Interview at Warsaw embassy - case transfer from Moscow

[blakezero 8]

  On 6/7/2023 at 7:28 PM, blakezero said:

Hi @Karjala,

 

We transferred our case from Warsaw to Jerusalem. My mother-in-law already had her interview on May 30th and asked all missing documents they requested. They did not tell her of any missing documents and took her passport. We're still here in Jerusalem waiting for the passport to be returned. We checked the status online it was "Refused" and not it says "Administrative Processing". That is our current status.

 

Did the visa officer took your husband's passport they day of the interview? What is the status your case online?

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Update: 

 

We are back to the US! It was a stressful situation while waiting for the passport with the visa. The online status was changing from "Refused" to "AP" back and forth. We extended hotel/Airbnb and flight reservations constantly as there was no response to our emails from the Jerusalem embassy with a clear date for the visa. Our experience felt like a nightmare... something that I want to forget.

 

On 6/13 at 12 PM, I emailed to the Jerusalem Embassy on behalf of my mother-in-law (I'm not even the petitioner) asking to return her passport with or without the visa as our situation in Jerusalem was critically challenging for us to stay. We wanted to go back to our respective homes, my mother-in-law wanted to go back to Russia and I wanted to go back Home with my wife and daughters. We do understand the consequences of pulling the passport without visa even if they said the case was approved, that was our wish. So please have the passport ready for us at the embassy. Right after sending the email, we took a taxi and headed to the embassy without any expectations or hopes. We just were exhausted of waiting and looking at the computer for any updates.

 

At the embassy, looks like they read the email and knew about us. The guy at the window told us to wait for one hour to get us the passport but it was not guarantee. So we waited.........

 

They called my mother-in-law to go inside, I couldn't enter. After 30 minutes... there she was with the passport on her hands... I was so relieved and to our surprise, the visa stamp as well. We cried of happiness and sadness as we sacrificed a lot.

 

As soon as I arrived to our airbnb, I bought tickets to go back to the US for the next day. We left Israel on June 14th 11:00 am and arrived to our home on June 15th 6:00 AM. 

 

Passport control was extremely fast since now everything is electronic and no need of seal documents. They allowed my mother-in-law to be with me on the US citizens line which is faster than the foreign visitors.

 

We received the SSN card in two weeks and recently the biometrics appointment letter for the green card which is next week.

 

So we made it... We spent around 10K+ in expenses while in Israel including flight and hotels and stayed 17 days. It could have been more days if the mail the passport to the post office, the post office in jerusalem is closed fridays to sundays. 

 

After all, we are eternally grateful to the Jerusalem Embassy for their consideration is accepting our case from Warsaw and for expediting the issuance of the visa on the same day. I was able to made back home before Fathers' day and see my little daughters. Thank You.

 

I hope the families I met outside the embassy got their visas approved.

[TBoneTX 46,821]

  On 7/26/2023 at 12:51 AM, blakezero said:

We spent around 10K+ in expenses while in Israel

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[sound of T-Bone hitting floor in dead faint]

 

Congratulations to you!  Your perseverance is admirable, as is your thoughtfulness in returning to give us the full and happy story.

[marina & emil 0]

  Quote

REJECTED. Sigh... no transfer to Almaty for us. Confirmed my suspicions that they are not accepting transfers other than IR-5 cases

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I'm affraid it's not only IR-5 cases, we were rejected to transfer in Almaty today too. 

I think they mean that an applicant has to have something like permit for permanent residency or something like that. 

 

[millefleur 5,050]

Jumping in here as mod: do you guys think we need to start a new thread about Almaty transfers? This thread is quite big and has moved on from just Warsaw discussion. Let me know if you'd like to just keep posting here or start a new thread to keep better track of specific embassy transfers. 

[blaze203 6]

  On 7/26/2023 at 3:30 PM, millefleur said:

Jumping in here as mod: do you guys think we need to start a new thread about Almaty transfers? This thread is quite big and has moved on from just Warsaw discussion. Let me know if you'd like to just keep posting here or start a new thread to keep better track of specific embassy transfers. 

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Personally it's ok as one stream as it's Russians trying to figure out where they can get cases transferred from Warsaw or how to get Schengen visas. It's just amazing the government has offered no solution to this for visas other than IR 5.

[blaze203 6]

  On 7/26/2023 at 12:51 AM, blakezero said:

Update: 

 

We are back to the US! It was a stressful situation while waiting for the passport with the visa. The online status was changing from "Refused" to "AP" back and forth. We extended hotel/Airbnb and flight reservations constantly as there was no response to our emails from the Jerusalem embassy with a clear date for the visa. Our experience felt like a nightmare... something that I want to forget.

 

On 6/13 at 12 PM, I emailed to the Jerusalem Embassy on behalf of my mother-in-law (I'm not even the petitioner) asking to return her passport with or without the visa as our situation in Jerusalem was critically challenging for us to stay. We wanted to go back to our respective homes, my mother-in-law wanted to go back to Russia and I wanted to go back Home with my wife and daughters. We do understand the consequences of pulling the passport without visa even if they said the case was approved, that was our wish. So please have the passport ready for us at the embassy. Right after sending the email, we took a taxi and headed to the embassy without any expectations or hopes. We just were exhausted of waiting and looking at the computer for any updates.

 

At the embassy, looks like they read the email and knew about us. The guy at the window told us to wait for one hour to get us the passport but it was not guarantee. So we waited.........

 

They called my mother-in-law to go inside, I couldn't enter. After 30 minutes... there she was with the passport on her hands... I was so relieved and to our surprise, the visa stamp as well. We cried of happiness and sadness as we sacrificed a lot.

 

As soon as I arrived to our airbnb, I bought tickets to go back to the US for the next day. We left Israel on June 14th 11:00 am and arrived to our home on June 15th 6:00 AM. 

