 and we got the email on Feb 11.

Maybe it's gone to Potomac? For some reason it's taking ages for emails to come through for Potomac cases.

Oh, are you doing DCF? We are filing through Phoenix so it's different.

[mdlyons 0]

Still no sign of a NOA1, although the card was charged on 6th May so the London embassy definitely received the application! I think we will give them a call next week as it will have been a month and the embassy website says don't contact them unless it has been at least a month.

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

Still no sign of a NOA1, although the card was charged on 6th May so the London embassy definitely received the application! I think we will give them a call next week as it will have been a month and the embassy website says don't contact them unless it has been at least a month.

If you filed at the USCIS office in London, all the NOA and email talk does not apply to you. That's when people apply via the Chicago lockbox. You will get notification when they approve the petition. Also the USCIS field office is not the embassy. They just have offices in the embassy building. So if you contact the visa section, they have no clue what USCIS is doing and can't tell you if your petition was received. It obviously was or you wouldn't have been charged.

To avoid future confusion, you could fix your profile to say IR1/CR1 (DCF). That's one of the options to pick from.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Nich-Nick

[willwright 0]

Still no sign of a NOA1, although the card was charged on 6th May so the London embassy definitely received the application! I think we will give them a call next week as it will have been a month and the embassy website says don't contact them unless it has been at least a month.

Hi mdlyons,

We are in the process of doing our CR-1 visa via DCF through London and had the same issue when we sent our I-130. We sent our I-130 to the London embassy on 7 Jan January and it was approved (NOA 1) on 23rd Feb. We waited and waited for the case number so we could book our medical and never heard anything or received a letter. We emailed the embassy on 6th April using the contact form on their site when it had been 6 weeks and 1 day and asked for the status. We received an email back on 7th April stating:-

"Embassy records show that on April 4 the Immigrant Visa Unit sent you a letter notifying you that they are ready to begin processing your application. If you have not received the letter, you need not be concerned. the forms can be found on our website at https://uk.embassy.gov/visas/family-immigration/how-to-apply-2/

Your case number is LNDXXXXXXXXXX."

We contacted them a week later (by replying to the email rather than using the contact form) asking for them to resend the letter as we never received the NOA 2 letter with our case number and the instructions say you need it for the medical. They responded again the same day stating:-

"We are unable to provide you with a new letter and you are required to provide your immigrant visa case number at the time of your medical examination. We recommend that you carry a copy of this email to exchange to show to the medical staff, should they have any further queries."

My wife's medical was on 6th May and we just took the email down with us but they never asked to see a copy of the letter, nor did we show them the email we received with the case number.

Basically the only physical letter we have had from the embassy to date is the NOA 1 and I don't think we will get any more due to the new online system for booking your interview.

While I'm at it, we have run in to a couple other issues which seems to have slowed things down... as I mentioned above, as of 3rd May you are supposed to book your own interview date using the site linked in the embassy's section of the immigrant visa process for Applyng for the Visa (https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/family-immigration/how-to-apply-2/). When we got home from the medical on 6th May, we submitted the Notification of Applicant Readiness (had already done DS-260) and then went to the Visa Appointment Service website (https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-gb/iv) and tried to schedule my wife's interview but kept getting an error message saying that her case was not ready for interview. We thought it was maybe to do with needing to give time for the Notice of Applicant Readiness to "work its way through the system" so left it to try a few days later. We tried the following week and had the same issue. We checked our case number with the NVC status check site and that said we were "Ready" so I emailed the help email address that came up on the interview scheduling site when it said her case wasn't ready. Long story short, despite multiple emails and calls, it was only last Friday (27th May) that they finally resolved the issue and we were able to schedule my wife's interview for late July (little later than we want but best option we had to fit vacation plans and allow the passport time to get back to us after the interview).

So... I guess the point of telling you all of the above is that the new system seems to be having a few teething issues. Hopefully you won't encounter these and we were just unlucky but it took me several emails and phone calls to the Visa Appointment Service's helpline to get things escalated to the point someone did something about it! According to the NVC (who we also called!) they have had a few calls about this and it is a technical issue with the Visa Appointment Service's website that their technical team needs to rectify as and when it occurs. I have seen others have no problem with using the site so hopefully we were one of the unlucky few!

Anyway, that's enough typing on an iPad for one day (sorry for any typos)! Hope the above helps and good luck with the rest of your visa process. Happy to answer questions on the above if anything isn't clear!

[willwright 0]

Realise in my haste I made a couple typos in the above post, sorry. Corrections as follows:-

- Where I said we received NOA 1 on 23rd Feb that should actually be NOA 2 (i.e. Petition approved)

- Where I said we emailed asking them to resend our NOA 2 letter than should actually be Packet 3

- Where I said the only physical where I said the only physical letter we have received is NOA 1 that should actually be NOA 2.

Apologies for any confusion! Such a convoluted process!

[mdlyons 0]

Realise in my haste I made a couple typos in the above post, sorry. Corrections as follows:-

- Where I said we received NOA 1 on 23rd Feb that should actually be NOA 2 (i.e. Petition approved)

- Where I said we emailed asking them to resend our NOA 2 letter than should actually be Packet 3

- Where I said the only physical where I said the only physical letter we have received is NOA 1 that should actually be NOA 2.

Apologies for any confusion! Such a convoluted process!

Thank you for that, very interesting and certainly give us a few things to look out for in the process. It does seem that they are inconsistent as if I understood you correctly you did not receive a NOA1 (email or letter) either, whereas others seem to have.

I am taking comfort from the fact the they have taken payment, and I am watching the embassy updates every Friday to see which dates they are processing. This week it only move forward by a day We are not actually in a rush to be honest as we don't plan on moving until the end of this year at the earliest, but that still does not stop me wanting it to go quicker.

Best of luck with all the other preparations!

[willwright 0]

I did get an email with my NOA 1 actually, but no physical letter for NOA 1, just a physical letter for NOA 2. Agree things are a little inconsistent though which makes the process even more frustrating.

We did the same thing and just watched the embassy website for what dates they had processed up to. I understand your frustration too as it feels like we have hit a couple bumps that has slowed our application down that others haven't. Most seem to get through the process in about 3-5 months through DCF but we look like we will be about 6 months when it's all done. I think the time to process the I-130 and issue with scheduling out interview lost us about 6-8 weeks though so hopefully if you can avoid one or both of those issues you'll be done in the 3-5 months most seem to take.

Sounds like you have plenty of time on your side so I'm sure you'll be fine. Good luck!