London CR1 / IR1 Appointment Updates

[Clor_W 0]

We sent an expedite request in May and have heard nothing. My husband spent hours ringing the NVC to be told they have it but you have to send another email for them to look into why they havnt looked into the last email ....makes perfect sense right.

So he tried to send another email and it bounced back saying mailbox full. I think the NVC are now slammed with cases and cant actually process them fast enough - at least thats my take away on this

 

We DQ'd 16th Feb and my husband is being deployed shortly so if i dont get out there soon im moving to the USA alone with no access to his bank accounts and no one to help me settle in. We should have had an interview by now without expedite. Its crazy that things were moving quicker when covid was in full swing, yet they seemed to have slowed down just as the restrictions started to lift.

 

All the NVC will tell you is that Covid is to blame.

[Felix2021 20]

32 minutes ago, SB0402 said:

 

 

Also; can I ask what you mean by “reopening”?

The government has said that there will be no more restrictions from July 19. The country is 'reopening'. No more masks, no more social distancing, no more working from home. The Embassy will be back to operating like before March 2020. That means all staff back in the 'office', no staggered appointments, no limits on the number of people in the building, etc. So in theory they could clear this backlog pretty quickly as they will be able to process three, four, five times the number of visas compared to the last 16 months.

 

But they can't do any of that if NVC isn't sending those cases in the first place.

 

In your scenario, and others, they didn't even send the expedite

Edited July 8, 2021 by Felix2021

[Felix2021 20]

On 7/2/2021 at 10:00 PM, Wuozopo said:

 

 

London approved 147 IR1 and CR1 visas in April. 

See this is strange to me as well. If people here are waiting from Feb, what are those 147 approvals? I imagine it's a similar number for May and June, but we don't have those stats. I doubt it's 147 expedites. I also doubt they would bypass Feb/March and process later DQs.

 

So something is happening, which is good, but who knows what exactly.

[S&R2019 6]

34 minutes ago, Felix2021 said:

See this is strange to me as well. If people here are waiting from Feb, what are those 147 approvals? I imagine it's a similar number for May and June, but we don't have those stats. I doubt it's 147 expedites. I also doubt they would bypass Feb/March and process later DQs.

 

So something is happening, which is good, but who knows what exactly.

That was in April. They have declined to release the statistics for May and it's almost a month behind schedule. I doubt they have processed any except expedited cases in May or June, given that no one has had a non-expedited appointment on here or any FB groups since April. If anyone knows of mandamus lawsuits going on for CR1, please let me know. We are DQ 5 months now and I will pay whatever it takes to make this happen.

[Wait in hope 21]

2 hours ago, S&R2019 said:

That was in April. They have declined to release the statistics for May and it's almost a month behind schedule. I doubt they have processed any except expedited cases in May or June, given that no one has had a non-expedited appointment on here or any FB groups since April. If anyone knows of mandamus lawsuits going on for CR1, please let me know. We are DQ 5 months now and I will pay whatever it takes to make this happen.

 

[Wait in hope 21]

We were also DQ early March, not seen husband for over a year now as he still looking after everything in the USA.  I Chased NVC again a few weeks back and recently got the usual generic reply.  "You are DQ'd and we will schedule interview when we get slot from embassy".  All I can do is keep sending them a generic,  whens my appointment in hope they get fed up with me and set me an interview haha.  Who oversees NVC, because this seems very unacceptable that they not doing their job.

[DaisyJ 35]

4 hours ago, SB0402 said:

Good afternoon everyone,

I wanted to share that yes, the issue lies with NVC. 
We spent almost 6 months with the NVC before we literally called everyday, emailed weekly and had congressmen and senators doing the same on our behalf. They admitted to a technical issue and finally sent our case to the Embassy. 
 

To be fair to the embassy, they have been extremely quick and helpful in terms of scheduling our actual interview. We were able to prepare everything within 2 days of the NVC transferring the case. 
 

This is great news, congrats! Glad the wheels are finally moving for you. Please keep us updated as to how it all goes! 

 

Does anyone know if anything can be done re. the issues lying with the NVC rather than the embassy? Would my husband writing to his congressperson to help, in anyway?

Edited July 8, 2021 by DaisyJ
Didn't read previous replies!

