K1 Visa - Dominican Republic Support Group

[Nikki Longone 12]

Hello Everyone!

 

I guess I'm here more so reaching out in hopes to find a support group of my fellow petitioners for their partners/fiancé's in DR. My fiancé and I begun our journey last May and as everyone is clearly aware, we are still amidst a pandemic. We never thought just how long this whole process would take and have known other couple whom have gone through the process and from start to finish took them about 6-8 months. I have been with my fiancé for over two years now and last year, a few months after he proposed, we decided to start this K1 visa journey. Our case was accepted last May and we just received an RFE on January 4th and returned our evidence earlier this month. We anticipate we may have a decision by the end of March with any luck but are not holding our breath so to speak.

 

We know there are so many other couples out there going through our same struggles and would just like to know and maybe compare knowledge about everything going on with the Embassy closures and this K1 Visa process during the Pandemic!

 

I look forward to hearing from many of you! God Bless.

[Julie and Jose 2]

Good Morning.   We started Sept 11.   5.1 MONTHS!!!!!   I know alot of people are waiting a long long time so I feel kinda bad complaining but this process is slow and stressful.    And it does not seem that clear answers can be gotten from anywhere.   We too have been together 2 years.  I hope you hear something soon.   I hope our government realizes that people are suffering with their partners so far away.   Not giving up tho even though is hard.   Keep praying.    Julie

[Nikki Longone 12]

2 hours ago, Julie and Jose said:

Good Morning.   We started Sept 11.   5.1 MONTHS!!!!!   I know alot of people are waiting a long long time so I feel kinda bad complaining but this process is slow and stressful.    And it does not seem that clear answers can be gotten from anywhere.   We too have been together 2 years.  I hope you hear something soon.   I hope our government realizes that people are suffering with their partners so far away.   Not giving up tho even though is hard.   Keep praying.    Julie

Hi Julie, good morning! Thank you so much for sharing and congrats to you and Jose on starting your journey! This process is so difficult and everyone who started the process in 2020 has definitely got it bad because of the pandemic. So our case was accepted May 5th with the official date on our NOA1 and our case is at the California Service Center. I want to just share with you a little about our process. Roy and I were so anxious waiting after we received our first letter in the mail about our case being processed and then didn't hear back for so long after. We finally just got another letter early last month dated 1/4/21, Request For Evidence. So immigration here is still actively reviewing cases which is great, however, it's moving so slow! You should have some kind of update about your case in the next 3 months or so I would think. 

 

My RFE was a bit complex as the information requested was about my prior divorce to my ex also in DR. If you or anyone has been married to a Dominican National before, please message me if your RFE is requesting documentation about your divorce that was performed in the DR because it gets very complicated. Anyways, we were able to gather like 5 pieces of documentation, had to translate, certify and apostille documents(DR is very reasonable for all translations, won't have it done in the states because its very costly) and I sent all paper work for the RFE to USCIS Feb 6th and they received it Feb 8th. Now our status says they have received the RFE documents and are actively working on our case again. We are hoping we hear back sometime next month.

 

My fiancé, Roy, keeps up on all immigration updates through a couple of YouTube channels of professionals that work in immigration in DR. Let me know if you would like the information and I would be happy to pass it along to you. I think it's important for us petitioners to keep one another informed as we all are in this crazy process together!

 

Let's hope and pray our government can get it together, especially with this new administration 🙏 I hope you and Jose get a notice very soon about your case, I will be praying for you both! 

[ODJD 4]

Not from the DR but appreciate the Americas love. I wish the embassies would open as soon as possibly safe. Hope you don’t mind me joining this thread.

[Nikki Longone 12]

13 minutes ago, ODJD said:

Not from the DR but appreciate the Americas love. I wish the embassies would open as soon as possibly safe. Hope you don’t mind me joining this thread.

Hi ODJD, thank you for joining in! I don't mind at all, the more positive feedback the better! How is your process coming along? If you don't mind me asking, where are you at in your process and what's going on in Peru? DR still has curfew hours when everyone has to be in and everyone out on the streets after curfew is picked up by the police. I just traveled to DR and they scan people to take their temperatures and have nurses in the airport to give rapid covid-19 tests just randomly!

 

Hope to hear from you!

[Ellievibez 4]

Hey Nikki! Hope everything is going well. My process started in March and I got an RFE on December 2nd. I answered a few days later and got my noa2 a month later! Just hoping to give you some insight. Granted my RFE wasn't as complicated as yours. If anything you can write me! I'm currently just waiting on being able to schedule an appointment !

[ODJD 4]

14 hours ago, Nikki Longone said:

Hi ODJD, thank you for joining in! I don't mind at all, the more positive feedback the better! How is your process coming along? If you don't mind me asking, where are you at in your process and what's going on in Peru? DR still has curfew hours when everyone has to be in and everyone out on the streets after curfew is picked up by the police. I just traveled to DR and they scan people to take their temperatures and have nurses in the airport to give rapid covid-19 tests just randomly!

 

Hope to hear from you!

The process is just a waiting game. We have passed the year mark of being approved and at the end of this month, it’ll be a year of waiting at the embassy to get an interview. 
 

Peru hasn’t opened their embassies yet, and it’s been a challenging time with a lot of strict quarantine rules and curfews, which seems similar to what you’re sharing here. Random testing seems intense though! I only wish it had a positive outcome, but my partner shares that people are going hungry, and they need to work. He is fortunate with his family but others not so much. 
 

I suppose this post should be positive though, and I haven’t shared anything positive! Let’s see: my partner has shared that on a group he follows, it says Mexico is now opening embassies, so I think I’m just wanting to know what’s going on across Latin American countries. Another positive is that they seem to be updating applications. For instance, the CEAC website still says “ready” but it says last updated December 2020, so about every three months, it appears they may open the case and extend it. This is a relief because my paranoia told me in June that the case may be forgotten... doesn’t seem that this is happening! 😂
 

That is all for now. I really appreciate you setting up this space. 

