IR1/CR1 Interview timeframes in Warsaw

[Zoothie 8]

Interview notification is in the range of 30-45 days from the interview date.

You could email the NVC to expedite, but they will most likely reject: stay in line.

I know a couple that was approved for their expedite request, but there the spouse lived in Poland, some 100 miles away from the border with Ukraine.

You could try to request to move to a less loaded embassy, but you need to get that embassy to agree first.

I know a couple that tried with Riga, Latvia. They were refused: stay where assigned.

I know a couple that was able to transfer to Frankfurt, but there the spouse, a Russian citizen, lived in Germany officially for a long time.

 

Most likely - prepare to wait. But the cost to try things out is low: a rejection, so try it out if you want.

 

[Master5 12]

USCIS approval is the easier part. I've made my first NVC document submission in Dec 2021 and the case is still in NVC. This is IR1 case. And it's not like I'm being negligent with the documents being submitted, and our case is clearly approvable. The whole NVC process used to be a simple formality before the interview and it took 3 months at most to complete, but now it became a bureaucratic barrier that is almost impossible to overcome. They don't give a damn about your circumstances, they don't give a damn about US citizen kids being stuck in Russia because their mother's case can't move through NVC. There is no authority to complain, no accountability whatsoever. This is a cold bureaucratic machine, pure and simple. It seems like they only sabotage the cases of Russian applicants, maybe because Warsaw consulate is backed up, hard to tell. More info here:
https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/787962-nvc-discrimination-against-russian-applicants-or-simply-incompetence/

 

More data:

- Expedite request: rejected

- 2 Case transfer requests: rejected by the embassies

[Simplytex 387]

2 hours ago, Master5 said:

USCIS approval is the easier part. I've made my first NVC document submission in Dec 2021 and the case is still in NVC. This is IR1 case. And it's not like I'm being negligent with the documents being submitted, and our case is clearly approvable. The whole NVC process used to be a simple formality before the interview and it took 3 months at most to complete, but now it became a bureaucratic barrier that is almost impossible to overcome. They don't give a damn about your circumstances, they don't give a damn about US citizen kids being stuck in Russia because their mother's case can't move through NVC. There is no authority to complain, no accountability whatsoever. This is a cold bureaucratic machine, pure and simple. It seems like they only sabotage the cases of Russian applicants, maybe because Warsaw consulate is backed up, hard to tell. More info here:
https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/787962-nvc-discrimination-against-russian-applicants-or-simply-incompetence/

 

More data:

- Expedite request: rejected

- 2 Case transfer requests: rejected by the embassies

You should create a timeline here! So, you are only applying for IR1 since the kids won't need a visa or anything. Have you at least been DQ'ed at NVC? or did you get RFE's?

[Simplytex 387]

On 10/12/2022 at 10:25 AM, Zoothie said:

2. Interview - mid Oct

BTW, when is your interview? It's mid-October now, good luck with everything!

[FJinSD 14]

On 10/12/2022 at 6:30 AM, JeanneAdil said:

best to go to the portal for Russia and also Poland /u can see poland if u don't sign in but go to the word portal above and choose Poland

 

on the portal sites there (hopefully) is a list on right side of interviews scheduled and approved 

look at the timelines of those VJ members

that is the best source for info for particular embassy 

also read the posts there /  there will be multiple questions on  wait times 

 

wishing u 2 the best

Can you clarify what you mean when you refer to the 'portal for Russia and Poland' > 'don't sign in but go to the word portal above and choose Poland' ?  What portal?  Sign in for what?  Are you referring to the data matrix timelines here on VisaJourney?  Thanks

[Simplytex 387]

12 minutes ago, FJinSD said:

Can you clarify what you mean when you refer to the 'portal for Russia and Poland' > 'don't sign in but go to the word portal above and choose Poland' ?  What portal?  Sign in for what?  Are you referring to the data matrix timelines here on VisaJourney?  Thanks

https://www.visajourney.com/portals/
https://www.visajourney.com/portals/index.php?country=Russia
https://www.visajourney.com/portals/index.php?country=Poland

[JeanneAdil 6,579]

