NVC processing hack

[AndrewF 69]

One other helpful hack I discovered.  After about 3 weeks, I called in to the NVC and received my Case ID #.  USCIS approved the I-129F petition on 12 APR and I happened to call in 2 May to get a status updated and they were able to give me a Case ID # because they had received and initially processed  my case on 1 May.  i got a Case ID # and an Invoice #.  My understanding is that the Invoice # is meaningless so disregard it.  Once I got my Case ID #, I checked it every day with no change.  Here is the deal with the Case ID #.

 

I was assigned a Case ID # where it was HMCYYYXXX.  HMC is the country code (Vietnam).  YYY is the Julian date (look it up on google) plus 500.  XXX is what case that day your case was assigned an ID #.  So for a made up example, say my Case ID # is HMC622001.  This means that my case was assigned an ID # on 2 May (Julian date of 122) and it was the first case assigned an ID #.  Is, if you go to the NVC website where you can check the status of your case, you can enter random case ID #s from earlier dates until you find the date where they start saying in transit or shipped.  So I could enter HMC610001 (processed 12 days prior to my hypothetical case ID #) and see if it was sent yet.  This gives you an idea at least of how long before they get around to your case.  Some cases will not be K1 Visas so if you see anything about sending in documents, disregard.  You want to see something about it was shipped or in transit.  This means they processed it and sent it to the consulate.

 

Doing this, I was able to get an idea of where they were on processing the K1 cases for my country.