Risks with Transferring a Case (Russian Fiancé - From Warsaw to somehere else) [merged]

[rikko 93]

22 hours ago, ah-no said:

Hey! Can you help me? How did you actually go about transferring it? And how long did it take them to do so? Can you keep updated about the interview? I think that embassy out there is pretty small. 

You email and ask for a transfer, or use an online portal. It varies from embassy to embassy. Remember to argue your case for transfer well when asking. Many embassies only take cases of extreme hardship. 

Actual transfers are usually quick, sometimes a reply takes a while, if you get one at all. Serbia has never replied to me once.

Small embassies have longer wait and processing times. Jerusalem was processing a lot of Russians pre-war but time will tell when they return to that rate.

[BenNomad 89]

On 12/2/2023 at 10:44 AM, ah-no said:

Hey! Can you help me? How did you actually go about transferring it? And how long did it take them to do so? Can you keep updated about the interview? I think that embassy out there is pretty small. 

I wrote to BishkekIV@state.gov with the transfer request (stated reason being the Jerusalem situation) and got an automatic reply which sounded like a denial. Then I got another email a week later accepting the transfer. My wife has been following a Telegram chat group for Bishkek, which I think is mostly people who wanted to transfer out of Jerusalem, and recently people are saying that Bishkek is not accepting transfers. I'm sure they got overwhelmed with requests. Looking at embassy stats, they generally issue more visas than Jerusalem.

[rikko 93]

8 hours ago, BenNomad said:

Looking at embassy stats, they generally issue more visas than Jerusalem.

Where can you find embassy stats? 

[Chancy 6,242]

12 hours ago, rikko said:

Where can you find embassy stats? 

 

Check here -- https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

 

[ah-no 27]

On 12/3/2023 at 3:13 AM, BenNomad said:

I wrote to BishkekIV@state.gov with the transfer request (stated reason being the Jerusalem situation) and got an automatic reply which sounded like a denial. Then I got another email a week later accepting the transfer. My wife has been following a Telegram chat group for Bishkek, which I think is mostly people who wanted to transfer out of Jerusalem, and recently people are saying that Bishkek is not accepting transfers. I'm sure they got overwhelmed with requests. Looking at embassy stats, they generally issue more visas than Jerusalem.

What stats are you referencing to draw that conclusion? If you're looking here, I see Jerusalem is way ahead, and Bishkek is a trickle:https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/OCTOBER 2023 - IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf
 

[BenNomad 89]

21 hours ago, ah-no said:

What stats are you referencing to draw that conclusion? If you're looking here, I see Jerusalem is way ahead, and Bishkek is a trickle:https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/OCTOBER 2023 - IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf
 

I was looking at the same page and I added up all the visa categories including Diversity Visas (DV). 

[Cire32 14]

My fiance has an interview date! It's at the end of February!

We've had such trouble with this scheduling stage and I had been unable to find anything helpful on the internet or on this forum, so I want to leave my experience here for anyone else who may go through it.

 

My fiance is Russian and our case was originally sent to Warsaw. We transferred our case to Jerusalem and at the end of September we finally got the email saying the embassy received our documents and they were ready for us to schedule the interview by going to https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-il/iv/users/sign_in. When we first tried to schedule, there were no appointments and you can't pay your fee if there isn't an appointment. After a week or two, finally they released appointment dates. When you are ready to pay you get sent to the Hyp CreditGuard page when you put in your card info and pay. However, every time we tried, we got a message saying "Payment Failed! Refusal. Use alternative method." We tried multiple cards but nothing worked. We also received a message after several tries that said "There was a problem processing your payment. You may have been charged. Please contact support. Do not attempt to pay again." They listed a contact page (https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-il/iv/information/contact_us) with an email for payment issues, which I emailed. Absolutely useless. In one reply they did confirm that my payment hadn't gone through, but all other communications were copy-and-paste pre-written messages that didn't relate to anything I wrote. All of the appointments were taken in less than 24 hours and we missed the opportunity.

 

I saw there is an option to pay in cash at the Israeli Postal Bank, but you have to physically go there and pay, then you come back to the portal and upload a receipt before the system considers it paid, then it will let you through to the scheduling calendar. Neither of us are in Israel right now, so that wasn't an option for us.

