MT84

Update: I emailed the Consulate and they very helpfully confirmed that the visa would be printed today (Wednesday) and would likely miss the NZ Post pickup and so would likely go out tomorrow (Thursday). I was able to go to the Consulate and collect my passport. The status in the Immigrant Visa tracker is now showing as “issued”.

Hi all, Anyone who interviewed on Friday and had their visa approved see a status change on the visa tracker to "issued" yet? My interviewer suggested the visa may be printed on Friday, but more likely today (Tuesday) due to the MLK Day holiday on Monday, but still showing as "Administrative Processing"...

Hi all, I thought it might be useful to record my experience with scheduling my medical with CityMed, and also dealings with the Consulate on the next available interview dates. CityMed closed down over the Christmas / New Year period and by the time I followed up on my email/website request to schedule an appointment I was told that all available appointments prior to Christmas were taken (essentially the whole week prior to Christmas). CityMed also close down from Christmas until January 8th. It seems like the best way to approach scheduling is to submit the web form and then call soon after (I did overhear a conversation while I was in the clinic with the reception staff telling a caller that they had a backlog and needed to wait until they were contacted from the web form submission, although I never got a call or an email from them). Hopefully this awkward year-end timing doesn’t cause issues for others. The turn-around time does seem quick though (see below), and the Consulate do seem reasonable about the medical timing given only one option in the country. I was able to book an appointment for Monday January 8th, for my Interview Appointment with the Consulate on Friday January 12th. I emailed the Consulate and they confirmed it would be OK for me to go ahead with the Monday Jan 8th appointment, rather than a strict requirement for the appointment to be 2 weeks prior. The Consulate also confirmed that they are doing Immigrant Visa interviews once per month and that the next dates are: February 9th, and March 1st. For my medical appointment on Monday the 8th (08:30am), I arrived at 8am and was directed to a waiting area. I was called into see a nurse who took a blood and urine sample and input my details into an “emedical” tracking form - as others have noted in this forum, Auckland is now doing a digital process and so no paperwork was needed, nor the 6 passport photos. I saw the doctor, and she was able to use my Plunket Book for proof of most vaccinations, saving some money (I was charged $37 for chicken pox immunity blood test and $39 for VD test). I needed a tetanus booster ($69) and flu vaccine ($35), and the chest X-ray for TB ($105). Total cost was $666.50. I also was required to have a COVID booster since it has been more than 12 months since my last booster. CityMed did not have the COVID boosters so I had to go to Unichem Queen Street. Thankfully there is now guidance that COVID vaccine can be given concurrently with flu and with tetanus boosters. If it’s been more than 12 months since your last COVID shot, and you may need other vaccinations due to not having them or lack of proof you might want to check that there is no required waiting period in between. I dropped off proof of my COVID booster a few hours after my appointment, and CityMed confirmed my medical was complete and sent to the Consulate on Jan 10th (Wednesday). I have the Consulate interview tomorrow (they confirmed via email that my original docs were all received, which was helpful). I’ll report back with feedback and any info I missed, or that was asked for at the interview after tomorrow. Best of luck to all interviewing in Auckland tomorrow!

@emma_nz likewise, just got my email a few hours ago - January 12th for me too!

Thanks! I did read through all your posts - super helpful, and thanks for sharing. I just re-checked my emails and did indeed get the “Documentarily Qualified” email (my wife and I have 3 kids, including an 8 week old, so I blame no sleep!) - Gmail helpfully stacked that email below the others indicating that I had a message on the NVC portal, so I must have missed it in my excitement the first time around! 3 months seems like a pretty quick turnaround especially considering the FIFA shutdown of the Auckland Consulate visa processing for July and August(?)

I received two emails from “National_Visa_Center”, with the subject line “Notice regarding your Immigrant Visa Case”. When I logged in, the message said “documentarily qualified” (see attached). I thought I would receive a separate formal notice that I was in line, but assumed that might take a bit of time / may only come once NVC knows when appointments are available. If you’re suggesting I should have had a separate email come to my email inbox (rather than the NVC portal inbox) confirming DQ’d then I might put in a NVC request now…. When I check my visa status it says “At NVC”. I heard about horrendous wait times at other Consulates, and so I assumed no further news from NVC meant everything was in order and I just needed to wait my turn. In saying that I’d definitely rather confirm that I am in the queue just waiting for the interview!

Hi @emma_nz, I’m in a similar position to you - I was DQ’d on Nov 16 (I think - all my docs were “accepted” by NVC, and I have messages in my inbox saying that all documents are received and I am documentarily qualified, but no separate notification). I was also struggling to find any information on timelines for scheduling the interview in Auckland. It seemed there was a 3-4 month delay caused by the FIFA World Cup event, but immediately prior to that there were a few interviews that were scheduled quite quickly, if I recall correctly (within a month or two), based on VJ timelines. I also dug up an old VJ thread where someone had mentioned that the Auckland Consulate sends the interview slots to NVC on the 3rd Wednesday of each month (which would have been Nov 15th). I have no idea if that timing of providing the interview slot list is still valid or not though. Compared with other Consulates around the world I cannot imagine that the Auckland location would get that backlogged, surely…. I was assuming I might hear something from NVC by around Dec 20 (3rd Wed in December, and around 5 weeks since DQ’d). I was planning on submitting a request to NVC for an update if I don’t hear anything one month after my DQ date, just to make sure I’m in the queue. I am updating my timeline, and will post here if/when I hear anything from NVC/Auckland Consulate.

