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Interesting, never seen this website before. The US department of state website states 24 month validity: https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/family-immigration/required-documents/

Did you manage to get this sorted? If so, what worked?

Thanks! PD: 22nd September 2023. 3 petitions - spouse and 2 stepchildren. We applied online, and our initial receipt notices came from Texas. 5 days later, 2 petitions were sent to Nebraska, 1 sent to California. Around mid-January 2025, I was getting told by Emma agents that now all 3 were at Nebraska. I assumed they had linked us under one officer. But interestingly, the approvals came from 2 x Nebraska and 1 x California. They were all approved within minutes of each other, so it did seem like one officer reviewed them collectively. I was thinking maybe it's different with online applications? Maybe the reviewing officer in Nebraska 'pulled' the one that was in California from the online system, when he saw we were a family of 3 petitioning together. But that technically it was 'assigned' to the California SC still on the system. If that makes sense at all. Our RFEs were for the spouse (nebraska) and one stepchild (california) - both asking for the exact same thing but very differently phrased - did not seem the same officer when we saw the choice of phrasing. But a lawyer we spoke to said they must be under the same officer. It's all very confusing, lol.

Do police certificates still 'expire' after 6 months (if mentioned on the certificate) even if the department of state website says for them they are valid for 2 years?

Just got all 3 approvals. 2 RFE’s later, it took exactly 500 days from PD, for anyone lurking on here to track.

I have noticed they give a margin of 2 weeks ontop of what the actual approval times are. Right now people are getting approved pretty much at the 16 month mark. If we see this go up to 16.5 months then they will probably update their website to start saying 17 months. The cycle will continue until they have made the changes they need to make to start bringing the times down.

I think the slowness of SC alternates every few weeks. The most recent approvals I've seen have come from Texas moreso than others.

Did you check the documents tab?

It's hard to say. We are 3. Spouse and 2 kids. All with the same PD. Filed within seconds of each other. Spouse and one child were transferred to Nebraska 4 days after filing, and on the same day one child's petition was transferred to California. Around 13th January the California petition got moved to Nebraska. You would think this was them linking our cases under the same reviewing officer, right? But no. We got an RFE on 17th January for the spouse. Responded on 28th January. Got another RFE on 31st January for the child that was transferred from California to Nebraska for the exact same thing, just with different choice of words. The way the two RFE letters were written it did not seem like it was the same person. But I have often heard of spouse and children getting approvals simultaneously. Still waiting on some movement after our responses to the RFE's.

They're on around 5th October 2023, if you follow the sequential order of things, not the anomalies included.

Congratulations. Which service center did the approval come from?

Update: We responded to the spouse RFE and haven't had any movement since on spouse's case, but did get issued ANOTHER RFE on one of the stepchildren's petitions. Waiting for the letter to upload to see what that's all about now. Round 2 of RFE stress.

I don't think it means anything. Although, once my case was assigned to an officer I did see more drastic yo-yo-ing happening with the progress tab. It was going from 2 months to 21 months to 'taking longer than expected' and then ended in an RFE while at that progress status.

@Josh B K Where are you at now in the process? Are you DQ'd yet? Anything you can tell us for your timeline between the date of approval until what the update is today, it would be very helpful! Thank you.

Just saw your PD! I've seen approvals up until 3rd October 2023. You should be hearing something within the next two weeks. Probably only a few more months left in the process. Good luck!

I understand the fear, as I had the same fear traveling with just 2 kids and we all had pending I-130's. A lawyer told me it was up to the immigration officer to let us in or not, but seemed to be discouraging attempting it. It was others I spoke to that told me it's not a big deal. I did research online and only heard of good outcomes, didn't hear of anyone getting sent back because of a pending I-130. We were traveling on standby flight benefits though, so I did have a plan B if we were rejected entry to just fly to Canada on the shortest flight and get some rest there before we figured out what to do about the time we had off 😅 I think that helped me get over the fear of spending so much money and traveling 24 hours to get to the US only to get refused. I totally get how you're feeling regarding the risk factor with that big of a family. At the end of the day, it's up to you and your peace of mind on whether or not you would want to try it. But just know that, I really have not read a single horror story on this. Another tip is to download the MPC app so you go in the shorter MPC line (kind of like global entry, but the free version - it's supposed to let you through quicker). You answer so many questions on the app prior to getting to the immigration counter, that typically you are not really asked much when at the counter. When I went, the MPC que was literally 5 minutes long (the other immigration line was huge and barely moving), we had about 3 families in front of us and the officer was keen to keep the line moving quickly so was stamping everyone quickly. All we got asked was 'are you here on vacation?'. I said 'yes'. He smiled and stamped our passports. He was very pleasant too. We were done so quickly we were the first ones from our flight at the baggage collection belt.

Got a notification of an RFE... anyone know how long these take to come through? Are they sent via post or uploaded online to the account?

@emeditzI totally get your frustration. The frustration gets a lot worse when the deep rooted fear of being skipped over starts creeping in... it's nice seeing dates around yours get approved, but it also starts making the anxiety worse in some sense. I hope we all see positive news very soon. My VJ progress is set to California still and it shows me an estimated approval date of 1/18. But it also keeps skipping ahead by 2 days every time we pass by a date without an approval. It was 1/16 2 days ago.

Thank you for adding this. I am not sure what is going on with mine, as when I asked Emma again today I was now told all 3 are at Nebraska, not California. Not that it should make a big diff, I just wish they'd respond now and put us out of our misery.

I asked an Emma agent for another update, and seems now all 3 of our petitions (spouse and children) are at California SC. As of yesterday, they were distributed between Nebraska and California both. Seems the California SC officer got all three under them. I hope we hear something soon now. And something good!

Thanks. I contacted Emma agent and found out that as of yesterday the case is under review with an officer! I sincerely hope good news is coming soon for us and not an RFE. so nervous right now.

Congrats! We have the same NOA1 date. Did you get a notification or you just logged in and saw it by chance under docs tab before the notification came through? Also did you notice any changes in the 'myprogress' tab in the past day? Ours went from 5 months to 22 months... I know these don't mean much but I just wondered if the shift meant it was assigned to someone or anything - any clue. Clutching at straws!

Yes, ours updated to case being actively reviewed exactly a week after. But I personally think that was triggered because our petitions were transferred to different service centers. That's just a guess of mine. Because no one is actually reviewing anything other than 30 mins before approval.

Thank you for this. Ours was submitted 09/22/2023, so this gives us hope. It's the weekend now, so hopefully in the coming week at some point... good luck with the next part of the process.

We are at 15-16 months processing time currently. The most recent ones I've seen are, at the very earliest, at 15 months and 1 day mark for approval. And that's at the earliest. And it's getting slower. And holiday season is here. I personally think it will go up to 16 months soon.