Administrative processing review times?

[meaghanpk 27]

Anyone have any idea how long it takes (or has been taking) for the embassy to review additional documents?

 

Husband had his CR-1 interview Friday, Sept. 10. All went well except we had uploaded the incorrect document to CEAC (though he had a physical copy of the correct document with him at the interview--we had originally uploaded our marriage license but the immigration officer told us to upload our marriage certificate, which he had on hand for the interviewer). Interviewer told him to upload the correct document to CEAC and then "consider yourself approved!" She did not mention 221g or indicate anything other than that, but said that she would look at the application on Monday (today, Sept 13).

We uploaded the marriage cert 10 minutes after he walked out of the embassy. CEAC showed "uploaded" for the cert. (I uploaded it twice; once in "additional documents" and once as a replacement for the incorrect document)

 

Earlier this morning, on the CEAC status check, it said "Refused" for his visa. Now, it says "Administrative processing." The duplicate upload of the cert in CEAC has also been removed, and the Marriage Certificate line now says "Submitted".

 

Any ideas how long it may take for the visa to approved?

 

TIA!

[meaghanpk 27]

21 minutes ago, meaghanpk said:

Any ideas how long it may take for the visa to be approved?

 

 

No idea how to edit a post, but realizing I forgot a verb in the last sentence 😆

[Wuozopo 4,293]

1 hour ago, meaghanpk said:

Earlier this morning, on the CEAC status check, it said "Refused" for his visa. Now, it says "Administrative processing." The duplicate upload of the cert in CEAC has also been removed, and the Marriage Certificate line now says "Submitted".

Refused status would have come from the interview because they can’t approve yet.

Administrative processing now means somebody is working on it. It might be an embassy person or might be NVC accessing your file to fiddle with your uploads. 
 

Time? Really hard to know because several have reported around this forum that the embassy is short staffed this week. Only one interviewer today trying to cover all scheduled , calls to reschedule Tues to Fri, and an email reply saying they were too busy to answer why it’s been 3 weeks and no visa issued yet.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Wuozopo

[meaghanpk 27]

6 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

Refused status would have come from the interview because they can’t approve yet.

Administrative processing now means somebody is working on it. It might be an embassy person or might be NVC accessing your file to fiddle with your uploads. 
 

Time? Really hard to know because several have reported around this forum that the embassy is short staffed this week. Only one interviewer today trying to cover all scheduled , calls to reschedule Tues to Fri, and an email reply saying they were too busy to answer why it’s been 3 weeks and no visa issued yet.

Thanks! If NVC is reviewing the doc and then approves it...does it then go to the embassy for them to print the visa and put it in passport? I note that someone else who also had their visa approved at the interview is also at Administrative Processing.

 

Sending lots of good vibes to that single interviewer... bless them.... 

[Wuozopo 4,293]

1 hour ago, meaghanpk said:

Thanks! If NVC is reviewing the doc and then approves it...does it then go to the embassy for them to print the visa and put it in passport? I note that someone else who also had their visa approved at the interview is also at Administrative Processing.

 

Sending lots of good vibes to that single interviewer... bless them.... 

 I really don’t know how NVC operates with their document upload. Both embassy and NVC see the same things because they are both Dept of State. I always thought it was strictly embassy accessing your file once NVC turned it over. 
 

Everybody has Administrative Processing. It could be only 2 hours, or two days, or longer in your case where they have to go back and see new document.  And if that one lady has to go back and review it, you can see how this week she might be overloaded. She sounds new because nobody has ever looked at photos before and she was being all sweet and wanting to look at the cute couples. They could have brought her in from another department because of absences. 
 

 

[meaghanpk 27]

17 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

Everybody has Administrative Processing. It could be only 2 hours, or two days, or longer in your case where they have to go back and see new document.  
 

 

Thanks. Hopefully not too much longer. She told my husband to expect his passport in about two weeks. Fingers crossed.

[Wuozopo 4,293]

14 minutes ago, meaghanpk said:

Thanks. Hopefully not too much longer. She told my husband to expect his passport in about two weeks. Fingers crossed.

Most get the passport within a week when there aren’t additional documents to send. I would have expected you and Daisy to have them by week’s end, but you sorta got out of the work flow so getting back to catch your case up is going to be longer than if you had stayed in the flow. They do sound swamped this week so that kinda creates a bottleneck for you. 
 

You said your husband got no 221(g) paper. He should have because he wasn’t approved (refused) for lack of a marriage certificate. Also makes me think your lady might be new to interview routine as mentioned above and just forgot to give the paper. Status changing to AP is a good sign that the certificate is accepted, And the necessary paperwork and getting the visa printed is moving forward. Just keep checking for “issued”. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Wuozopo

[meaghanpk 27]

23 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

Most get the passport within a week when there aren’t additional documents to send. I would have expected you and Daisy to have them by week’s end, but you sorta got out of the work flow so getting back to catch your case up is going to be longer than if you had stayed in the flow. They do sound swamped this week so that kinda creates a bottleneck for you. 
 

You said your husband got no 221(g) paper. He should have because he wasn’t approved (refused) for lack of a marriage certificate. Also makes me think your lady might be new to interview routine as mentioned above and just forgot to give the paper. Status changing to AP is a good sign that the certificate is accepted, And the necessary paperwork and getting the visa printed is moving forward. Just keep checking for “issued”. 

Thanks for that information--very helpful. She did tell him that she would look at it today, and the fact that we had the status update to AP is, as you say, a good sign. At least keeps us in line with DaisyJ and likely others who were approved on the spot.

 

We'll be checking regularly! I have a wedding to RSVP to for us and have been holding out until we know he'll be here 😆

Edited September 13, 2021 by meaghanpk

[meaghanpk 27]

Update! visa has been issued, he received a tracking number for the courier package, and we are celebrating!

[justkeepwaiting 20]

Congratulations!!! Enjoy the wedding 😁

[GoingTheDistance2 7]

My wife just had something similar happen at her interview: she didn’t have an original copy of her passport (we had uploaded a copy issued by another country which had been accepted by NVC), so we quickly found the original copy, had it translated, re-uploaded to CEAC and had the original + translation couriered to the embassy.

 

The interviewer said everything else was great.

 

Two quick questions:

• From the experience above, sounds like this might only take a few days?  We also have a couple weddings upcoming in the US we’re hoping to have my wife attend
• How do find our status on the CEAC website?  I’m logged in and don’t see anything like refused, pending, or administrative processing anywhere.  

Thank you!

[Wuozopo 4,293]

2 hours ago, GoingTheDistance2 said:

My wife just had something similar happen at her interview: she didn’t have an original copy of her passport

What is your embassy?  You have no information in your profile or a timeline. 

[GoingTheDistance2 7]

1 hour ago, Wuozopo said:

What is your embassy?  You have no information in your profile or a timeline. 

Thanks for the response!

My wife’s interview was at the London embassy.  This is for a CR-1; we’re about ~11 months or so into the process.