Hello all, Our I-130 was approved on 9/29/23, after we originally filed online on 11/14/22. The NOA1 notice was generated by Texas SC but the Approval notice (NOA2) was from Nebraska (I’ve updated my timeline accordingly). As with a few of the more recent posts, I didn’t receive any email update but was “periodically” checking the online portal (aka, every day! Ha!), and spotted the approval notice under the “documents” tab. Case status was also updated to “case is being actively reviewed by USCIS” on Sept 29, 2023, so I assume they’ve updated the “status” tab on the same day as posting the approval notice. Seems like I-130 processing is generally speeding up / all the Service Centers seem to be on roughly the same timeline, although the NVC process seems to be taking a little longer at the moment. At least step 1 is now complete. Best of luck all - hopefully not too long to wait for the majority of the Nov 2022 filers!

Hi Jason, I was also perplexed by the “processing time” tab in the USCIS portal and have posted about it before. From what I can gather the processing time posted in USCIS is almost entirely uncorrelated with when your petition will actually be processed. In my case the processing time steadily counted down from c.6 months immediately after filing the I-130 until it reached 1 week, then shot back up to 5 months about a month ago (similar to you, and which would’ve put me around 11-12 months in total which I thought made some sense), and then a few days ago I noticed it dropped down to 3 weeks… It’s almost as if there is an algorithm working in the background which is not at all accurate, and then periodically USCIS adjusts it causing big swings in the estimated processing times. Others have commented on “your case is taking longer than expected” as being like a placeholder before the timeline is adjusted and starts counting down again. In summary, I’m guessing that people haven’t posted the “outcome” from the processing time tab because the time doesn’t indicate when the I-130 will actually be processed and (I guess, based on googling screen shots of approved I-130’s) that the processing time tab disappears after the approval is granted. Sorry, not much help! Best of luck!

So far mine has progressed very similarly to how Mern V described above (unfortunately). My timeline was counting down monthly, and then weekly down to “1 week”, and then last week the estimate shot back up to 7 months. I still don’t understand the logic behind the estimate, i.e. why I would’ve had such a short estimated time to begin with, or how it is determined (or if it’s just completely random or based on really old data). 7 months from now seems much more realistic based on my VJ estimate - around 12.5 months from filing - Dec 2023. Would be nice if USCIS provided some commentary on the estimated processing figure in the e-filing portal since it is quite prominent and from “the source” directly. I haven’t been able to find anything official though.

Hi @Mern V Thanks for your reply. Are you saying that your portal timeline also showed a potentially shorter wait time, but that at “zero” it changed to “taking longer than expected”? If that’s the case, then it may be the USCIS “goal” timeline (or maybe when they might first pick up the petition), and not an “actual” estimate? This would make sense when comparing to other public data. In other words - the 12-18 month timeline is probably more realistic. Weird that they include a strangely optimistic timeline in the filing portal though!

Hello everyone, Apologies if this question has been covered elsewhere, but I have not been able to find anything at all on this topic anywhere online. In the “My USCIS” portal where I e-filed the I-130 petition there is a section titled: “processing time”. I have been monitoring this section and it does appear to be counting down, i.e. at the end of December 2022 the “estimated time until a case decision” was 3 months, and now (early Feb 2022) it is showing 2 months. My question is: Does anyone know whether the “processing time” provided in the My USCIS portal is more or less accurate than the publicly available data? The additional background is that I (US Citizen spouse) filed for my husband (NZ Citizen) at the start of November 2022. We are both living abroad, with our two children (dual US/NZ citizenship), and will undergo the NVC process via the overseas US Consulate. We married in August 2018, and have been living overseas but now intend to move back to the U.S. The I-130 receipt appears to be generated by the Texas Service Center. The “Case Status” has remained the same (“case is being actively reviewed”) since the submission date in November 2022. Based on the public information, TSC seems to be processing 80% of I-130’s within around 11 months. The “visa journey” tracker suggests our fact pattern will likely be processed by around Nov/Dec 2023 (c.12 months). I’m now trying to reconcile the c.12 month estimate vs the “My USCIS” estimate of 2 months from now (c.5 months total). Anyone have any clue how the estimate is generated / why there is such a discrepancy? I thought there were more helpful facts about our application that would perhaps make the process quicker, or possibly by online filing that speeds things up? But, I also thought that applications are processed in the order received and so just because we filed online (and have been married for longer before applying for the I-130) wouldn’t push our application up the queue? Any thoughts /practical experience welcome! We’re trying not to be too optimistic on timing, but also need to plan for an international relocation with kids schooling, pets, jobs, etc… Thank you!