stellybelly

Awesome, I really appreciate the info and the personal experience with the embassy. Only having seen the old instructions, my brain could not process how this was going to work. Congrats again on the approval!

12 minutes ago, MalloryCat said:

they can also have their passport sent to an address in their home country.

at that same link in the drop down "delivery registration for passport return"

"Effective May 8th, 2024, applicants may receive their passport at a delivery address they identify in Croatia, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Slovakia thereby avoiding traveling back to Germany. "

I appreciate that (the country is Cyprus, but it is not in the drop-down list) my concern is that it is impossible to travel back to Cyprus without a passport and the instructions on physicians was a little unclear on because it was created prior to the consolidation. 
https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/iv-dv-supplemental/FRN - Frankfurt-11-16-2023.pdf

PS congratulations! 🎈 

The US Embassy in my fiancé’s country does not process K1 visas, so the interview will take place in Germany. Based on the list of approved physicians and instructions, the medical must take place in Germany at least two weeks prior to the interview, despite there being an approved physician by the embassy in the country in which he resides. Then after the interview, the passport can be returned to a German address only. The only way to travel to Germany from my fiancés country is by air, so am I understanding correctly that he needs to somehow plan to stay in Germany for 2 weeks for the medical exam, then up to another two weeks for his passport to be returned? This can’t be right. 

I filed in June and was just approved, my estimate was about three to four weeks after the actual date

46 minutes ago, thonati said:

Thanks for the reference.   It sounds like this is not a permanent reduction in cases.  I am sure there will be a temporary disruption but once things settle down; everything will be good.  It is just a pain because those of us that are affected feel cheated.  However, in the big picture, what is a few months delay?  Nothing really.

Sorry I couldn’t reply earlier, I was busy *working* at my WFH job. But yes, the post said the employees are ineffective, hence the contract workers. My reply was that they just laid off 450 of said contract workers in favor of hiring officers. 

9 hours ago, thonati said:

Fair point.  Government as a whole is inefficient by definition.  This is why they hire 3rd party contractors to get the job done. 

They just fired 450 of them at CSC

There’s still more than 6,500 cases pending in February through May. They’re working deciding ~750 cases per week. I doubt June will be started any time soon.