 

Then the war in Gaza started and they announced they were no longer processing visas and cancelling appointments. We've checked several times per day every day anyway and only twice during October and November did any appointments appear. I suspect they were cancellations because they were only a week or two away from the date I saw them. We tried to pay anyway, but no luck. I emailed the visa section of the embassy and asked if they had any plans to restart visa appointments again and they told me they may release new dates in January and we should keep checking the portal.

 

At this point I discovered that you can schedule by phone too. I don't know how I missed this earlier, but I called and confirmed that they can take your credit card over the phone and then schedule you. There were no dates at that time, so they told me to keep checking the portal.

 

Finally in the beginning of December at least one February appointment appeared (before you pay, the portal will only tell you the soonest appointment available. There may be other dates but you can't see them or know how many until after you pay). This time I had a new card. All previous attempts had been with Mastercards, but my new card was a Visa card. This time it worked! No issues at all! I don't know if being Mastercard was the problem or not, but there is nothing that says they don't accept them. There were three spots available and we chose end of February. It's good we didn't take an earlier date in February due to the medical exam. After scheduling the visa appointment, we scheduled the medical exam. All of the December, January and early February dates had been filled up, so the mid February date worked well for us.

 

I want to celebrate, but I know there are still big hurdles to overcome yet. My fiance will have to enter Israel and it seems their border control is as strict and hard to cross as the US border control. The embassy could also put him in administrative processing. And then there's possible escalation of the war and it's complications. So I'm (very) cautiously optimistic.

[rikko 93]

On 12/14/2023 at 8:54 PM, Cire32 said:

I want to celebrate, but I know there are still big hurdles to overcome yet. My fiance will have to enter Israel and it seems their border control is as strict and hard to cross as the US border control. The embassy could also put him in administrative processing. And then there's possible escalation of the war and it's complications. So I'm (very) cautiously optimistic.

Do your best to enter the country with him as having YOU physically there with your US passport seems to sway border control more. As we got off our flight from Armenia, most people (probably also Russian) were being directed to another location (additional screening?) but me and my fiancé were waved through immediately once my passport was shown. My fiancé has a coworker who tried to enter Israel with paperwork confirming he was there for a business visa interview at the US embassy, and he was thrown into a holding cell and deported at his expense at the soonest available flight. Paperwork showing that your fiancé has an interview may not be enough to convince border control there (many Russians and Ukrainians try to enter Israel and overstay).

If you are put into administrative processing, and your medical expires (6 months) you will have to do it again. If there are warning signs (sensitive degrees, nationalities, careers, travel history) expect more delays or problems. Also, we were given an exit interview when leaving Israel that was about 15 minutes of multiple people cross-examining my fiancé over what we were in Israel for and why exactly we HAD to go to Bethlehem (for our medical, and because Jerusalem medical location was busy). Anyway, I would avoid Bethlehem/West Bank as of now...

Specifically, we were put into AP because while I met the income requirements for a household of 3 (I live in a household of 3), my fiancé would be a 4th member to provide for so I had to meet income requirements for a household of 4. I did not, but the interviewer decided to ask for more information on my fiancé's occupation as he "should be able to provide for himself once in the US" (he is a software engineer). But, with my fiancé holding a chemistry degree, being a software engineer, and being Russian, I think he was put into AP for that. 

Personally I am optimistic because Israel has good ties with the US, and with the amount of Russian Jews who have made Aliyah, they are sympathetic to Russians with American fiancés. It's a larger embassy and once things get rolling again, we should all be processed quickly enough.  Good luck! 

[BenNomad 89]

My wife had her interview on Friday in Bishkek and was approved. They told her right away the day and time to come pick up the passport, which was a nice surprise and allowed us to buy tickets to the U.S. already, in time for New Years. Yay!

 

Unfortunately, I don't think Bishkek is accepting transfers anymore, at least from what my wife is reading.

[TBoneTX 45,591]

1 hour ago, BenNomad said:

My wife had her interview on Friday in Bishkek and was approved.

