NVC CEAC UPLOAD FILERS - May 2017

[K&Kir 6]

Has anyone used a joint sponsor in the new system? It allowed me to put in his passport bio page and i864, then it put his name below mine in AOS; however, it says n/a on paid and n/a on financial evidence.  Wondering if this is a glitch that they won't let me upload his transcripts for financial evidence?

 

Also, this was mentioned before, I keep getting emailed that there are messages for me on ceac, but when I log in there are never messages. Always "0". I've called about this and no one seems to know how to fix it so we just assume it's notifying me that uploads have worked.

 

bernard, i am trying to avoid August because my partner has a prior engagement in Toronto, and we have a big concert October 6th, making our official "moving" month fall on September. Just preference. Can't go too soon, can't stay too long kinda deal. And once they give the date, I'm sticking with it.

[Bernard & Colette 3]

Toronto, makes sense about why you want to push the date further ahead.

[K&Kir 6]

It's kind of silly because we have literally been: "eat,sleep,play NVC"

 

But it's a preference, might as well aim and see what we get.

[Cat_Dad 6]

11 hours ago, Bernard & Colette said:

Toronto,

Yes, ONE PAGE AT A TIME, it's a pain in the butt when your tax return is 36 pages long...

Why are people avoiding August interviews? Just curious.

I managed to upload all pages of my documents at once as a PDF, as long as it was under 2 MB.

I was lucky that the scanner/copier at work could take my 13 page AoS document and somehow give me a readable 400 KB PDF file.

 

I found that it let me re-download the 'civil documents' to check that they worked, but wouldn't let me view the aos and supporting documents.

[Finayyy 14]

56 minutes ago, Cat_Dad said:

I managed to upload all pages of my documents at once as a PDF, as long as it was under 2 MB.

I was lucky that the scanner/copier at work could take my 13 page AoS document and somehow give me a readable 400 KB PDF file.

 

I found that it let me re-download the 'civil documents' to check that they worked, but wouldn't let me view the aos and supporting documents.

I also was able to upload as one document. 

 

There was a website called smallpdf or something like that, which will shrink your PDF. But you can only do 3 at a time and then wait 1 hour. 

[Toronto88 5]

15 hours ago, Bernard & Colette said:

Toronto,

Yes, ONE PAGE AT A TIME, it's a pain in the butt when your tax return is 36 pages long...

Why are people avoiding August interviews? Just curious.

 

14 hours ago, Finayyy said:

I think that is apart of the old system.

 

As soon as I got access to the website, I found that there were two sections (Financial and civil) were you upload your documents. They already have specific documents that you need to upload.

 

I got an email from the Montreal embassy last week telling me to bring in a list of the originals of some of the documents that I submitted.

 

3 hours ago, Cat_Dad said:

I managed to upload all pages of my documents at once as a PDF, as long as it was under 2 MB.

I was lucky that the scanner/copier at work could take my 13 page AoS document and somehow give me a readable 400 KB PDF file.

 

I found that it let me re-download the 'civil documents' to check that they worked, but wouldn't let me view the aos and supporting documents.

 

2 hours ago, Finayyy said:

I also was able to upload as one document. 

 

There was a website called smallpdf or something like that, which will shrink your PDF. But you can only do 3 at a time and then wait 1 hour. 

Bernard, Finayyy and Cat_Dad - thank you for sharing your experiences! For those of us getting started, it is really helpful.

 

Bernard, I prefer September interview for similar reasons to K&Kir. Although I am just going to bite the bullet and upload everything asap and make the interview date work. Thanks 

[K&Kir 6]

Toronto 88, I have Adobe reader, I signed up for a $10 upgrade that allowed me to convert and condense files to PDF.  So that my 12 page i864 was compressed into 1 file that was under 2MB.  Its a pain in the A** but within hours i figured out how it all worked.  Interested to hear when you send in, and when they respond with interview date!

[K&Kir 6]

@Toronto88 did you submit your stuff?

