Scandinavians Part 2

[ImpatientNija 0]

Finally got my interview, yay! Anyone here knows how long it takes the embassy to return passport to Danish citizens via mail after the interview?

[dmeister3 92]

3 minutes ago, ImpatientNija said:

Finally got my interview, yay! Anyone here knows how long it takes the embassy to return passport to Danish citizens via mail after the interview?

Hey congrats! Our package returned to Jylland exactly 7 days after the interview!

[ImpatientNija 0]

35 minutes ago, dmeister3 said:

Hey congrats! Our package returned to Jylland exactly 7 days after the interview!

Thank you, awesome! Nice to hear they are fast.

[NewEnglandDreamer 1]

Amazing! My first post here and just got DQ'd last week for CR-1 and pending the interview time in Stockholm. 

ImpatientNija, so if I understood right you got DQ'd in March and received your interview time now, correct? When did you receive the interview time and what is the date for your interview? I'm just trying to paint a picture for me and my wife about the possible timeline. So you got your interview date about 7 months after being DQ'd so by using that similar timeframe we could expect something around maybe in May. But then the second question is, if for argument sake we get a an interview date in May, when would that interview realistically be? In June? July? Appreciate if you can provide some first hand knowledge on how far in the future do they schedule one. Just really praying that I could move to the US by next August the latest but I know it can be a bit of stretch. 

[Mlyck 0]

My visa got temporarily denied because they said they hadn't received the results from the medical exam yet.... (over a week after attending the medical exam)

I attended the medical exam in Copenhagen Denmark at the "medical office" 14 days ago now. They said they sent the results to the US Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden 13 days ago.

I attended my K1 visa interview in Stockholm Sweden 7 days ago and everything went smoothly except they didn't have my medical results which was very frustrating.

I tried contacting the medical office in Copenhagen and they have so far refused to give me any information on this letter, no tracking number, no delivery status, they won't even tell me what postal service they used. So I have really no way of knowing if the letter has arrived, or is stuck or is lost...

The Embassy told me at the interview that once they receive the medical exam results they will approve my visa and ship it back to me next day... (they kept my passport there to put the visa in)

Has this happened to anyone else? Anyone know how long I should expect to wait for them to receive a letter just 500km away? From Copenhagen to Stockholm?

 

I'm very confused that the medical office is acting like this is totally normal it's taking this long and refusing to tell me anything, except they did confirm that my medical was all good... (so it's not delayed because of a medical problem)

Edited November 3, 2021 by Mlyck

[Scandi 4,173]

10 minutes ago, Mlyck said:

My visa got temporarily denied because they said they hadn't received the results from the medical exam yet.... (over a week after attending the medical exam)

I attended the medical exam in Copenhagen Denmark at the "medical office" 14 days ago now. They said they sent the results to the US Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden 13 days ago.

I attended my K1 visa interview in Stockholm Sweden 7 days ago and everything went smoothly except they didn't have my medical results which was very frustrating.

I tried contacting the medical office in Copenhagen and they have so far refused to give me any information on this letter, no tracking number, no delivery status, they won't even tell me what postal service they used. So I have really no way of knowing if the letter has arrived, or is stuck or is lost...

The Embassy told me at the interview that once they receive the medical exam results they will approve my visa and ship it back to me next day... (they kept my passport there to put the visa in)

Has this happened to anyone else? Anyone know how long I should expect to wait for them to receive a letter just 500km away? From Copenhagen to Stockholm?

 

I'm very confused that the medical office is acting like this is totally normal it's taking this long and refusing to tell me anything, except they did confirm that my medical was all good... (so it's not delayed because of a medical problem)

Calm down, within Sweden it takes ~2 weeks for the medical results to reach the embassy (that includes all the tests that needs to be done before the results can even be printed on paper), and you had yours in Denmark so it might take even longer. So if you only had 1 week in between medical and interview, then it's obvious they wouldn't have the results yet by the time of your interview. 

 

They will update your status once they receive your medical results, sit back and relax. 

 

I had my medical on Aug 18, 2016. My interview was on Aug 22 so obviously they hadn't received my medical when I went for my interview. 

The embassy received my medical results on Sept 1, that was on the day exactly 2 weeks after I had my medical done. Then my status changed to issued on Sept 6. 

 

Your case is perfectly normal, there is no delay.

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Scandi

[tunuki 0]

Its honestly crazy how many non-immigrant visas have been issued in September and August compared to (excluding DV) like 35 immigrant visas (which I am guessing is like 15 cases) in August and September . I thought only immigrant visas were being issued in those time frames? How can so few interviews be scheduled in two months?