Wonderful!  Congratulations to you both!

[Cire32 14]

My fiance successfully made it into Israel! He took an El Al flight into Tel Aviv. At the check in desk, they subjected him to a two hour long interrogation. They asked him about every place he had been recently, who he met there, what he was doing for work, why he was coming to Israel. He had all his documents and evidence of on going relationship printed out with him for the interview and they went through everything. They even wanted to see his email on his phone where he got the interview confirmation and his Telegram chat with me. We had a flight booked to the US (cancelable and changeable through El Al) and they commented on that flight, so it was probably good we had a flight out booked. In the end they were apparently satisfied and they let him through. They gave him a stamp that showed he went through security already, so they let him through quickly at the actual border control in Tel Aviv.

 

Now just waiting on the medical exam and the interview. 

[millefleur 5,047]

3 minutes ago, Cire32 said:

He took an El Al flight into Tel Aviv. At the check in desk, they subjected him to a two hour long interrogation. They asked him about every place he had been recently, who he met there, what he was doing for work, why he was coming to Israel.

Sheesh that's intense. Has it always been this difficult to get into Israel or is it something they started more recently?

[Cire32 14]

1 hour ago, millefleur said:

Sheesh that's intense. Has it always been this difficult to get into Israel or is it something they started more recently?

 

My understanding is that's always been a bit like the US, where there is an assumption of illegal immigration intent and need for the traveler to prove they will leave on time (of course they went easy on privileged nationalities). But it seems that right now with the war and security situation, they are really scrutinizing everyone. Apparently even Israelis were being questioned to some extent.

[Cire32 14]

Just an update for anyone interested - Everything went well for us and my fiance is now my husband

 

The medical interview in Jerusalem went smoothly. He really didn't have any health records to bring except some hand written vaccine records and documents from his childhood in the USSR. Fortunately Do Jonty was able to read Russian and was able to determine the vaccines needed. My fiance printed out an official "recovered from covid" form from Gosuslugi and when he showed it, the doctor said there was no need for the covid vaccine then. He actually crossed it off the form and marked him as having completed the vaccine requirements.

 

On thing about the medical exam though... They say your exam results should be ready within a few days, but this was not true for us. The bureaucrat who does the paperwork for the embassy was way behind on his work. My fiance went there after several days and was told that they might get it done the day before the interview. We had two weeks between the exam and the visa appointment, and two days before it, my fiance went to the med center and sat outside the bureaucrat's until they were about to close. He literally had to negotiate with the guy - he just couldn't be bothered with it - and remind him of the disaster it would be if it wasn't done in time. He did complete it at the end of the day. What's crazy is that if you're getting a CR1 visa, it's digitally submitted, so there's know way to know if the guy did it in time. At least with K1 you have to get a physical packet from him.

 

The interview at the embassy went very well. There were two parts. The first woman took his documents and asked some formal questions. She spoke russian and was a little cold at first but actually warmed up a bit went they talked. She didn't really spend much time looking at the documents. For any russians reading this, you will definitely need your военный билет even if you didn't serve in the military. It still says you didn't serve and they do want to see the original. After that, he moved to a different window with an American officer. He was actually quite friendly. He asked some basic questions about how we met and very basic things a couple should know. Nothing at all to worry about here. After about 15 minutes he said that he can come back and pick up his passport with the visa in a few days. And that was it. As for getting the passport back, they had him come back several days later and he went to a window outside the embassy and picked up his packet. Online there had only been an option to pick it up from the post office, but they never even mentioned that at the interview and just gave him instructions to pick it up there.

 

We immediately changed our El Al flight to the nearest date and got him out of there within two weeks. Entering the US was easy. They pulled him into a special room at the NY airport and some questions, took his packet and sent him on his way. We're married now and sent in our application for adjustment of status. He just received his work permit and social security number, only a month after submitting the application.

 

Good luck to everyone else going through this!

[TBoneTX 45,591]

20 hours ago, Cire32 said:

Just an update for anyone interested [...]

Thank you for returning with your happy update, and for taking the time to post the details!  This is exactly the sort of VJ post that helps everybody.  Congratulations -- keep us apprised and your timeline updated!