K1 Refused (AP) in Warsaw

[C&K2022 8]

Our MTD hearing was postponed by the judge until March 5, 2025. No reason was given. In AP now for 9 months. Will update when we get any more news.

[Pirozhok 24]

So 7 months after posting this, we got notification that the AP has ended and the embassy's asked us to bring the passport and a new medical exam back to the embassy and drop it off at the window without an appointment.

 

I'm curious if anyone else has gone through this part and has their timeline or any interesting experiences/unexpected roadblocks to share? I wasn't able to find recent stories, but there has to be folks going through this same thing with all the extended AP periods for Russians.

[TBoneTX 46,612]

Thanks for your update.  This sounds like great news!

[Pirozhok 24]

Update time!

 

Feb 19 my attorney got a response to an inquiry from September indicating that the AP had completed and we could bring the passport and updated medical exam to the embassy any weekday between 10-11am. She jumped through the medical exam hoops once more. While awaiting the results, I sent another inquiry to the embassy to confirm AP had completed and whether they needed and updated docs (specifically, I've seen conflicting acceptable ages of the police certificate); they still haven't bothered to reply to that one as of right now.

 

She went ahead and got a fresh police certificate...better safe than sorry, etc.

 

A couple weeks later, the exam results came back. They send they'd been sent electronically to the embassy and wouldn't be sending a packet with her, so I inquired again to confirm this one, as it's a lot easier to sort out while she's still in Russia. They confirmed same day that the medical exam results came in and they were awaiting the passport. We booked flights and hotels.

 

Last week, March 11th (me) and 12th (her), we arrived in Belgrade. Her Schengen expired at the end of 2024, and it's where we first met. She's been hanging out there since. A few hours after she arrived, I took her passport and flew to Warsaw, where I've been since. Arrived the evening of the 12th, dropped off the passport the morning of the 13th.

 

Over the course of the 13th, the CEAC status did some interesting stuff:

• Creation date updated to March 13, and it changed from Immigrant to Nonimmigrant
• The status finally changed from Refused to Application Received
• The status synced up when searching by Immigrant (using the WRW#) or Nonimmigrant (using AA#,/passport #/first 5 of surname)
• Up until now, I could see a nonimmigrant status that wasn't being updated using the AA# and "NA" for the passport and surname; this stopped working

Later on the 13th, the status updated to Approved. On the 14th, it finally showed Issued. Sucks that it was a Friday, as we got to spend the weekend in foreign countries waiting until today, when the email came through that it was ready for pickup. I immediately hopped in a Bolt and went to the MBE and picked it up. That part of the process, the one part I actually needed to be here for, took all of 45 seconds.

 

So now I'm back in my Warsaw hotel with her passport in-hand. having just booked a flight to Belgrade and a pair of flights from Belgrade back home.

[TBoneTX 46,612]

Wonderful news!  Keep the updates coming.

[P3ACHY 6]

Congratulations! Safe travels back home!

[Pirozhok 24]

We made it home this morning, after a long day spent between airplanes and airports (capped off with a flight that immediately landed because a goose got sucked into the engine as we were taking off).

 

I'll post a POE review sometime later once we're caught up on sleep and the billion things we need to do now that she's here, but we came in through IAD in DC and had an incredibly smooth time. They saw her packet, waved us over, and basically let us just walk right in. The only question was how long we'd spent in this awful process before venting a bit about how inefficient it all is. It was really the first time in this entire ordeal that it felt like someone acknowledged there are people behind all the paperwork.

[TBoneTX 46,612]

2 hours ago, Pirozhok said:

We made it home this morning, after a long day spent between airplanes and airports (capped off with a flight that immediately landed because a goose got sucked into the engine as we were taking off).

 

I'll post a POE review sometime later once we're caught up on sleep and the billion things we need to do now that she's here, but we came in through IAD in DC and had an incredibly smooth time. They saw her packet, waved us over, and basically let us just walk right in. The only question was how long we'd spent in this awful process before venting a bit about how inefficient it all is. It was really the first time in this entire ordeal that it felt like someone acknowledged there are people behind all the paperwork.

Where's the +1,000 upvote button?  So thrilled for you.  However, you got cheated out of a fried-goose dinner.