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|  Review on February 13, 2023: |
FJinSD
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
Almaty consular review
*As a preface - please note that these observations are from the one and only set of interactions we had with the U. S. Consulate in Almaty. They can be taken as advice or counsel at your discretion. Do your own research – be prepared as directed by official documents and communications and you can’t go wrong.
**If you want to read only about the experience at the consulate in Almaty – skip ahead to the end of the report
Overview – if you’re interested in our timeline – look for yourself – I won’t duplicate all of it here – just the points that are salient to the report.
Suffice it to say that we began the CR-1/2 process at what looks to be the absolute worst time re: processing. In other words, processing seems to be happening more quickly but now for anyone who has been at this for a while – there is really no way to predict how quickly or slowly a case may progress.
If nothing else – this is an exercise in learning to be patient. Believe it – we ranted and raved about the inane and absurd inefficiency of this system but in the end – it’s the system that you MUST work within.
From the time we first began the process (USCIS stage) to the actual date we received the travel documents (visa) was:
653 days
This can also be converted to one of these units:
• 56,419,200 seconds
• 940,320 minutes
• 15,672 hours
• 653 days
• 93 weeks and 2 days
• 178.90% of a common year (365 days)
To shed a little bit of perspective – our case was submitted in April of 2021 to the USCIS and was not transferred to the NVC until March of 2022. We were deemed “DQ†in late September of 2022.
Along the way we had cases with ID numbers detailing us to Moscow, Warsaw and finally Almaty.
The assignment to Warsaw from Moscow was done by the state department in June of 2022 with no action on our side. We submitted a request for transfer to Almaty was made in September of 2022 when it became abundantly clear that having an interview in Warsaw was untenable. We requested relief from three agencies. The consulates in Warsaw and Almaty and the NVC. The consulate in Warsaw said in so many words – ‘go for it’. The consulate in Almaty said ‘no’ and in no uncertain terms. Frankly speaking we thought that was the end of it…
However – the infamously slow to respond NVC took our request under review and granted the transfer to Almaty almost six weeks after it was denied by the consulate directly. The notice came in late October 2022.
From that time we fully expected to be waiting for at least four to six months based on observations of processing times and previous numbers of monthly approvals (available on the State Department website but usually reported 45-60 days after the end of the reporting month).
We received the interview appointment letter from the consulate on the 6th of December, 2022 approximately six weeks after the case was received. The interview was scheduled for January 31st @0745 a.m.
The body of the letter looked like this: (PAY ATTENTION TO THIS LETTER – EVERY SINGLE LINE OF IT)
(below is the body of the letter. The review was written in HTML but posting here allows only plain text - there for I iquoted the part intended for attention of the reader)
"The National Visa Center (NVC) completed its processing of your immigrant visa application and forwarded it to the U.S. Embassy/Consulate General, where an immigrant visa interview has been scheduled. Appointment information is located at the bottom of this email.
Important Information:
You submitted forms and supporting documents to the NVC in electronic form. You must present the original forms and documents for review by the consular officer during your interview.
Please promptly read and follow all Interview Preparation Instructions located on the Department of State's web site at: https://nvc.state.gov/prep.
Important information regarding the required medical appointment is also listed on this site. Failure to promptly follow all instructions provided on this site will result in your immigrant visa being refused at the initial interview.
You should present this letter upon arrival at the Embassy/Consulate General.
Only family members listed below in the "Additional Applicants" section who are intending to immigrate at this time must appear at the Embassy/Consulate General on the appointment date.
What To Do if You Cannot Keep the Appointment:
To determine the proper procedure for rescheduling your interview appointment, please go to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate interview preparation instructions, select your interview location from the list and follow your Embassy/Consulate General's instructions listed under "Contact Information" on the right.
Reminders:
• Read and follow all interview instructions located at https://nvc.state.gov/prep.
• Bring this letter to your medical examination because the panel physician may need to review it before performing the examination.
• If a sponsor filed an I-864 (Affidavit of Support) AND provided the NVC with proof of an IRS Federal Income Tax Extension in lieu of a Federal Income Tax Return, you must upload this to CEAC or bring the sponsor's most recent Federal Income Tax Return to the visa interview.
