kaelabelle's US Immigration Timeline

Petitioner's Name: Mika Beneficiary's Name: Edi VJ Member: kaelabelle Country: Brazil Last Updated: 2015-05-05 Add Comment to Timeline Register or log in to follow this timeline

Immigration Checklist for Mika & Edi:

USCIS I-130 Petition:       Dept of State IR-1/CR-1 Visa:     USCIS I-751 Petition:   USCIS N-400 Petition:

IR-1/CR-1 Visa Event Date Service Center : Nebraska Service Center Transferred? California Service Center on 2014-07-07 Consulate : Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Marriage (if applicable): 2012-01-27 I-130 Sent : 2014-02-06 I-130 NOA1 : 2014-02-12 I-130 RFE : I-130 RFE Sent : I-130 Approved : 2014-07-21 NVC Received : 2014-08-01 Received DS-261 / AOS Bill : 2014-08-14 Pay AOS Bill : 2014-08-14 Receive I-864 Package : Send AOS Package : 2014-08-21 Submit DS-261 : 2014-08-12 Receive IV Bill : 2014-09-22 Pay IV Bill : 2014-09-24 Send IV Package : 2014-09-30 Receive Instruction and Interview appointment letter : Case Completed at NVC : NVC Left : 2015-02-06 Consulate Received : 2015-02-09 Packet 3 Received : Packet 3 Sent : Packet 4 Received : Interview Date : 2015-04-24 Interview Result : Approved Second Interview (If Required): Second Interview Result: Visa Received : US Entry : Comments : approved for expedite Feb 4th 2015. Interview date recieved by email on Feb 24th. Processing Estimates/Stats : Your I-130 was approved in 159 days from your NOA1 date. Your interview took 436 days from your I-130 NOA1 date.

Member Reviews:

Consulate Review: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa Event Description Review Date : May 7, 2015 Embassy Review : Our interview was on April 24th and my husband was approved pending the arrival of his medical exam. I was worried that this would cause a long delay, but here we are on May 7th and he has his passport (with visa) in hand! This review will include three parts: MEDICAL, INTERVIEW, SEDEX. MEDICAL We did our medical exam with Dr. Garrido in RDJ. It was a little bit of a challenge to communicate with his secretary and get the exam scheduled. I recommend VERY CAREFULLY reading all of the information she sends you via email before you ask any questions because she doesn't like repeating information and most everything you could want to know is in one of the 3 attachments she will send you when you request information for the medical appointment. The appointment in itself was painless and quick, the doctor was friendly and positive and even let me come in the room during my husband's appointment. He only accepts cash. The prices are out of date on the VJ consulate page but I didn't write down the new value so I didn't update it but it will be in the email. Both the blood and RX exams can be paid by card or cash. No US currency accepted. The waiting room is very small and stuffy so arriving extra early will only irritate the secretary (who might ask you to wait in the hall if there are too many people). The blood test and vaccine clinic (if you are missing vaccines) are in the same building as the appointment. RX is near the office, if you want to save yourself the trouble of asking the secretary I would just look up the RX clinic on google maps and make sure you know how to get there. It is very easy to do the RX, blood test, and Dr.'s appointment on the same day if you want to. However it will take a couple days for the Dr. to get the RX results and forward your package to the consulate. I strongly recommend doing your medical exam at least a week before your interview if you want to be SURE that it arrives on time. You can do your interview without having completed the medical exam, however you will only be approved pending its arrival. This will add time to the emission of your visa. We did our medical exam on the 22nd (Wednesday)and the consulate didn't receive it until the following week (Thursday). I don't know whether it took that long for it to arrive or for the consulate to get around to sorting through the millions of exams that they receive daily. Overall the delay on the arrival of the medical was very minimal but if you are in a hurry it is best to do it as far ahead as possible! INTERVIEW The interview process seemed like the most simple and efficient part of this whole immigration process. We arrived at the consulate at 8:30 for our 9:20 interview and there was no line in the immigrant visa entrance. We were instructed to enter the building and go up the stairs after they checked off my husband's name on the list. You will not be allowed to enter the building with cell phones or any other electronic devices so you can either leave them in your hotel or check them with one of the people outside the consulate who offer this service. We opted to leave ours in the hotel. When we got inside a friendly man (who I imagine must be Alex) gave us a couple pieces of paper to fill out with basic info. BRING YOUR OWN PEN. He explained everything in detail and once we had finished called us to his table to go over the documents we needed to turn in. We had new police reports and passport pictures and that was all. A few minutes later we were called to one of the windows where my husband's fingerprints were take and a lady pulled out our huge case file and began to go over the documents (it appeared that she was organizing it for the consular officer. I was surprised to see that it didn't look like they had done this before. She returned our original documents and asked me for a newer copy of my husband's birth certificate (which luckily I had on hand). I had been worried that I would need new original documents but everything that I had sent to NVC was there and there were no problems. She also asked me for my and our joint sponsor's 2014 tax info. She said that the only thing that appeared to be missing was an AOS (I 1864)from our joint sponsor's wife because she couldn't find the differentiation between their salaries on the tax transcript to know whether his income alone met the requirements but that the Consular Officer would evaluate it during the interview. I panicked at this point thinking of the delay that could be caused by the need for yet another form that would have to be mailed from the US and began to look through the tax transcripts to see if I could find it anywhere. Our joint sponsor and his wife are both self employed so the tax info was a little complex. Neither of them have W2's or 1090's because they have their own business. Luckily I was able to find the joint sponsor and his wife's salary separately on the transcript by their social security numbers and not their names. We were called for our interview about 20 minutes later and asked very few questions (the same mentioned in most of the reviews where/when did you meet, who proposed to who, what was it like). There was only one CO who was very friendly (probably the same man of asian decent mentioned in other reviews). He mentioned the problem with the AOS and I showed him the information that I had found. Unlike NVC he was happy to look at the paper and realized that the information was indeed there and told us that nothing else was necessary, we were approved pending the arrival of the medical! We were finished in less than 2 hours from the time we arrived including our trip to the post office and back. SEDEX "Alex"gave us a form to take to the post office to pay the fee and explained how to get there. We were so relieved after the interview that we didn't pay enough attention to his directions and ended up wandering around in circles. A security guard gave us directions again and we found it quickly (very close to the consulate). We were unable to use SEDEX 10 because our home was not in a delivery area so we had to use normal SEDEX. We gave them our email address and were just given a receipt. They told us that we would get an email with the tracking number once it was mailed. We returned a form to the consulate and that was all!!! I was very worried about the tracking number arriving because we have had problems with deliveries in the past in our neighborhood. After we left the consulate I checked CEAC almost constantly. On Monday, May 4th our status changed to ISSUED, and on May 5th we received an email from the correios (SEDEX) with the tracking number for our package. Today (May 7th) my husband has his visa in hand!!!!! Rating : Very Good

Timeline Comments: None yet, be the first!



*Notice about estimates: The estimates are based off averages of other members recent experiences
(documented in their timelines) for the same benefit/petition/application at the same filing location.
Individual results may vary as every case is not always 'average'. Past performance does not necessarily
predict future results. The 'as early as date' may change over time based on current reported processing
times from members. There have historically been cases where a benefit/petition/application processing
briefly slows down or stops and this can not be predicted. Use these dates as reference only and do not
rely on them for planning. As always you should check the USCIS processing times to see if your application
is past due.

** Not all cases are transfered

ver 5.0