Pirozhok

We made it home this morning, after a long day spent between airplanes and airports (capped off with a flight that immediately landed because a goose got sucked into the engine as we were taking off). I'll post a POE review sometime later once we're caught up on sleep and the billion things we need to do now that she's here, but we came in through IAD in DC and had an incredibly smooth time. They saw her packet, waved us over, and basically let us just walk right in. The only question was how long we'd spent in this awful process before venting a bit about how inefficient it all is. It was really the first time in this entire ordeal that it felt like someone acknowledged there are people behind all the paperwork.

Nope, I didn't even mention those details to Capital One. I added her as an authorized user via the website, which automatically triggered a card in her name being made and shipped to my house. There didn't seem to be any check at all, and I suspect I could get a card printed for my cat if I really wanted. Interestingly, it did trigger her starting to get junk mail like car insurance fliers mailed to the house. Boo Capital One for that part. I couldn't find an automated solution for the documentation for the visa app, so just called their 800# and explained the situation. They mailed me a letter on Capital One letterhead listing the authorized users (just the two of us) and explicitly stating that we both had full access to the card's full credit limit. I included this with all the other documents in a table of contents at the end of my sponsorship letter, which turned into more of a packet given all the stuff I included.

Update time! Feb 19 my attorney got a response to an inquiry from September indicating that the AP had completed and we could bring the passport and updated medical exam to the embassy any weekday between 10-11am. She jumped through the medical exam hoops once more. While awaiting the results, I sent another inquiry to the embassy to confirm AP had completed and whether they needed and updated docs (specifically, I've seen conflicting acceptable ages of the police certificate); they still haven't bothered to reply to that one as of right now. She went ahead and got a fresh police certificate...better safe than sorry, etc. A couple weeks later, the exam results came back. They send they'd been sent electronically to the embassy and wouldn't be sending a packet with her, so I inquired again to confirm this one, as it's a lot easier to sort out while she's still in Russia. They confirmed same day that the medical exam results came in and they were awaiting the passport. We booked flights and hotels. Last week, March 11th (me) and 12th (her), we arrived in Belgrade. Her Schengen expired at the end of 2024, and it's where we first met. She's been hanging out there since. A few hours after she arrived, I took her passport and flew to Warsaw, where I've been since. Arrived the evening of the 12th, dropped off the passport the morning of the 13th. Over the course of the 13th, the CEAC status did some interesting stuff: Creation date updated to March 13, and it changed from Immigrant to Nonimmigrant The status finally changed from Refused to Application Received The status synced up when searching by Immigrant (using the WRW#) or Nonimmigrant (using AA#,/passport #/first 5 of surname) Up until now, I could see a nonimmigrant status that wasn't being updated using the AA# and "NA" for the passport and surname; this stopped working Later on the 13th, the status updated to Approved. On the 14th, it finally showed Issued. Sucks that it was a Friday, as we got to spend the weekend in foreign countries waiting until today, when the email came through that it was ready for pickup. I immediately hopped in a Bolt and went to the MBE and picked it up. That part of the process, the one part I actually needed to be here for, took all of 45 seconds. So now I'm back in my Warsaw hotel with her passport in-hand. having just booked a flight to Belgrade and a pair of flights from Belgrade back home.

Great, because this process isn't already difficult and slow enough...

I don't believe she had to show any confirmation of employment, but I did provide a pretty thorough letter of sponsorship. I included a copy of my passport, paystubs, bank statements, and I had added her as an authorized user on a credit card so included a letter from the bank confirming this and the credit limit that she had access to because of it.

This is what we did. Booked and prepaid refundable hotels in Budapest, return flights after 4 weeks, and applied for the Schengen as though we were taking a long vacation to Hungary. She already had a history of Schengen visas pre-covid, and they wound up granting one for just under 6 months (through the end of the year). After we had the visa, we scheduled the interview. Was just the first of several stressful, frustrating, uncertain travel situations throughout this process.