 

Passport control was extremely fast since now everything is electronic and no need of seal documents. They allowed my mother-in-law to be with me on the US citizens line which is faster than the foreign visitors.

 

We received the SSN card in two weeks and recently the biometrics appointment letter for the green card which is next week.

 

So we made it... We spent around 10K+ in expenses while in Israel including flight and hotels and stayed 17 days. It could have been more days if the mail the passport to the post office, the post office in jerusalem is closed fridays to sundays. 

 

After all, we are eternally grateful to the Jerusalem Embassy for their consideration is accepting our case from Warsaw and for expediting the issuance of the visa on the same day. I was able to made back home before Fathers' day and see my little daughters. Thank You.

 

I hope the families I met outside the embassy got their visas approved.

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Thank you for the update. Good for you on your perseverance and pushing the issue, it got you the result you wanted. Enjoy your time at home. Congratulations!!

[BenNomad 89]

  On 7/26/2023 at 12:18 AM, Cire32 said:

Has anyone ever tried to transfer to a Latin American country?

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I considered it, but they're going to ask for proof of your residence there. Another thing to consider is how much of a backlog do they have in those countries. I tried to find data about current wait times at various US embassies but I didn't find any official source for that, just statistics on how many visas they issued by month. 

[BenNomad 89]

  On 7/26/2023 at 3:42 PM, blaze203 said:

Personally it's ok as one stream as it's Russians trying to figure out where they can get cases transferred from Warsaw or how to get Schengen visas. It's just amazing the government has offered no solution to this for visas other than IR 5.

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For those who have no transfer options and need to get to Warsaw, I started another thread:

 

[blaze203 6]

  On 7/27/2023 at 11:41 AM, BenNomad said:

For those who have no transfer options and need to get to Warsaw, I started another thread:

Thank you!

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[wffwubuwjq 0]

Quick question to those who are traveling to Warsaw. My wife has Finnish Schengen, however she got it before the war and never got the chance to activate it. We are now in Colombia and plan to go to Spain first to activate her visa and only then travel to Poland. Would that work? Does anyone has similar experience?

[millefleur 5,050]

  On 8/1/2023 at 4:45 PM, wffwubuwjq said:

Quick question to those who are traveling to Warsaw. My wife has Finnish Schengen, however she got it before the war and never got the chance to activate it. We are now in Colombia and plan to go to Spain first to activate her visa and only then travel to Poland. Would that work? Does anyone has similar experience?

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I heard that Finland has been cancelling tourist visas that were issued to Russians. She might want to double check with the nearest Finnish consulate that her visa still active. 

[blaze203 6]

  On 6/10/2022 at 1:39 PM, Tetya Motya said:

We have PD May 2021 and DQ May 2022. We are IR5 

Interview supposed to be in Warsaw. 

How long is everyone waiting for interview date to be set up? 

 

 

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If you are IR5 you can transfer to almaty via https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSep8AeOibjHn1Xpf95ON-7PViDDiQs6OgzO8dxE3ihZRSuJCA/viewform

[BenNomad 89]

I requested a transfer to Athens yesterday and got the expected reply this morning. They say I need a Greek passport or Greek ID to be "considered" for a transfer. They also said I need to contact kccdv@state.gov regarding my transfer request. Isn't that the Diversity Visa program? Why the heck would they send me there if they know our case is IR-1??

[rikko 93]

  On 9/7/2023 at 7:44 AM, BenNomad said:

Why the heck would they send me there if they know our case is IR-1??

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Lol they're being lazy. I would regularly get ghosted by embassies, they'd give stock replies, Georgia told me to cancel my application but told me they can't guarantee a transfer (?!), Jerusalem didn't accept a transfer until we had tried to get to Poland through Spanish Schengen and were given single-entry only. 

I know you're avoiding Jerusalem but things look bleak. You can also try mass-emailing all visa-free entry countries for Russians... I recall a lady a VERY long time ago got a Central American country to accept her transfer, but I cannot remember the country or her circumstances. Also, to be fair, while Israel didn't like my transfers through Turkey and Qatar when flipping through my passport, they also let me and my fiancé in with some grumbling. If you can explain your stay in Egypt in a satisfactory way to them AND arrive with your fiancé, it could be okay. 

Some countries (like Armenia) have small embassies that could not take you on if they wanted... I'm not sure where you could check, but embassies that handle a lot of neighboring country's cases or have the manpower to take new cases (besides Jerusalem) could be a good starting point. 

[BenNomad 89]

  On 9/7/2023 at 2:26 PM, rikko said:

Lol they're being lazy. I would regularly get ghosted by embassies, they'd give stock replies, Georgia told me to cancel my application but told me they can't guarantee a transfer (?!), Jerusalem didn't accept a transfer until we had tried to get to Poland through Spanish Schengen and were given single-entry only. 

I know you're avoiding Jerusalem but things look bleak. You can also try mass-emailing all visa-free entry countries for Russians... I recall a lady a VERY long time ago got a Central American country to accept her transfer, but I cannot remember the country or her circumstances. Also, to be fair, while Israel didn't like my transfers through Turkey and Qatar when flipping through my passport, they also let me and my fiancé in with some grumbling. If you can explain your stay in Egypt in a satisfactory way to them AND arrive with your fiancé, it could be okay. 

Some countries (like Armenia) have small embassies that could not take you on if they wanted... I'm not sure where you could check, but embassies that handle a lot of neighboring country's cases or have the manpower to take new cases (besides Jerusalem) could be a good starting point. 

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My wife (the applicant) was always more hesitant than I was, but your messages today are encouraging and giving me good material to convince her to try for a Jerusalem transfer. One other plus for us, my first name is Benjamin and that's gotta count for something in Israel 😉