• Failure to present all necessary documents to the Consular Officer will result in your immigrant visa being refused at the initial interview.
Questions:
The National Visa Center has completed its processing of this case and any further inquiries should be addressed to the U.S. Embassy, Consulate General, or Diplomatic Mission listed below. When communicating with the Embassy/Consulate General by e-mail, letter, or fax, always refer to your name and case number exactly as they appear."
The reason that this is emphasized is that during the time my wife was waiting for her interview – a person arrived without one simple document. They were REFUSED on the spot and advised to return at a future date. More on this later.
Summary of the events leading up to the interview:
Although it is not required – I traveled to Almaty be with my wife/step-daughter. My wife was born in Kazakhstan although is a Russian citizen. He mother still lives in Kazakhstan (but not Almaty). In any case – we decided to have some family time before the interview, so I arrived on week prior. It will be necessary for the interviewee to be there at least a few days early because of the requirements and limited scheduling of the medical exam. You will learn more about the pre-interview medical by reading the ‘preparation’ document linked above.
MEDICAL EXAM:
The exam itself was thorough and straightforward. Here were some things to keep in mind and/or did not happen as expected. 1) schedule early. They don’t do exams every day of the week. 2) the results take a few days to complete. 3) all results are transmitted electronically to the consulate. 4) the x-ray required for applicants aged 16 and up are done at a clinic that is about a 25 minute taxi ride away from the medical clinic. 4) PAY HEED IF YOU HAVE AN APPLICANT UNDER AGE 16 – there is a requirement for a TB blood test – and this is NOT mentioned in the instructions. We learned about this only by ‘accident’ when my wife was speaking to the clinic re: scheduling. The TB test is done at a separate and distant lab and takes three days to process unless you pay for ‘expedited’ results. If we’d not arrived as early as we did this may have been an issue. 5) you will see a requirement for numerous passport photos for the medical. Some documents say four – other say five. We needed only one. Nevertheless, they’re cheap and I recommend that you be prepared but in ALL the process (including the consulate) we only needed one of the dozen or so that we had with us.
The civil surgeon (staff doctor) was very friendly and accommodating. She was educated in the USA – speaks fluently in Russian, Kazakh and English languages.
THE INTERVIEW:
In the days prior to the interview – we reviewed EACH AND EVERY document – checked for copies and went over some expected questions. Believe it or not – we discovered that one certified translation had been overlooked when gathering our documents – and thankfully we were able to get a notarized translation done overnight. To be clear – the translation had been submitted via the CEAC but was not in hand.
We arranged all documents in the order that we expected to present them. First were the invitation letters, the DS-260 confirmation page, etc.
The interview was scheduled for 0745. The consulate is in a large high rise building and shares space with other official agencies of other governments. They advised the applicants to be at least 20 minutes early. The only persons allowed inside the consulate are those named on the invitation letter – so if you’re tagging along – make plans to do something else for a while. The applicants cannot bring anything other than the documents inside the secure area of the building. If they have phones, etc. they must be surrendered at the entrance. There are accommodations for this but in our case, I just kept them with me.
We had a plan to meet at a certain time/place if they were done in less than two hours. If two hours or more we planned to meet in the coffee shop that is adjacent to the entrance to the consulate.
Once they passed through the security screening, they were escorted personally by a security guard to an upper floor. At the point they were told to wait to be called by what is essentially a clerk. The clerk will check all the documents at that point. I cannot emphasize enough that it’s necessary to have exactly what is listed on the checklist. One person – as mentioned earlier – did NOT have the letter instructing the consulate on what to do with the applicant’s passport/visa and other documents after the interview. In case you didn’t know – they keep the applicant’s passport (and in our case – the police certificates) and return them generally withing 48 hours no matter what the disposition of the petition.
Prior to the interview you will be instructed to arrange for delivery via a courier service. Once that is done – you will receive an email with a barcode for EACH applicant – detailing what you want to have done with the passport, etc. The person in question did not have that in hand and was dismissed from the process immediately.
While on the subject of the courier service – this was one of the most frustrating and disorganized parts of the entire process.