12 minutes ago, FJinSD said:

Can you clarify what you mean when you refer to the 'portal for Russia and Poland' > 'don't sign in but go to the word portal above and choose Poland' ?  What portal?  Sign in for what?  Are you referring to the data matrix timelines here on VisaJourney?  Thanks

on the home page for VJ upper blue bar it says portal

hit it when u sign in  to VJ and it will take u to country list (if u do a timeline,  it will take u to home country of the bene)

if u do not sign in with your name and but as a guest,  u can go to portal ,  choose a country to see  -in this case the country bene will interview in

 

There is a lot of posts from others in these portals directly related to your query (s)

[FJinSD 14]

Thanks for clarifying that.

[Simplytex 387]

Sept IV numbers just got released - not great 😒 another month where they have only issued a total of 16! IR1/CR1 visas.

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/SEPTEMBER 2022 - IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf

 

Looking at visawhen's graphs for Warsaw and Moscow, it looks like the pre-2020 averages were around 18 IR1/CR1 issued in Moscow, and maybe 16/17 from Warsaw. So, two months of only 16 total issued out of Warsaw when we should be seeing closer to 35+ isn't great. But, I have to wonder about other factors. Starting in 2020, I think the chance to meet and/or get married to a Russian dropped, so there may be fewer applications from new couples, but at the same time with the Ukraine invasion and changes in Russia, any existing couples I would imagine would be applying to get out, thereby displacing any reduction from COVID. And that also doesn't factor in the people who have been waiting since the covid shutdowns...

[smoothoperaytor 40]

 

4 minutes ago, Simplytex said:

Sept IV numbers just got released - not great 😒 another month where they have only issued a total of 16! IR1/CR1 visas.

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/SEPTEMBER 2022 - IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf

 

Looking at visawhen's graphs for Warsaw and Moscow, it looks like the pre-2020 averages were around 18 IR1/CR1 issued in Moscow, and maybe 16/17 from Warsaw. So, two months of only 16 total issued out of Warsaw when we should be seeing closer to 35+ isn't great. But, I have to wonder about other factors. Starting in 2020, I think the chance to meet and/or get married to a Russian dropped, so there may be fewer applications from new couples, but at the same time with the Ukraine invasion and changes in Russia, any existing couples I would imagine would be applying to get out, thereby displacing any reduction from COVID. And that also doesn't factor in the people who have been waiting since the covid shutdowns...

Interesting. We got our DQ at the end of June this year and I imagine it will be another 6-12 months. I'm not optimistic at all about us visiting the US anytime soon. I'm also starting to get used to living in Russia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Simplytex 387]

10 minutes ago, Simplytex said:

Sept IV numbers just got released - not great 😒 another month where they have only issued a total of 16! IR1/CR1 visas.

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/SEPTEMBER 2022 - IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf

 

Looking at visawhen's graphs for Warsaw and Moscow, it looks like the pre-2020 averages were around 18 IR1/CR1 issued in Moscow, and maybe 16/17 from Warsaw. So, two months of only 16 total issued out of Warsaw when we should be seeing closer to 35+ isn't great. But, I have to wonder about other factors. Starting in 2020, I think the chance to meet and/or get married to a Russian dropped, so there may be fewer applications from new couples, but at the same time with the Ukraine invasion and changes in Russia, any existing couples I would imagine would be applying to get out, thereby displacing any reduction from COVID. And that also doesn't factor in the people who have been waiting since the covid shutdowns...

I was looking at the numbers again, and I wonder if they have had to divert staff from processing IV visas to process DV visas, because since April there has been a massive spike in DV visas issued from Warsaw, which I can totally empathize with (these are people who probably have no other way to get to the US, and the DV can expire if not processed in time.) I just hope that once they address that backlog (I think DV visas for 2023 FY must be issued by end of Sept?) we see more interviews for IV. Again, just anecdotal but it seems like quite a few folks on this forum have or had interviews scheduled for October, so I'm wondering if that DV surge was planned and now they will do a big push for IV...

 

Just doing some rough math based on old visawhen graphs - seems like roughly 40DV1 visas/mo, 20 DV2, 20DV3, so lets say 80 per month. But we've just seen 2x-5x that volume since February!