[Finayyy 14]

Sorry for the late reply.

 

Interview was a success.

 

I was able to go into the embassy 45 minutes early without any issue. Once I arrived, I was told that my courier service wasn't setup and that I needed to call in to fix that.

 

Once inside, there was no one to give me the laminated number. So I went up and spoke with someone that referred me to counter 1. There, they gave me a number and took my documents. I don't recall the order correctly, but here is what they took in the order that I can remember:

 

1. Birth Certificate

2. Marriage Certificate

3. Police Clearance

4. Medical Records (they gave me back the CD that was inside)

5. I-864

6. Wife's 2016 tax return (photocopy)

7. I-864a

8. Father in laws 2016 tax return (photocopy)

9. Wife's naturalization certificate (because I didn't have a photocopy of my wife's passport to which the lady at the counter said normally everyone doesn't have it and was happy I had it)

 

After waiting for an hour, my number was called and I went to counter 8.

 

The lady was extremely friendly and asked me 4 questions:

 

1. How did I meet my wife?

2. When did I meet her?

3. Where do I plan on living in the US?

4. When do I plan on going to the US?

 

Once that 4th question was asked, I knew I got it.

 

She told me that since I'm apart of the new system, they would contact the POE that I will be crossing over ahead of time to let them know that I am coming so I don't have to carry all the paperwork.

 

After getting the glorious "Welcome to the United States of America" paper, I left with the biggest smile.

[K&Kir 6]

 

5 minutes ago, Finayyy said:

After getting the glorious "Welcome to the United States of America" paper, I left with the biggest smile.

CONGRATULATIONS! I just got notified of a new review and didn't look at the name...it was you! So happy to hear of your success. Wow, they just phone the POE? That's cool! Wonder how our POE will go, we will have a UHaul...haha.

[Bernard & Colette 3]

Hi Everyone!  Proud to say after only 3.5 weeks of trying to upload documents with this CEAC website our case is finally complete as of this morning!  Now we are waiting again, this time for the interview date.  We did immediately receive an email informing us that our case is complete.  Any of you know how long interviews take to get scheduled once case is complete?  I saw on the timelines anywhere from 32 to 44 days for spouses going through Montreal Embassy in Canada. But I was wondering if it is less with those who used CEAC system.  Anyone know?

Cheers,

 

Colette and Bernard

[K&Kir 6]

@Bernard & Colette From the past in this chat, they get back to you within 24hrs with an interview appointment. From that point forward, Finnay's was about 30 days, so my guess is about 30 days, probably a little more now that there are more cases like us.  I would suspect that it would be about 30-45 days from case closed. I think there was another MTL case in here that was June 8th case closed and July 24th Interview.

[Bernard & Colette 3]

Thank you K&Kir, that good to know ❤️

[Toronto88 5]

5 hours ago, K&Kir said:

@Toronto88 did you submit your stuff?

Hey @K&Kir, still working through the uploads. I expect to be done tomorrow. Will let you know when I hear back from NVC. Thanks! 

[Cat_Dad 6]

After finishing my interview last Tuesday, I received my passport back in the mail on Thursday.
This is the point at which people using the old process would have received their "do not open" envelope to take with them to the border, but all I got back was my passport with the visa.

The visa has an annotation saying "IV Documents in CCD".

 

I also received an email telling me that I need to pay the "USCIS Immigrant Fee" ($220 USD).

The instructions on how to pay were a bit confusing because it mentions that I need to log onto a website and  "Enter your A-Number and DOS Case ID. You will find your Alien Number and DOS Case I.D. Number attached to the front of your Visa Package which is being mailed to you."  

 

Obviously I didn't receive a visa package because of the new process, but I eventually figured out the numbers I needed were also on the visa document itself, as mentioned on this page under the "Visa Stamp" section: https://www.uscis.gov/file-online/immigrant-fee-payment-tips-finding-your-number-and-dos-case-id