Any experience with interviews in Auckland?

[EKT 117]

22 hours ago, BahamaBaby said:

Hi all, 

 

So happy to see most of you having completed interviews and ready to head on over to the USA! 

My family and I are kiwis living in Australia waiting for an interview at Sydney consulate for an immigrant visa. We qualified under the employment based (EB) visa program. 
 

We’ve been DQ since august 2021 and have not heard from the consulate. They were shut through Sydney lockdown which ended in October and then they relocated to a new office and are still not set up to take appointments. It’s also unclear when they might eventually open and what the backlog or timeline might look like, so we don’t know if it’s weeks/months/years. 
 

I guess one option we have is to ask NVC to send our case to Auckland consulate and attend the interview there? At least we know it would happen within a couple of months (once NZ has free travel with Australia) 

 

Just wanted peoples views on whether it was feasible doing it in NZ - sounds like there isn’t a backlog there and it might be a whole lot easier than waiting indefinitely in Sydney? 
 

 

Yes, it seems like Auckland has caught up with its backlog. I believe someone posted here who was DQ a few weeks ago and now has an interview in February. I have now idea how to go about transferring though and whether or not you need to be living in the new country or just residents/citizens like you are. This might be something to ask in the general Consulate/Embassy part of VJ.

 

I think I read that some people waiting for Sydney ended up having interviews in Melbourne - is that a thing? I imagine it would still be quite a long wait though. I have a feeling inbound travel from Aus will finally reopen sometime in March but it appears to be a moving target like everything else! Presumably if you got an interview in Auckland you could just come for a two week stay to do the medical and interview and then head out once the visa had been issued. Do you have family you could stay with and use for address purposes? Good luck  

[Ash23122 22]

On 1/30/2022 at 12:10 PM, BahamaBaby said:

Hi all, 

 

So happy to see most of you having completed interviews and ready to head on over to the USA! 

My family and I are kiwis living in Australia waiting for an interview at Sydney consulate for an immigrant visa. We qualified under the employment based (EB) visa program. 
 

We’ve been DQ since august 2021 and have not heard from the consulate. They were shut through Sydney lockdown which ended in October and then they relocated to a new office and are still not set up to take appointments. It’s also unclear when they might eventually open and what the backlog or timeline might look like, so we don’t know if it’s weeks/months/years. 
 

I guess one option we have is to ask NVC to send our case to Auckland consulate and attend the interview there? At least we know it would happen within a couple of months (once NZ has free travel with Australia) 

 

Just wanted peoples views on whether it was feasible doing it in NZ - sounds like there isn’t a backlog there and it might be a whole lot easier than waiting indefinitely in Sydney? 
 

 

 

 

 

I am also a kiwi living in Australia and we selected the Sydney embassy for the visa interview when we lodged our IR1 application in March last year. We submitted our documents on the CEAC portal back in Oct last year and currently waiting for them to accept our documents. 

 

Based on the other people posts here on VJ and Facebook, it appears the Sydney consulate is presently closed and has been scheduling immigrant visa appointments at the Melbourne consulate however, a lot of applicants who have already completed the NVC stage of their visa application process have still not heard any news on the visa appointments so it does seem like that they have got a bit of a backlog which could potentially cause delays. 

 

Unfortunately, no one has any clue when they will re-open the Sydney consulate and start scheduling visa interviews to clear the backlog which is quite bizarre - and because of this, we are also considering to transfer our case to Auckland consulate once we are done with NVC stage. Hopefully, by end of Feb or March, the NZ govt. will allow kiwis to return back to NZ.  (Fingers crossed) 

 

On transferring the visa application to Auckland - my understanding is that we will have to email the Auckland consulate first and get their confirmation if they are okay to accept our case or not and then based on that, book flights, accommodation, etc.  
 

 

 

[mcs_2021 3]

On 1/23/2022 at 9:13 PM, MelanieR18 said:

No it doesn't, the email we got after paying had a "tracking ID" and the amount/date that it was paid, but no name or anything, then just this comment at the bottom that said:

Your payment was applied to the following case(s):
        IOEXXXXXXXX

So weird. 

