snailyote

That’s horrible. Slovakia only has one doctor but it’s pretty small compared to Australia. I’m shocked there aren’t more doctors who can do the exam there

Oh no, why is that the norm? Are the medical exams all booked up for a while? That sounds like a nightmare Thank you! This is the last thing in the way of me and my fiance living together so when she finally gets her passport back it will be a sigh of relief. I hope they issue your visa soon!

We finally heard back with some information today. Ustraveldocs did not inform the Frankfurt embassy that my fiance qualifies for free delivery so Frankfurt put it in a lockbox. Frankfurt then couldn’t find the passport and asked my fiance if she picked it up because it wasn’t with them. But apparently they were looking in the wrong place. After looking in the right place, they found it and gave it to UPS to be shipped to my fiance. They seem very disorganized. Hopefully the passport arrives soon.

I am worried that my fiance’s visa and passport have been lost by the embassy. For some backstory, she lives in Slovakia, and after May 2024 the Slovak embassy no longer handles K1 visas, it’s the Frankfurt embassy that does it for her country. The procedure as outlined on ustraveldocs is for the embassy to mail back the passport with visa to her in Slovakia so that she doesn’t have to go all the way back to Germany. She was supposed to register her delivery address online before the interview, then give the embassy the address delivery paper during the interview. She did all of this. On 12/23, my fiance’s case status on ceac changed to “issued”. On 12/27, the embassy emailed her telling her that her passport has been mailed back to her. There is no tracking. Then on 12/31, the embassy emailed her saying that her passport was available for pickup at one of the Frankfurt lockboxes. She reached out to them asking for clarification so she could find out which email was correct. They responded saying that they would make a support case for her and that they would escalate it. Since then, nothing. She has reached back out 3 times asking for updates and they have nothing to share, other than the case has been escalated. I’m starting to worry that they have no idea where the passport is because I can’t fathom why there wouldn’t be any updates on what happened to it after almost 2 weeks. Has anyone experienced anything close to this? If so, how long did it take for them to find the passport and for you to receive it?

Another update: turns out her packet 3 couldn’t be delivered because she didn’t have her name or house number on her mailbox. This was never an issue with the local mail courier in her village since he knows she lives there but for the embassy’s courier who didn’t know, they weren’t able to find her mailbox to deliver it.

Posting an update in case it helps others in the future: my partner was able to schedule the appointment today. Looks like Frankfurt has appointments on Tuesdays and Fridays around 8:30am. When she checked today she could see all of their December appointments.

I was part of the skipped group in late February and it does really suck. It’s hard not to feel bitter and jealous when I keep seeing people who filed months after me already with their visa in hand or living with their partner in the US. The only piece of advice I can give is to try your hardest not to pay too much attention to what everybody else’s timelines are. Focus on other things, like hobbies and spending time with your partner virtually or over the phone. If you do start getting frustrated with your situation, a punching bag definitely helps! Wishing you the best

Update: My fiance received an email back from the consulate asking her to submit her DS-160 application confirmation and payment ID directly on the usvisascheduling website, on the Pre-Approval Request page. After this (in theory) she will get either an email or some sort of indication on the site that she can schedule her appointment. Looks like the process has changed as of October 26th, 2024 and I couldn’t find info about the new process online so sharing it here in case it helps someone.

Like MalloryCat, I was able to fill out most of the form using Firefox. For fields that were not editable but I needed to fill out, I inserted a text box and typed the answer, then dragged the text box over the question space. I used the Firefox PDF viewer.

This is so helpful! Also didn’t know about emailing if she hasn’t gotten the packet yet. Thank you so much!

Hey all! My fiance filled out the DS-160 form, paid the application fee, and emailed the embassy at frankfurtvisainquiries@state.gov using the info from the Frankfurt list. She received back an automated message. Does she need to email back with that mentioned subject line? We weren’t sure since this isn’t a visa question, it’s so that we can schedule an appointment. Why do you think?

Sorry, this wasn’t required for this visa petition, it was an unrelated situation where I needed to renew my Brazilian passport. In order to renew it, I had to prove citizenship by submitting my birth certificate but they wouldn’t take it unless that condition was removed. So I had to get the condition removed first. Before submitting anything to the embassy, I would recommend that your fiance reaches out to the embassy to make sure that a condition like that wouldn’t cause any issues. I think it would needlessly delay the process if they deem the certificate invalid because of that condition. Best of luck!

Thanks! It seems like the time from when a case is “in transit” to when it’s “ready” has been pretty quick lately for a lot of people. Our case became “ready” on November 7th but my fiance still hasn’t received the packet unfortunately. Though based on other posts on this site it looks like receiving the packet is not necessary for our embassy (Frankfurt) so we have started the DS-160 form and that whole process already. If nobody else who comments knows if your embassy makes you receive the packet before you start, I would recommend reaching out to the embassy and asking them directly. You can check this page for more info about this part of the process (including medical exam instructions): https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Supplements/Supplements_by_Post/JHN-Johannesburg.html

After your case is “ready” at the embassy, you should receive a packet in the mail with info on how to submit your DS-160 visa application, pay the fee, and schedule the interview. Some embassies require that you wait until receiving the packet before you start while others don’t. I would recommend waiting until the case status is “ready” before doing anything. You can start the DS-160 application here: https://ceac.state.gov/GenNIV/Default.aspx You can then make an account and pay the visa fee here: https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-za/iv/information/k_visa After paying the fee you should be able to schedule the appointment on that same site. For us, it only took 2 days to go from “in transit” to “ready” at the embassy.

I had something similar on my Brazilian birth certificate. I had to go to the civil record office and they issued me a new birth certificate without the condition. Not entirely sure if it applies to your fiance since it’s a different country, but it might be worth looking into. For translated documents, you need to include a copy of the original, a translated copy, and a statement from the translator showing that they’re capable and able to translate that language to English. The verified signature can be on the copy of the original document but it would’t need to be on the translated version since they know it’s not an original copy of the document.