MalloryCat

i wouldn't worry too much about the validity date. most embassies will automatically extend it by another 4 months (for up to a total of 1 year, if it were to come to that) my fiances interview is on July 9th, but our NOA2 says it expires on July 4th. a lot of people on this site have said that they went to their interview after the 4 months and the expiry date didn't even come up. but if you're still worried, when it gets close to the expiration date (i'd say like 2 weeks) you could submit an inquiry to the embassy and confirm with them that your petition validity will be extended.

they do recommend that you wait until you can schedule your interview before scheduling the medical. you should plan to have 5-10 days between when you have your medical and you interview. (it may be longer since your medical has to be sent from the netherlands, but most embassies recommend 5 to 10 days) they dont suggest scheduling the medical too early because the 6 months that the K-1 visa is valid for (meaning the time you have to move to the US) starts when the medical is done. for example, if your medical is in july then you'd have to move to the US by november. But theres a chance that you couldn't schedule your interview until december (meaning youd have to pay for the medical again, which isn't cheap). Also, its a requirement that you bring with you to the medical exam proof that you have a visa interview scheduled. So I would say as soon as you get packet 3 from the embassy, you can schedule your medical. Once you get packet 3 and follow the instructions in it, scheduling the interview happens not too long after. So you should be able to schedule the medical and interview close together.

i believe the 2 weeks is for it to get to the actual NVC. if you look at the fine print of the NOA2 you received, I believe (and I could be miss remembering, it's been awhile since I looked at mine) it says you can/should contact the NVC after 4 weeks if you haven't heard anything from them. But you could technically contact them sooner, but you'll probably just get a generic "we're still processing your case" email. even if you do wait the 30 days, you still have to wait for the embassy to send you packet 3 We waited 30 days to contact the NVC for our case number. the case got to the embassy i think a little over 2 weeks later (and my fiance got the letter from the NVC telling him the case was sent to the embassy over a month after we already knew that lol)

that is exactly what it means after about a month (30 days) you can contact the NVC to get your new case number (they are supposed to send a letter with the case number to the foreign fiance, but it is notoriously slow), and then track your case via CEAC. Once it gets to the embassy in frankfurt, they will send you packet 3 which will have all the info on what to do next and how to schedule your interview

oh! my mistake

very few US airports stamp passports anymore everything is recorded online as an I-94, which you can get here if you need it https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/home so yes, it is normal that they didn't stamp your passport

You're welcome! Yea packet 3 will have all the information you need. I would say if you don't receive it after 30 days (which it looks like your petition just got to the consulate) you could submit an inquiry to them. Sometimes they will send it over email. Good luck!

Have you received packet 3 from the consulate? If you've received packet 3 from the consulate, it tells you to email them a confirmation of the submitted DS-160. that's what my fiance did and he was able to schedule his interview I think the next day. So yes, you have to email them the DS-160 confirmation It did take my fiance a few weeks to receive packet 3*

Have you emailed the consulate proof of your submitted DS-160? They won't let you schedule the appointment until they have that. Once they have that they email you a link to be able to schedule your interview

While it would be better to find a job now and have a few months of paystubs under your belt, you can technically submit the i-129f now. Finances come into question when you fill out the i-134 that your fiance will bring to their interview

Then you have nothing to worry about. Sounds like it's just going through the motions I know a lot of people don't like that it says "refused" when it actually hasn't been lol Congrats!

Then that is exactly what was supposed to happen Give it another day or two and it should update again But they should be processing the visa and will more than likely mail her passport out soon, if she did in fact get told her visa was approved at the interview? If nothing changes after 7 business days, you could try submitting an inquiry to the embassy

Have you had an interview yet? If not it could be as simple as they didn't get the entire petition from the NVC. So it was marked as refused until they got whatever it is they were missing. If you did already have your interview, was something missing at the time? Like they didn't have your medical forms yet or were missing a document from you? They will mark it as refused until they get those things You could always submit an inquiry to your embassy to check the status with them.

Most of the time embassies will automatically extend a petition if an interview hasn't been scheduled. They typically extend it 4 months at a time for up to a total of one year. You could always submit an inquiry to your embassy to verify that they will extend your petition validity date

i would assume the "primary authority" would be any government body as all of them follow this because it makes sense unfortunately no government body is going to over look the extra day and a half the beneficiary overstayed, if thats what youre looking for confirmation on

because the government doesnt base time lines off of the whole year. more than likely for the exact reason youre saying, cause its not an even number when you divide the year exactly in half. can you imagine how confusing that would be for everyone? with different time zones and clocks rarely ever being exactly the same. but somehow people would have to know what time exactly half a day would be that they have to be out of the country. their plane gets delayed and they overstay by 5 minutes. you always go by the 6 month/180 days.

you should start your own thread if you have questions but you should get an email confirmation not long after scheduling the interview. did you email proof of a submitted DS-160 to the embassy?

theres no definite way of knowing. it is almost entirely up to the officer doing the visa interview if they believe the relationship is bonafide no one can say for sure that it will cause an issue, but chances are the relationship may be more scrutinized by the interviewing officer.

Ooooh I'm sorry, I thought you redacted the case numbers and stuff lol But yea then that is a little odd, Sounds like their automated system made a mistake I would say wait a day and see if they correct their mistake. And if you don't get anything new reach out again

this number is different from your receipt number you got from USCIS right? then yes, your case number has been created. you use this case number for the rest of the process. you can track your case through the CEAC site. https://ceac.state.gov/CEACStatTracker/Status.aspx?App=NIV (it is tracked as an immigrant visa, just so you are aware) there is more waiting now though, as NVC has to send your case to the embassy you specified in your petition. they send cases every 2 weeks, and sometimes it is up to the embassy to request the petitions. they are supposed to send a letter to the beneficiary (foreign fiance) when your petition gets sent to the embassy, this letter can take a while to show up in my experience (my fiance didn't get this letter until over a month after we already knew it was at the embassy)

they want you to put the foreign fiances address in their native alphabet. only documents should be translated

it can take 7-10 business days. but I've also heard people have gotten it after 2 weeks. it depends on the embassy

that is more than enough time. it is recommended that the medical be at least 10 days before the interview. the doctors office will send the exam packet directly to the embassy.

both your petitioner and the joint sponsor will fill out for I-134. https://www.uscis.gov/i-134 you can find the instructions there for what evidence to include with the I-134. you will need evidence from both the petitioner and the joint sponsor

it will still take over 6 months more than likely from submitting the petition to petition approval, and then a few more months to visa interview you should be fine to submit now, in my opinion