I did go back and try to pay it again just to check but site said the fee had been paid so I'm sure it's fine. 

 

Just an FYI...

When I went to pay it online, the IV Case Number/DOS Case Number was too long (ours was like 12 digits and it said it only takes 9-10 digits) and I saw somewhere online that you have to take off the 01 at the end and it works. Just in case anyone else runs into that same problem

@MelanieR18 @EKT  hoping you can help me understand where we can find the A number and DOS case ID. Thanks so much in advance! 

[Lil bear 4,083]

48 minutes ago, mcs_2021 said:

@MelanieR18 @EKT  hoping you can help me understand where we can find the A number and DOS case ID. Thanks so much in advance! 

They are both on the visa foil in your passport. Upper right side for both

The DOS # is the IV case number .. 3 letters then 11(ish) numbers. The last two digits are check digits and usually not needed 

The A number is the Registration number directly underneath that. Mine has 8 digits and sometimes  they ask for a 9 digit number .. add a zero at the start 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Lil bear

[mcs_2021 3]

6 minutes ago, Lil bear said:

They are both on the visa foil in your passport. Upper right side for both

The DOS # is the IV case number .. 3 letters then 11(ish) numbers. The last two digits are check digits and usually not needed 

The A number is the Registration number directly underneath that. Mine has 8 digits and sometimes  they ask for a 9 digit number .. add a zero at the start 

Amazing - thank you so much! 

[Ash23122 22]

Our case was reviewed by NVC today (submission date - 30/10/2021) and all AOS and Civil documents were accepted except the NZ police certificate for which we had uploaded the email confirmation we received from NZ police. We even wrote a comment saying that "NZ police has sent the vetting results to the US consulate in Auckland who will then forward it to NVC". On top of that, under additional docs, we uploaded an explanation letter stating that NZ police do not share the outcome of police checks directly with the individual applicant and therefore, we are not able to provide this document to the NVC. In January, the U.S. consulate in Sydney even verified via email that they've received my vetting results from US Consulate Auckland and a copy has been sent to the NVC. 

 

After explaining all of this to NVC on the phone, I was advised that they're submitting my case for a supervisor to review and I'll be informed of the outcome in the next 6 weeks. 

 

Can anyone please share their experience on how did you get NVC to accept the email confirmation from NZ police? The representative on the phone didn't have a clue on what document needed is required to be submitted for the NZ police check which is quite frustrating. 

 

[EKT 117]

5 hours ago, Ash23122 said:

Our case was reviewed by NVC today (submission date - 30/10/2021) and all AOS and Civil documents were accepted except the NZ police certificate for which we had uploaded the email confirmation we received from NZ police. We even wrote a comment saying that "NZ police has sent the vetting results to the US consulate in Auckland who will then forward it to NVC". On top of that, under additional docs, we uploaded an explanation letter stating that NZ police do not share the outcome of police checks directly with the individual applicant and therefore, we are not able to provide this document to the NVC. In January, the U.S. consulate in Sydney even verified via email that they've received my vetting results from US Consulate Auckland and a copy has been sent to the NVC. 

 

After explaining all of this to NVC on the phone, I was advised that they're submitting my case for a supervisor to review and I'll be informed of the outcome in the next 6 weeks. 

 

Can anyone please share their experience on how did you get NVC to accept the email confirmation from NZ police? The representative on the phone didn't have a clue on what document needed is required to be submitted for the NZ police check which is quite frustrating. 

 

Ugh, sorry to hear you’re dealing with this.  It is a really common problem for NZ applicants unfortunately. There are quite a few posts about this earlier in the thread if you scroll back through, but it sounds like you’ve done everything right. Firstly, I wouldn’t upload anything new because it will have today’s date on it and potentially reset your processing time. I’ve also read many posts on VJ where the wait for a supervisor was a matter of days rather than the six weeks mention so maybe wait a week and call back to check in. @mcs_2021 what did you do in the end to resolve this?