So 7 months after posting this, we got notification that the AP has ended and the embassy's asked us to bring the passport and a new medical exam back to the embassy and drop it off at the window without an appointment. I'm curious if anyone else has gone through this part and has their timeline or any interesting experiences/unexpected roadblocks to share? I wasn't able to find recent stories, but there has to be folks going through this same thing with all the extended AP periods for Russians.

Possibly the least surprising detail ever, as that seems to be a popular approach to much of this process. Good luck!

It's been more than a couple weeks since you posted this, did you ever hear anything back?

Nothing useful. Reached out to the congressional office at the 90-day mark, but they just received the same copy/pasted response I did from the embassy.

That sucks. I guess it's nice knowing we're not alone in the waiting, but it all seems to pointless and unnecessary.

Quick update for anyone interested: the embassy reached out via email yesterday (the 6 week mark since the interview) and told her to come by and pick up her passport (without the US visa). When picking it up, they were very friendly and blamed the delay on computer problems. They made it sound like the case isn't actually in AP, and they're just waiting for a system they don't fully understand to spit out the visa.

Howdy all, I am currently in Warsaw with my Russian fiancée and wanted to share our experience so far, since I've spent so much of the past few months reading about others' here. We came to Warsaw via Hungary. She had several EU visits and Schengen visas prior to covid, and I provided a pretty thorough sponsorship letter/documentation, so we were lucky enough to receive one valid for about 6 months. That was one of the worries we had early on, but it turned out to be a non-issue getting here. Her interview was on July 15. Went well, and after a 3-4 hour wait + 10 minutes of asking simple questions, she was told she'd be approved and have her passport back in 3-5 business days. I'm typing this in a hotel room in Warsaw, so that didn't happen. Instead, we're in AP. Pretty routine from what I can tell: the CEAC status shows "refused" and the USTravelDocs page shows "Document Delivery Information:" without further details. I reached out a bit over a week later specifically because we had previous issues receiving emails from them (the appointment instructions were sent to an old email address that only appeared in the part of the DS-160 where they ask for all emails/social media from the past 5 years. She forgot the pw and stopped using it 4ish years ago). In their response, they confirmed the case is undergoing routine administrative processing, no additional documents/information were required from us, and all there is to do is wait until they contact us. That was on July 24. As others before me, I'm having to cancel flights, extend stays, etc. while I enjoy an prolonged "vacation" in Warsaw. Because of this, I check the CEAC status regularly hoping for news. This is why I've noticed something I haven't seen much of and was hoping someone has seen a similar experience that I have not found while searching: the "case last updated" date isn't changing. It updated once after the interview, once when they replied to my email, and that's it. Others seem to have it updating several times before the visa is approved (at least when it takes this long), so I'm curious whether anyone has seen something like this and has an anecdote indicating whether it's likely to suddenly jump to "issued" one day, still probably has a few behind-the-scenes changes to wait through, or maybe just fell behind someone's desk and isn't getting looked at at all?

Ours was stuck in that status for about 2 weeks before the attempted to send the instructions via email. I say "attempted" because they didn't send it to the correct email address, told me to keep waiting when I emailed them at around the 4-week mark, and eventually admitted they'd sent it and offered to re-send to the correct email address on, I think, the third time I contacted the NVC for a status update. That part of the process was a fuster-cluck of delays and problems for us. She was able to get a Schengen visa to Hungary. I did write a pretty detailed letter of support, including a lot of docs confirming my financial situation. I also added her as an authorized user on my credit card with a $50k limit and included that. Another potential factor is that she traveled to the EU pre-covid quite a bit, so has a history of previous Schengen visits without overstaying. Not sure what combination of factors wound up mattering, but she asked for a 30-day stay and was approved for 6 months or so. After she applied, the visa approval only took about a week.

As the weeks went by without hearing anything, I started emailing the Polish embassy through their USTravelDocs support address. It took asking 3 times, but they finally stopped giving form letters and told me they sent the email back in mid-March (when the CEAC site began showing READY) to the wrong email address. I got them to re-send and got it this morning. It might be worth reaching out to them, specifically saying you have been waiting a while and want to confirm whether they have sent the email yet.