The instructions and guidance are quite poorly written to say the least. It’s apparent that they were written with the assumption that MOST of the applicants would be Kazakh citizens – with a few exceptions regarding people residing in Uzbekistan and/or Russia. This process almost derailed our entire post interview plans and has the potential to be a nightmare scenario for someone in a similar situation to ours. More later…
Once the documents were checked they were told to have a seat and wait. This is an open area, and all applicants are in the same room. Now – think bank lobby – like old school bank lobby. The consular officer is behind a glass partition. All communications are done through a speaker system and documents are passed though a slot in the bottom of the partition. Once they were called by the consular officer (a younger man – early thirties – very polite and professional) they were sworn in and biometrics were taken (only for applicants 16 and older).
The questions were straightforward – to include the typical Y/N factual based questions and the expected ‘tell me about’ questions. He asked about how we met – a few questions about me, her education, plans for living in the USA, etc. There were no ‘gotcha’ type of questions, no questions regarding the I-864 despite having received that inane message from an NVC drone questioning the possibility of needing a co-sponsor. Apparently the NVC uses some algorithm that looks at W-2’s almost exclusively. I don’t get W-2’s. In any case prior to the interview I’d submitted 3 years of tax returns – a year’s worth of bank statements – 1099’s etc. Apparently, it was the equivalent of bringing the heavy artillery – not a mention of finances.
The consular officer closed the interview by saying “congratulations I am going to approve your petitions today†– gave them some handouts re: life in the USA and some legal protections that they would be afforded and that was that.
There was no time to sit down after the interview. A security guard escorted them to the entrance – retrieved the small ID sticker they’d been given and wished them a good day. From the time they walked in to the time they walked out was an hour and fifty minutes.
POST INTERVIEW:
As alluded to earlier – the biggest SNAFU in the entire process was dealing with “USTRAVELDOCSâ€. It’s necessary to create an account first – and then step through the courier delivery process. That was NOT made clear by the consulate. The problem is that they are generally so familiar with process that they assume you will be too.
As it happens, I’d created an account months earlier (like 10 months) when it seemed that we’d have our interview in Warsaw. Once I finally got logged in to the account – it crosslinks at some point – it showed that I was a Polish citizen trying to emigrate to the USA. Needless to say – that took a while to correct but the staff at traveldocs were very accommodating and helpful.
Once I FINALLY got logged in – it seemed that the best (and only) option was to have the passports/visas/etc. couriered to the DHL office in Almaty. It is clearly listed as one of the recommendations for delivery if you are in Almaty. So – that was the choice. You will register and receive a confirmation document with the recipient’s name and a barcode.
AGAIN – PAY HEED! You MUST have this document at the time of the interview.
So far – so good. The challenge came in the days following the interview. We fully expected to receive notification from the consulate that the documents had been submitted for delivery but we didn’t. Instead, we got this cryptic message from a company by the name of VFS Global. Apparently, they handle all similar documents for all the diplomatic missions in Almaty. The message contained a link to pay for the courier service. No problem – I’ll pay by card.
Credit card didn’t work. Tried another – didn’t work. Tried another browser – didn’t work. Tried wife’s credit card (Russian bank) didn’t work.
FWIW – VFS Global has NO storefront, no contact phone and no email contact information available to the public. We tried contacting them through the published numbers and ended up talking to the receptionist at the Swiss embassy. DHL was of no help either. They do not act as the courier – only as a registered secure recipient.
So – the only way we were able to pay for the courier fee is to have the wife’s mother (a citizen of Kazakhstan) use HER bank card. If she’d not been there for us I honestly have no idea of how we’d have gotten those documents.
As an aside – we never got any messaging regarding the location or disposition of the documents. The only way we found out they were at DHL is by calling them. Additionally the clerk at DHL didn’t want to release them to us because they’d not received information from whoever is supposed to authorize their release. Thankfully we had copies of the receipts – and other identification that allowed us to collect them at the time.
By now – you’re probably wondering what else can be written about this experience. There’s plenty of information that you’ll just have to learn along the way – this is just a missive regarding our experience and a few things that may 1) help you prepare for the process and 2) help you avoid the mistakes/pitfalls that are waiting for anyone going through the process.
If it helps just one person along the way I’ll know that I was able to pay forward at least some of the benefit I’ve received from being a member of this group who are on the collective “Visa Journey.
Luck favors the prepared.
FIN
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #31801