South African K1 Visa applicants

[Confusedtinybird 41]

8 hours ago, madameMaison said:

Does the SA consulate allow us to have our American fiancé at the interview with us on the day?

They did several years ago. I went in with my husband. I brought my Passport to show that I was the American and they waived me through. I was able to be interviewed with my husband at the window.

[Confusedtinybird 41]

11 hours ago, Mozam said:

Also I received two emails from them yesterday one said, "Interviews:  Services are by appointment only Thursday from 8AM to 4PM." The other email said, "Interviews:  Services are by appointment only Tuesday and Thursday from 1pm." Curious to see the appointment times that will be available....if they ever open up. 

Unless it's changed the Embassy opens up at 1PM for the interviews. There will be a huge line of people waiting to get in the Embassy. I think everyone had a 1PM appt time. But again this was a couple years ago.

[madameMaison 204]

@MozambiqueSoninha and @Confusedtinybird thank you and thank you. You are both extremely helpful. 🌼❤

[JS5220 67]

On 11/26/2018 at 7:30 PM, pretendthisisfun said:

I have a question for those who have recently received their police clearance back in South Africa.  How long did it take for you to receive it and did you have any issues?  I have been looking into using a service for this, but if everyone here got theirs back quickly without issue, it might be a waste of money.  

 

We just got our case number from the NVC today, so we are excited about the next steps.  

I can speak for my fiance's case. She filed for police clearance on sept 6th. She didn't get it back until November 5th. Apparently after it was completed, it didn't get sent to the address she requested and ended up back at the police station where she filed for it. Finally on Nov 5th they drove a police car to her dads house to drop it off (its a small town so everyone knows each other).  My guess is it sat in a stack of papers at the police station for a few weeks until finally someone looked at it...

 

We're still waiting for our unabridged Birth Certificate. Does anyone have any idea how long that takes? Next week will be 6 weeks so I'm hoping it'll come by then. Would hate to have an opportunity to go to the interview only to have to bump it back because of the birth certificate!

[madameMaison 204]

3 hours ago, JS5220 said:

I can speak for my fiance's case. She filed for police clearance on sept 6th. She didn't get it back until November 5th. Apparently after it was completed, it didn't get sent to the address she requested and ended up back at the police station where she filed for it. Finally on Nov 5th they drove a police car to her dads house to drop it off (its a small town so everyone knows each other).  My guess is it sat in a stack of papers at the police station for a few weeks until finally someone looked at it...

 

We're still waiting for our unabridged Birth Certificate. Does anyone have any idea how long that takes? Next week will be 6 weeks so I'm hoping it'll come by then. Would hate to have an opportunity to go to the interview only to have to bump it back because of the birth certificate!

Not to make you panic or anything, but I applied for my unabridged birth certificate on July 9th and they only had it ready on October 31 . .  I thought it would take 4 weeks, or 8 weeks max but it ended up taking longer. . I probably went 4 times to the home affairs to collect my birth certificate and they would keep telling me it's not ready yet UNTIL mid October a lady gave me the head office contact number to contact . When I contacted the number I selected "Civil documents" option, and it had a birth certificate option. I stayed on hold for about 10 minutes before they answered, and then i politely told them that I'm in urgent need of my birth certificate and have applied for it since July. The lady checked on her system, issued me a reference number and told me to call back in 14 days. When I called back in 14 days, my birth certificate was ready to be collected at the home affairs I had applied at.

But then the home affairs I had applied at sent me back and  TOLD ME they only do collections of documents on Mondays 😕, so then I went back on a Monday and finally had my UBC in my hand.

 

So please , I don't want you to wait til next year for your UBC, your fiance can contact contact 0800 60 11 90 and let the head office know he/she needs their birth certificate urgently. It should be available in 2 weeks after that call. 

[pretendthisisfun 107]

13 hours ago, JS5220 said:

I can speak for my fiance's case. She filed for police clearance on sept 6th. She didn't get it back until November 5th. Apparently after it was completed, it didn't get sent to the address she requested and ended up back at the police station where she filed for it. Finally on Nov 5th they drove a police car to her dads house to drop it off (its a small town so everyone knows each other).  My guess is it sat in a stack of papers at the police station for a few weeks until finally someone looked at it...

 

We're still waiting for our unabridged Birth Certificate. Does anyone have any idea how long that takes? Next week will be 6 weeks so I'm hoping it'll come by then. Would hate to have an opportunity to go to the interview only to have to bump it back because of the birth certificate!

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.  We are hoping to do the interview in March when I have a scheduled visit and she hopes to return with me then if everything goes well.  So we should have sufficient time for the clearance to come back.  

We had several documents we needed for her British passport application, so we used a service for the unabridged birth certificate and several other documents.  It still took a month to get everything back, but they had that back quickly.  But looks like @madameMaison has offered you some great advice.  Good luck and thank you!