[Wait in hope 21]

3 minutes ago, DaisyJ said:

This is great news, congrats! Glad the wheels are finally moving for you. May I ask when your interview date is? And please keep us updated as to how it all goes! 

Perhaps we should all complain to Antony J Blinken head of state

[DylemmaUK 5]

17 hours ago, Felix2021 said:

This is beyond ridiculous now. How can people still be waiting from Feb when we're two weeks away from reopening? Shouldn't they be sending out interview dates for end of July now? 

 

Like one of the previous posters said, the problem could be NVC and not London. They are not sending them. I managed to get through to someone at the Embassy last week and they said they are operating at full capacity now but can't give me an estimated date because NVC haven't sent them my case details. Granted, I was only DQed 6 weeks ago, but it shows you how dependent the Embassy is on NVC. So it's not a case of the Embassy sitting on the Feb/March cases and waiting for restrictions to be lifted. But rather they unable to do anything until NVC does something. 

 

So the Embassy is sitting around microwaving tea:

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPIabWNntzk/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

It's a mess.

Can I ask how did you get hold of the embassy do you have a phone number or email address? Thanks 

[Lizzie And Zach 8]

Hi! We DQd on February 11th and have still not heard anything.  It's so frustrating and disheartening to have no communication from NVC or UK Embassy.

We started this whole process back in January 2020 (i130 submitted) and I just can't believe it is acceptable to keep couples and families apart for so long. I feel like my life is on hold. The occasional visit just isn't the same. Sorry, rant over! 

 

We've written to our congressman (Chicago) and they are looking into it for us but I'm not holding out much hope.

 

It's comforting to know that we are not alone in this but something has happen soon!

[juninho10 42]

20 hours ago, Wait in hope said:

We were also DQ early March, not seen husband for over a year now as he still looking after everything in the USA.  I Chased NVC again a few weeks back and recently got the usual generic reply.  "You are DQ'd and we will schedule interview when we get slot from embassy".  All I can do is keep sending them a generic,  whens my appointment in hope they get fed up with me and set me an interview haha.  Who oversees NVC, because this seems very unacceptable that they not doing their job.

I think they're doing what they can, honestly. Can you imagine your workload going up x10, x20 or whatever it is? I know I'd be buggered.

 

The issue is that it was seemingly understaffed before COVID, and that's exasperated the situation. Filed my I-130 in July 2019 and still no green card. I'm now at the point of laughing to avoid crying. 😂 

[Wuozopo 4,293]

On 7/8/2021 at 10:27 AM, S&R2019 said:

We are DQ 5 months now

Update your timeline with that info

 

On 7/8/2021 at 9:32 AM, Clor_W said:

We DQ'd 16th Feb and my

Update your timeline with that date

 

 

@Felix2021  @Wait in hope  @DaisyJ  @LO-SA  Fill out your timeline. It contributes to statistics and helps people who read or answer your posts or is useful when others are looking for timelines similar to theirs. Be sure and list London as your embassy.
 

 

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Wuozopo

[Wuozopo 4,293]

On 7/8/2021 at 8:44 AM, Lynds K. said:

DQ'd Feb 1st a

That date is not in your timeline.

 

On 7/8/2021 at 9:02 AM, AKBarnes said:

DQ 17th February and nothing yet. I emailed the NVC over a month ago and got a very generic response. Didn't really get a straight answer to my questions. Extremely frustrating 

What is your visa type? Your timeline seems wrong if this is an spouse visa. You would have a place to show date when you DQed. Is yours a work visa or for parents?

[Proaw2019 1]

8 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

That date is not in your timeline.

 

What is your visa type? Your timeline seems wrong if this is an spouse visa. You would have a place to show date when you DQed. Is yours a work visa or for parents?

I haven't filled out the timeline properly because my husband already has one on here. I just put in basic figures so I could comment but apparently that wasn't good enough either.

I won't comment further as there's no point to it. I just wanted to let people know what I'd found out, not be picked on.

[AKBarnes 1]

19 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

That date is not in your timeline.

 

What is your visa type? Your timeline seems wrong if this is an spouse visa. You would have a place to show date when you DQed. Is yours a work visa or for parents?

It is for spouse visa. I will take a look at my timeline x