Edited October 21, 2022 by Simplytex

[Simplytex 387]

I nerded out for a while this morning, to go through the historical data for visa's issued by country... Here is the data for Russia in a chart.

 

In green is the total IR1 and IR2 visas issued.

In blue is the total CR1 and CR2 visas issued.

In red is the total DV visas issued (including the DV1, DV2, and DV3 categories combined)

Also note that the DV visas use the righthand secondary axis (they are an order of magnitude higher than IR+CR visas), while the IR/CR visas use the lefthand axis.

 

Given this info, I can't really fault Dept of State - it seems like in total (at least out of these three categories) they have been pretty hard at work. Three observations for me are:

 

1) Yes, there was a slowdown in July 21 (I think US embassy pretty much stopped issuing visas around then?), but after assigning to Warsaw in early 2022 seems like the numbers have been as high as they were before (total height of green+blue)
2) if you look before covid (Mar 20) there were as many, or more, CR1 (blue) than IR1 (green) but now there are more IR1. Seems like fewer people got married, so those that did, are now eligible for IR1 visas, and also (this is total speculation) the backlog isn't as big as it might have been if we assumed that travel and ability for relationships to develop/happen was dramatically reduced as well.
3) the red line for DV visas is higher than ever by like 2x, so clearly that is going to have a huge impact on resources/staff available to address backlog for other visa types.

[BenNomad 89]

Unfortunately I can't provide any info about wait times for the interview in Warsaw and when to apply for the Schengen visa, as it's something I'm trying to get a sense of myself. My family is still very early in the process: we only submitted to USCIS in June this year. I was thinking that maybe we'd be looking at an interview in Poland late next fall (2023) but it's anybody's guess. After reading this thread I have less hope. I'm a US citizen with a Russian wife and three young dual-citizen kids. Currently we are all in Russia, but we are leaving in two weeks to begin life as US visa-applicant "nomads". Could be that we just end up settling somewhere else. A bitter irony for me is that we know of Russian citizens who have fled to Mexico in the past month (since mobilization), requested asylum at the US border, spent a few days in custody before being released. Now they are looking for work in the US and from what I understand, have a clear path to a green card after one year. How is that for fairness? Maybe I should just ask my wife to sit in handcuffs for a few days, it's not so bad, really ;) the weather is nice in San Diego...

[Simplytex 387]

31 minutes ago, BenNomad said:

Unfortunately I can't provide any info about wait times for the interview in Warsaw and when to apply for the Schengen visa, as it's something I'm trying to get a sense of myself. My family is still very early in the process: we only submitted to USCIS in June this year. I was thinking that maybe we'd be looking at an interview in Poland late next fall (2023) but it's anybody's guess. After reading this thread I have less hope. I'm a US citizen with a Russian wife and three young dual-citizen kids. Currently we are all in Russia, but we are leaving in two weeks to begin life as US visa-applicant "nomads". Could be that we just end up settling somewhere else. A bitter irony for me is that we know of Russian citizens who have fled to Mexico in the past month (since mobilization), requested asylum at the US border, spent a few days in custody before being released. Now they are looking for work in the US and from what I understand, have a clear path to a green card after one year. How is that for fairness? Maybe I should just ask my wife to sit in handcuffs for a few days, it's not so bad, really the weather is nice in San Diego...

Definitely apply for k3 visa, that's a starting point (I got approved at USCIS in 4 months because of it.) 

 

There's something really messed up that you can't apply for DCF at Warsaw (since it's the designated embassy for Russian applications.) Have you tried asking about that? Also, try getting congressional reps to help for your state of domicile (if you have one?)

[nekotakacho 60]

Have you ever seen a holding cell at the border? Do you think your Russian wife could survive it? Be my guest if you think she’d do it. My Russian wife would never do it. Might as well just cross the river at my godparents farm in Progreso Texas. I’m not kidding either…I too often ponder why we go the legal route…when it’s so much easier and convenient to walk into the USA and claim asylum.

Edited October 22, 2022 by nekotakacho