[madameMaison 204]

So literally no south African K1 applicant can book the medical at all while waiting for the file to arrive at the consulate? .. I get envious looking at other countries being able to book medicals and all while their case is in transit. *sigh* 

[Jdeddynet 0]

Hello everyone , my wife Andy I filled on the 22nd November last year and we are still waiting for the approval letter , we have had 2 RFEs already , I just have a question concerning the DNA will they ask me to do the it in order to prove that for my kids ? I have two children and my wife filled for the 3 of us 

[Confusedtinybird 41]

19 hours ago, JS5220 said:

I can speak for my fiance's case. She filed for police clearance on sept 6th. She didn't get it back until November 5th. Apparently after it was completed, it didn't get sent to the address she requested and ended up back at the police station where she filed for it. Finally on Nov 5th they drove a police car to her dads house to drop it off (its a small town so everyone knows each other).  My guess is it sat in a stack of papers at the police station for a few weeks until finally someone looked at it...

 

We're still waiting for our unabridged Birth Certificate. Does anyone have any idea how long that takes? Next week will be 6 weeks so I'm hoping it'll come by then. Would hate to have an opportunity to go to the interview only to have to bump it back because of the birth certificate!

Unabridged Birth Certificate takes forever because you have to deal with Useless Affairs. It really just depends on where you applied and how much you follow up on it. You HAVE to be proactive with them. Call them and follow up with them often.

[JS5220 67]

22 hours ago, madameMaison said:

Not to make you panic or anything, but I applied for my unabridged birth certificate on July 9th and they only had it ready on October 31 . .  I thought it would take 4 weeks, or 8 weeks max but it ended up taking longer. . I probably went 4 times to the home affairs to collect my birth certificate and they would keep telling me it's not ready yet UNTIL mid October a lady gave me the head office contact number to contact . When I contacted the number I selected "Civil documents" option, and it had a birth certificate option. I stayed on hold for about 10 minutes before they answered, and then i politely told them that I'm in urgent need of my birth certificate and have applied for it since July. The lady checked on her system, issued me a reference number and told me to call back in 14 days. When I called back in 14 days, my birth certificate was ready to be collected at the home affairs I had applied at.

But then the home affairs I had applied at sent me back and  TOLD ME they only do collections of documents on Mondays 😕, so then I went back on a Monday and finally had my UBC in my hand.

 

So please , I don't want you to wait til next year for your UBC, your fiance can contact contact 0800 60 11 90 and let the head office know he/she needs their birth certificate urgently. It should be available in 2 weeks after that call. 

Dang wow...Im gonna pass this information onto my fiance then. I know she tells me that she tried to contact them but then just gets put on hold for an eternity and never gets through to anyone. Now I truly understand what my fiance means when she says things happen in "South African Time" over there... Of course with how there doesnt seem to be any interviews until March (from what im hearing) it might not even matter if it takes a little bit longer. 

 

Thanks everyone for the heads up on this. It's the final missing piece to the puzzle (asides from the medical and interview).

[pretendthisisfun 107]

Congrats to all of you who are in transit.  Looks like they will arrive on Monday.  Unfortunately, the At NVC status leads me to believe that we didn't make the shipment even though we had a case number since 11/23 and NOA2 of 10/17  Now it will be 12/11.  This process can be so frustrating at times, the eight week estimate looks to be pretty accurate in our case.  The only comfort I had is that we were not expecting her to come over until April, but now @JS5220 is telling me there aren't interviews until March?  Where did you hear this?  I hope that changes and they add more dates.

[madameMaison 204]

2 hours ago, pretendthisisfun said:

Congrats to all of you who are in transit.  Looks like they will arrive on Monday.  Unfortunately, the At NVC status leads me to believe that we didn't make the shipment even though we had a case number since 11/23 and NOA2 of 10/17  Now it will be 12/11.  This process can be so frustrating at times, the eight week estimate looks to be pretty accurate in our case.  The only comfort I had is that we were not expecting her to come over until April, but now @JS5220 is telling me there aren't interviews until March?  Where did you hear this?  I hope that changes and they add more dates.

GOD FORBID! I hope NOT .. I hope by some magical advantage we have ATLEAST January dates open. . *sigh* why was I born in this country. 😥

[Mozam 147]

6 hours ago, JS5220 said:

 Of course with how there doesnt seem to be any interviews until March (from what im hearing) it might not even matter if it takes a little bit longer. 

Curious to know where you heard this from if you don't mind to share? 

[Mozam 147]

21 hours ago, madameMaison said:

So literally no south African K1 applicant can book the medical at all while waiting for the file to arrive at the consulate? .. I get envious looking at other countries being able to book medicals and all while their case is in transit. *sigh* 

From what I understand, you have to have your interview scheduled first. However, we haven't even tried to schedule our medical yet because we need them (interview & medical) to happen close together since we are traveling in from a different country. We can't afford to make two different trips into SA. I know this is how it typically happens anyways.

 

Did you try to call and get your medical scheduled? 

[Mozam 147]

@vistawateraz How did your interview go?