Immigrant Visa web portal unavailable due to maintenance

[Gringuitico 4]

Howdy,

 

I just wanted to share an update on a known issue.  As you may or may not be aware, the Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) Immigrant Visa web portal is currently unavailable due to maintenance.  You get this error if you attempt to pay the processing fees (Step 2 on the NVC Immigrant Visa Process, which is my current task) or access the CEAC page to Submit Visa Application Form (Step 3), etc.  The site has been down for more than a week at this point.

 

 

Last week, I spoke with the National Visa Center (NVC) call center.  The lady I spoke with said they are aware that their site is down, and they still do not have an estimate for when it will be back up.

She confirmed that they cannot accept payments over the phone.  When I asked if there were any other options for paying the processing fees for my Visa application and Affidavit of Support (which is my current task), she gave me an address that I could mail money orders to, and instructions for how to prepare them.

 

Make Money Order Payable to: US Department of State

In the Memo:, include the NVC Case ID (i.e. SNJ...)

 

Mail to:
NVC Fee Processing Center
PO Box 790136
St Louis, MO 63179-0136

 

If you buy a Postal Money Order, which is probably the most widely accepted, it only costs $1.20 (up to $500), and has a traceable serial number.  Since you'll already be at the Post Office, then you can kill 2 birds with 1 stone, and use a Priority Flat Rate envelope (which also has tracking) to ship in 2-3 days.  I just confirmed that my own package was received... so I guess we'll see how this plays out.  Assuming this process works, I will update this thread once my payment is processed.  Per the NVC welcome letter, this part of the process usually takes about 1 week (at least... it did when there was online payment processing... I'll assume mine might take a few more days to go through a non-standard process).

That said,... the next step HAS to be online, so I'm really hoping they get this fixed before my payment is processed.  For now... I'm just happy that they HAVE a work-around process for Step 2, to let me keep moving forward while we wait out the fix. 

 

As a side note:  I really can't fathom why/how ANY website could be down this long, much less a critical official one such as this.  In light of the current government's focus on adding road blocks even to legal immigration... a pessimist might think this wasn't an accident.  Fortunately, I am not a pessimist.  I'm just a guy who likes to contemplate potential permutations, in an effort to understand the world around me with hopes of understanding better how to navigate it.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Gringuitico

[Ryan H 3,812]

Moved from IR-1/CR-1 Process & Procedures to NVC forum.

[Gringuitico 4]

Fyi, the site is back up now, but they did process my payments the way I described, so it appears this is a legit backup, if that happens again.