[Julie and Jose 2]

Sure I love any information and other areas to  investigate to get answers.    Appreciate all of you.

[Nikki Longone 12]

3 hours ago, Julie and Jose said:

Sure I love any information and other areas to  investigate to get answers.    Appreciate all of you.

Absolutely, I would love to provide you all with two channels that my fiancé, Roy, follows and checks in with regularly to get up to date info on the K1 visa process. Both of these channels provide really good information on many topics that we all have or had and they keep up with the current immigration policies and al most anything you can think of related to K1 Visas. Toca Viajar Migratorio Consulting and Hector Jean Espaillat. They are Dominican but the information they provide is not directly related to any particular country, just the K1 Visa overall so everyone go check them out!

 

❤️

[Nikki Longone 12]

8 hours ago, Ellievibez said:

Hey Nikki! Hope everything is going well. My process started in March and I got an RFE on December 2nd. I answered a few days later and got my noa2 a month later! Just hoping to give you some insight. Granted my RFE wasn't as complicated as yours. If anything you can write me! I'm currently just waiting on being able to schedule an appointment !

Hi Ellievibez! Welcome to our support group, we are happy you are here!!

 

You have no idea how happy this makes me to hear that you are so close to having your appointment! I was on the phone with my fiancé as I was reading your message and we were both so excited to know that things are moving along🙏 this gives us so much hope that although things are moving slowly, they have not completely stopped.

 

❤️ 

[Nikki Longone 12]

8 hours ago, ODJD said:

The process is just a waiting game. We have passed the year mark of being approved and at the end of this month, it’ll be a year of waiting at the embassy to get an interview. 
 

Peru hasn’t opened their embassies yet, and it’s been a challenging time with a lot of strict quarantine rules and curfews, which seems similar to what you’re sharing here. Random testing seems intense though! I only wish it had a positive outcome, but my partner shares that people are going hungry, and they need to work. He is fortunate with his family but others not so much. 
 

I suppose this post should be positive though, and I haven’t shared anything positive! Let’s see: my partner has shared that on a group he follows, it says Mexico is now opening embassies, so I think I’m just wanting to know what’s going on across Latin American countries. Another positive is that they seem to be updating applications. For instance, the CEAC website still says “ready” but it says last updated December 2020, so about every three months, it appears they may open the case and extend it. This is a relief because my paranoia told me in June that the case may be forgotten... doesn’t seem that this is happening! 😂
 

That is all for now. I really appreciate you setting up this space. 

Hey ODJD, I hope you had a good day!

 

I know, this process is just a very long waiting game but I'm hopeful things will begin to look up and our government will get with it! We need to be with our loved one's, it's hard enough living in the times we are and then to be separated and having traveling restrictions doesn't make it easy for us to go see them. I'm blessed to be employed with a company who is very supportive of Roy and I's situation  and this whole process, when I had explained I hadn't seen him since January 2020 and I desperately needed a few days off to go visit him, they were more than happy to oblige. I did have to quarantine for 14 days upon my return to Massachusetts but thankfully I was able to work from home. 

 

I understand about how people in Peru are suffering and it's horrible! I hope your fiancé and his family stay safe and are able to get through these trying times, I'll keep them in my prayers. I was chatting with my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law asking them what the government is doing to support their people and it's very troubling to hear how they just aren't really doing anything for them. They said the government gave them  $1500 pesos = $25 dollars! It was one time they gave residents $25 and I'm like, so what were you supposed to do with that, make it last all year!? This is crazy that these very poor countries aren't being taken care of! Of course my family in DR are so humble, they don't ever ask for anything and always value and are thankful for what they have. I so often hear American's complaining about how little our government does and although that is sometimes true, we are more than blessed compared to other countries.

 

It was great hearing from you! Keep us posted on your journey and anything you hear related to this crazy process we are all going through. It's great to know the Mexican Embassy is opening up, let's hope and pray other countries follow their lead! They can't keep the Embassies closed forever!

 

❤️

 

 

[Ryan H 3,812]

Moved from Process & Procedures to Progress Reports.

[JojoandTomas 212]

Hey guys. Hope I can also join the group. I submitted my petition in July 2020 and I just received the RFE in February. It was for an English translation of my divorce decree.i sent it back and now it says they are actively working my case again so that's something. Hopefully I hear something back within a few weeks because I am thinking about expediting my case. 

[B&O0302 62]

Hello everyone glad to find a support group for the dominican filers...the whole situation is hard...my NOA2 is about to expired on march 24  routine services are still close in DR..is ridiculous at this point

[Nikki Longone 12]

On 2/21/2021 at 4:19 PM, JojoandTomas said:

Hey guys. Hope I can also join the group. I submitted my petition in July 2020 and I just received the RFE in February. It was for an English translation of my divorce decree.i sent it back and now it says they are actively working my case again so that's something. Hopefully I hear something back within a few weeks because I am thinking about expediting my case. 

Yes, of course you can join, welcome! I'm so happy to hear USCIS is moving right along with the cases. You received your RFE a lot quicker than I had! You and I are at the same point in the process now and I'm praying hard we receive a response by the end of next month. Ellievibez said she received her approval after submitting her RFE documentation just a month later. Fingers crossed we'll be at this point soon! To be quite honest, I'm not sure how long most people have to wait to receive a response but I do believe it depends on how complex your RFE is. I've heard my RFE is the most complicated but my fiancé and I worked extremely hard to get the evidence needed to prove our case. Please keep in touch and let us know when you receive your next notification! 

 

❤