US Immigration from Sierra Leone

My fiance is working from and applying for a K1 visa in Freetown, Sierra Leone (but he is from a nearby West African country). The application is at the last stage--the Embassy has received it, and he just needs to schedule his interview. My fiance had been able to schedule his B2 visa interview through the same consulate last year without a problem, just that it was about 4 months from when we scheduled it. So we were expecting that the appointment we found might be a few months out, and we would have to wait. What we didn't see coming was to get to the appointment page and see a message that "Currently, there are no appointments available for the selected location."

We submitted the DS-160 on April 8 immediately after learning the case had been forwarded, and have been checking the appointments page several times daily since then. I was able to contact the consulate and was advised that they usually post new appointments at the beginning of the month, so since April 30 we have been checking the page much more frequently, several times every hour. At one point since then, I did notice that the AVITS website displayed the message "This application is currently undergoing updates and is temporarily unavailable. Please check back later." It did this several times. There was also a period where the appointment page was loading too slowly for me to access it, and I tried logging out and back in. I wondered if this might be when appointments were being added, but when I was able to access the page again, it displayed the same "no appointments available" message. It's hard to believe that maintenance message and lapse in loading (which happened early on the morning of April 30, Freetown time) was due to new appointments coming online and getting booked so fast.

I'm aware that this problem is not new, and that many people have had to try at it a lot longer than us before they found an appointment, so we understand these things take time. But like with the DS-160, it is just challenging enough that we are starting to ask ourselves, "Are we doing this right, or are we missing something?" Any thoughts or tips welcome!

Feb ??, 2024 | Received B2 visa & visited the US in summer 2024

Sept 11, 2024 | I-129f application received by USCIS

Feb 10, 2025 | Case approved and sent to NVC

Mar 24, 2025 | Case completed NVC processing

Apr 8, 2025 | NVC sent case to Embassy in Freetown, SL

Apr 17, 2025 | Embassy in Freetown, SL confirmed receipt of our case

Hi all!

Hope everyone is well. Quick question :

my cousins mother in law (women in her 70s) abandoned her green card. It expired about 5 years ago and she has been out of the country for about a decade. She said she had plans to come back, but she didn t. She was unwell for some time, Ebola hit, Covid hit, I don t think she has a reason that can excuse ten years though.

my cousin wants to know what would be best option to have her mother in law come back

- have her husband who is a us citizen file for her

- have mother in law apply for a tourist visa

- apply for sb1 (returning resident) visa

thanks for thoughts!

I received the following email from the consular this morning. Is this a good sign:

Greetings,

Case is on final review. Once visa is ready, beneficiary would be contacted.

Sincerely

Consular Section

What does it mean when the automated phone system say s, we are working on your I-751, rather than we are actively reviewing it? And what does it mean when you can no longer view the statu, and history of your case in your online account, and it show s this

Any I-601 Approvals late?