Edited November 4, 2021 by tunuki

[bcrew13 3]

My wife just had her interview today, but the officer didn't give her any information after she left. She had her medical exam in Copenhagen as well about 9 days before her interview, but they didn't mention anything about not receiving it. I was curious, they didn't say what the next steps were, is there any way to track your status? We're not sure if they will email us the results, or if you just wait for the letter to come in the mail with your passport?

[Mlyck 0]

4 hours ago, bcrew13 said:

My wife just had her interview today, but the officer didn't give her any information after she left. She had her medical exam in Copenhagen as well about 9 days before her interview, but they didn't mention anything about not receiving it. I was curious, they didn't say what the next steps were, is there any way to track your status? We're not sure if they will email us the results, or if you just wait for the letter to come in the mail with your passport?

After waiting 14 days from my medical exam date I emailed the embassy and they told me that they had received my medical exam results on October 29th (the day after my interview 🤦‍♂️)

and that my visa was approved on November 3rd.

 

It's now November 4th, and they have yet to ship my visa in the mail.

But for me it took 10 days from my medical appointment in Copenhagen until they received it, and 4 more days for the embassy to process it. And so far 2 days counting for them to post it back to me.

[Scandi 4,173]

6 hours ago, bcrew13 said:

My wife just had her interview today, but the officer didn't give her any information after she left. She had her medical exam in Copenhagen as well about 9 days before her interview, but they didn't mention anything about not receiving it. I was curious, they didn't say what the next steps were, is there any way to track your status? We're not sure if they will email us the results, or if you just wait for the letter to come in the mail with your passport?

You track your status on ceac. https://ceac.state.gov/CEACStatTracker/Status.aspx

 

The visa is not approved until the status changes to "issued".

Edited November 4, 2021 by Scandi

[dmeister3 92]

Hi all Fiancé made it to the states with darn near 0 issues. He came in on the 2nd at JFK and the initial officer had to bust out his notebook because he hadn't seen a K1 visa in so long, he was pulled into secondary for a super short ~60 second interview and was sent on his way. 😆

[tunuki 0]

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/visa-services-operating-status-update.html

All prioritization tiers have now been rescinded and left to the embassy to decide. 

Edited November 22, 2021 by tunuki

[Saana 4]

Hi guys! We were DQ'd on 6th October and just received an interview appointment last Friday for 9th December at the embassy in Helsinki. 🥳

I just got back from my husband's parents' place in India last night and now I'm going for my medical exam in Eira tomorrow. 😅 Managed to get my vaccination history from a local health clinic today. Additionally, I'm going to bring my childhood vaccination card (neuvolakortti) if my mum can find it tonight and I also have my medical records from when I lived in the UK which have some booster shots and travel vaccinations as well - hope this is enough.

Starting to feel a bit nervous, and optimistic that this might finally be happening. If all goes well, I'll be moving to the SF Bay Area after New Year. 🤞

[NewEnglandDreamer 1]

45 minutes ago, Saana said:

Hi guys! We were DQ'd on 6th October and just received an interview appointment last Friday for 9th December at the embassy in Helsinki. 🥳

I just got back from my husband's parents' place in India last night and now I'm going for my medical exam in Eira tomorrow. 😅 Managed to get my vaccination history from a local health clinic today. Additionally, I'm going to bring my childhood vaccination card (neuvolakortti) if my mum can find it tonight and I also have my medical records from when I lived in the UK which have some booster shots and travel vaccinations as well - hope this is enough.

Starting to feel a bit nervous, and optimistic that this might finally be happening. If all goes well, I'll be moving to the SF Bay Area after New Year. 🤞

This is so amazing to hear! Congrats already!

This just makes me wonder if I made a horrible mistake by choosing Stockholm as my Embassy location. I'm a Finnish citizen myself living in Stockholm and we were DQ'd on Oct 29th. However, not it seems like I could have had my interview in Helsinki already early 2022... Based on the pace that they are working on in Stockholm, it may take many more months. 

Is it even worth thinking of changing the Embassy or will that just complicate and delay things even more..?

[Locito 85]

I am not sure if things have changed since 2017-18, but I have understood that in the past at least you needed a pretty spectacular reason to be able to transfer embassies.

 

Of course since you (like me) are a Finnish citizen, there _might_ be some leeway, but I suppose they have specific rules in place to hinder “embassy shopping”. Perhaps if you had your residence in Finland, they might be willing to work with you, but IMHO anything to do with transferring embassies is just additional hassle you don’t want to deal with if you don’t absolutely have to. Especially so since you are already documentarily qualified. The waiting game really sucks—all we want to do is to be with our loved ones—but there’s a real risk that things end up taking more time compared to if you had just stuck out and waited a little longer 🙂