US Immigration from South Africa

NO idea if this applies to our situation, but someone planted the bug in my brain so I have to ask:

Our case is seated at NVC now for 15 weeks and during that time, we were issued two NOA2s, the dates updated in the second issuance two months later. Someone suggested to me that this might be grounds for expediting the case, if USCIS made some kind of error. I have no idea how that would be applied to a case at the NVC, but I am curious if this theory has legs. We are looking for any reason to get our case picked to go to the consulate. Been over this so many times on these forums that I feel like a broken record, but watching other K1s head to our embassy after shorter times at NVC, has set me on wanting to explore every possible option to move this along.

FYI, our first NOA2 expires next week, and the later NOA2 is through mid-September, so I don't even know if I need to contact the embassy to extend. It's just a weird situation but if there's a legitimate expedite request in there, we want to submit it.

Long story short, my fianc and I have our approved K1 petition sitting at NVC with a case number issued. It has been almost fourteen weeks (over three months) since it arrived there. Our consulate in South Africa/Johannesburg has been requesting cases and receiving shipments every fortnight, many of these cases being sent only having sat at NVC for 3-4 weeks. Speaking with the approved couples (also K1 visas), they do not meet any expedite criteria, and are simply being selected before us.

My question is, in pursuing communication with the NVC through their inquiry form, is there a recommended way to convey to them that if there is no issue with our case, we would like ours sent in the batch next week? I am thinking about how to construct this so I can send it out tomorrow, and would love other members' feedback on their attempts to move their case from NVC and what (potentially) worked for them.

Currently, I am thinking case number + principal applicant name + date of NOA2 issuance (5 March 2024) at the top. The rest of the text would be something like:

"We were informed that our consulate in Johannesburg is requesting shipments from NVC. We request that our case be added to the next shipment, and a K1-FTP letter issued to the petitioner, <insert my full name and email>.

The principal applicant, <insert his full name> has all supporting documents and is ready to schedule a medical appointment. He is also ready to travel to the appointment in Johannesburg at the earliest convenience of the consulate. Thank you for your assistance in advancing our case."

Thoughts? We appreciate any constructive feedback. The inquiry is being submitted, unless someone can provide proof that it might hurt our chances of our case being sent for some reason.

Hey all:

Can someone clarify the best way someone immigrating can deal with existing prescriptions? My fiance has a blood pressure med he takes, and is going to see his GP this week in advance of his visa medical. He'd like to know what kind of refills to ask for, if any.

I will be adding him to my medical plan after we get married of course, but will he be okay bringing a couple months' supply overseas to tie him over until we can get his new doc/prescription set up stateside?

Hey all!

Big props to @XCindyX on brainstorming shared knowledge to come up with this little additional search method.

In the Google Drive information for each monthly timeline post, it was shared how to dissect NVC case numbers. Please correct me if I've misinterpreted this for cases later in the year with three digit Julian dates, but the formula seems to be this: Embassy code + year of case creation + Julian date the case number was assigned, plus 500 + case position.

To put into an example, if my case was assigned for the Johannesburg embassy in 2024 on April 1st (Julian date 92), and my case is first to be assigned a number on that day, my case would be JHN2024-592-001 (minus the dashes, just showing how the formula breaks down).

Why is this useful to know? Well it may help to understand that all visa cases sent to the embassies from the NVC, fit this formula. It's not just K1/CR1. Since we have the visa statistics from the Department of State website to show just how many visas of each type are processed monthly at each embassy, we can estimate how many a given embassy will accept and issue.

Granted it is entirely a guessing game to figure out which days the NVC issued case numbers for any particular embassy but at the very least, I was able to easily figure out what the statuses were for other cases on my day alone. Thinking I was in a good position in eighth for my day (008 at the end of my case), a quick search showed me that there is not 009 or above, meaning my case was in dead last for my date.

Searching my case number and altering the last three digits to 001-007, I additionally learned that I'm not alone in waiting. Initially our three month wait at NVC made me think that there was something specifically wrong with us; at the very least, this confirmed that there were a variety of statuses for the same wait time. Of the eight of us, three cases were ready and two were in transit. Our case and two others (positions 003 and 004) were still sitting at NVC.

Again the whole process is incessantly opaque, but what this at least attempts to do is demonstrate how complex the selection process can be. Factoring in all the visa types/priorities/regional quotas, it is difficult to read when a visa case will move out of the NVC. But we're all in this process together, and where our case sits ultimately is at the whims of many factors, all requiring patience and hope that we'll break the line soon.

Hey all:

I just got another NOA2 in the mail. We received the first one the first week of March, Notice date 3/1/24, valid from 3/1-6/30.

The new one has a new notice date of 5/8, valid until 9/7.

Is this normal? What does it mean? Is there a duplicate case at the NVC? Is this just them getting a jump on an extension, halfway through the validity dates for some reason? How does this affect our timeline? No other updates have been sent from USCIS or NVC.

Thanks for any info.