[EKT 117]

@Ash23122 check out pages 13-15 of this thread. It looks like they asked the consulate to resend the police certificate to NVC and then the original document containing the email confirmation (which was previously rejected) was accepted in CEAC. Hopefully this will work for you! 

[Ash23122 22]

22 hours ago, EKT said:

Ugh, sorry to hear you’re dealing with this.  It is a really common problem for NZ applicants unfortunately. There are quite a few posts about this earlier in the thread if you scroll back through, but it sounds like you’ve done everything right. Firstly, I wouldn’t upload anything new because it will have today’s date on it and potentially reset your processing time. I’ve also read many posts on VJ where the wait for a supervisor was a matter of days rather than the six weeks mention so maybe wait a week and call back to check in. @mcs_2021 what did you do in the end to resolve this?

 

22 hours ago, EKT said:

@Ash23122 check out pages 13-15 of this thread. It looks like they asked the consulate to resend the police certificate to NVC and then the original document containing the email confirmation (which was previously rejected) was accepted in CEAC. Hopefully this will work for you! 

 

@EKT Yeah, they did mention not to make any changes on the portal otherwise, it could cause further delays. Good idea, I'll just wait for a couple of days and then will call them again for an update. I didn't even get any reference number so no idea if my case/application has been placed in the queue for a supervisor to review and I guess, there's no way to know or track it. I'll just have to wait it out and see what happens. 

BTW, I have just sent another email to the US Consulate in Sydney & Auckland on this. Hopefully, they will sort this issue out or re-send my police certificate to the NVC. 

 

Thanks for your help on this!

 

[Ash23122 22]

Hi All,

 

For those who have recently got DQ'd by NVC, has anyone recently received a visa interview date from the Auckland consulate yet?

just trying to find out if the interviews are being scheduled or not.

[BahamaBaby 12]

I’d love to hear about Auckland interviews too! Similar story to @Ash23122, in Sydney and with an endless waiting for the consulate here to open up. We’ve just emailed the Auckland embassy to see if they would be ok to accept our case from NVC - will let you know how we get on! 

[Ash23122 22]

1 hour ago, BahamaBaby said:

I’d love to hear about Auckland interviews too! Similar story to @Ash23122, in Sydney and with an endless waiting for the consulate here to open up. We’ve just emailed the Auckland embassy to see if they would be ok to accept our case from NVC - will let you know how we get on! 

@BahamaBaby awesome..  please let us know whenever you get a response from Auckland Consulate  
It would really help me with my case as I'm also planning on transferring our case to Auckland as well.  

Edited February 9, 2022 by Ash23122

[BahamaBaby 12]

@Ash23122 sure! Are you now DQ at NVC? We have been DQ since the end of August 2021. I was really surprised that we didn’t hear back after covid lockdowns ended. Then a couple of weeks ago I read that the consulate was closed in Sydney and it all made sense. With no clear indication of how many days/weeks/months till reopening, we have no choice but to plead to Auckland to accept our case as we cannot live in limbo forever. I’m sure you feel the same way! And thankfully now we can travel to Auckland without MIQ, I can accept home quarantine for 10 days, seems a small price to pay for some certainty in life. Goodluck to you! 

[EKT 117]

1 hour ago, Ash23122 said:

Hi All,

 

For those who have recently got DQ'd by NVC, has anyone recently received a visa interview date from the Auckland consulate yet?

just trying to find out if the interviews are being scheduled or not.

I think @mcs_2021 was DQ late December and had an interview last week. They don’t have a timeline so hopefully will post an update for those who are waiting on NVC.

 

I know the Auckland consulate did a few days of interviews in Dec and four days in January (always Wednesdays) for IR-1/CR-1 and K-1s. They seem to turn around visas the same week if approved at interview. 

[BahamaBaby 12]

@EKT that’s great to hear! Will just wait for the Auckland embassy to respond confirming they are fine and will go ahead and ask NVC to reassign the case there. 
 

Hopefully a quick process, we shall see!