K-1 Visa Timeline
Date Description Days Total Days July 30, 2001 Mailed I-129F to INS 0 0 August 01, 2001 I-129F Delivered to NSC 2 2 August 30, 2001 1st NOA 29 31 September 29, 2001 2nd NOA 30 61 October 24, 2001 Open Provisional File 25 86 November 10, 2001 Packet 4 to Iryna (Date unsure) 17 103 December 04, 2001 Interview in Poland 24 127 December 05, 2001 Arrival in U.S. 1 128 February 23, 2002 Wedding Day 80 208 May 09, 2008 Today 2266 2475 The Process Begins
The I-129F (along with supporting forms and evidence) is a petition filed with the U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Nationalization Service (INS) by the petitioner (John) asking them to classify the bennificiary (Iryna) as an Alien Fiancée. Approval generally takes an INS agent about 15 minutes.But the petition can often take a month or more to get from the INS mail room to an agents desk, mostly because of a huge backlog of work, along with the usual government bureaucracy.
I finally got all the information from Iryna (acutally from the agency) that I needed to complete the paperwork. Everything went in the envelope, and two copies of everything went in file folders. The envelope containing the I-129F was dropped off at the post office to be sent certified/return receipt. It should arrive at the Nebraska Service Center on Wednesday, Aug 1, 2001.
The next step? It's real easy; just sit back and wait for the first NOA (Notice of Action) to arrive. The first NOA will inform me that the petition has been inspected and judged to be complete, and that it has been officially accepted by the NSC (Nebraska Service Center). Not acted on, just accepted!
First NOA -- Acceptance
September 7, 2001 Waiting for me in my mail box today was the First NOA, with a notice date of August 30, 2001. Finally the NSC has officially received and entered my petition into the INS computers.The next step? It's real easy; just sit back and wait (again) for the second NOA to arrive. The second NOA will inform me that the petition has been approved by the INS and will be sent to the US Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.
Second NOA -- Approval
Found out on October 2 that NSC approved the petition on September 29, 2001! The second NOA should be arriving sometime in the next week or so. The next step? Get the Warsaw embassy to open a Provisional File.When the INS approves the petition (in essence saying that the bennificiary now has an official status of a fiancé(e) of an American citizen or permanent resident), everything is sent to the nearest visa-issuing U.S. Embassy, which in this case is in Warsaw, Poland. The embassy will then inform the bennificiary what is required to apply for a K1 Fiancé(e) visa, such as medical exams, passport, and other documentation.
The embassy can be officially notified by the INS either by receiving the documents, or by receiving a cable. A cable should be faster, since it's an electronic transmission. But the approval can sit in a stack waiting for the cable to be sent. So sometimes a cable can take four weeks to be sent. The actual documents are sent via diplomatic pouch. But the diplomatic pouch containing the documents is not sent to an embassy until there are enough to make it worth while. For some embassies, this can take quite a long time. But there are generally quite a few documents going to the Warsaw embassy, so they don't sit around gathering dust for very long.
Either way, nothing is done with the documents for a period of between a few days and six weeks. But this is one point in the process where waiting is not the only thing to do. The approval received in the mail can be faxed to the Warsaw embassy, along with a letter asking them to open a Provisional File. The embassy will start processing the case under the assumption that the documents will be arriving.
Provisional File
The I-797 (Approval of Petition notice) arrived in the mail on October 9, 2001. The I-797, OF-169, and a letter requesting the opening of a Provisional File was faxed to the American embassy in Warsaw, Poland on October 16. On October 24, the embassy confirmed reciept in an email message. They included Iryna's case number, and stated that since the OF-169 was included, an appointment for the interview would be scheduled when the namecheck clearance was complete.In the letter I sent to the embassy, I also requested an interview date between December 1st and December 15th. The embassy usually sets the appointment between four and six weeks after receipt of the OF-169. Since the date range I requested is pretty close to the 4-6 week window, it probably wasn't needed. But it's better to request a date in a range than to risk letting the embassy set whatever date it wants.
The OF-169 is a form normally sent to the bennificiary as part of Packet #3, and lists everything the bennificiary needs to obtain (such as international passport, birth certificate, etc.) I had downloaded Packet #3 from the embassy website, and Iryna has been getting all the documents and translations together while the I-129F was still being processed. Getting this all done ahead of time, and including the OF-169 in the request, saved weeks of time. We have leapfrogged over the Packet #3 process, and now await Packet #4.
Special Note
Everything up to this point has been restored from a backup. A system failure caused the loss of all the home directories, and several other directories on my server. So everything after October 27, 2001 is reconstructed, and may not be finished yet, or exactly right.
Packet #4
Packet #4 was sent by the American embassy in Warsaw, Poland once the routine namecheck was completed. Packet #4 contains information on where medical exams can be completed, which vaccinations are required, a visa applicaion form, (Fiancé(e) visa application form), Application For Immigrant Visa And Alien Registration parts I and II, and a letter that states the appointment date and outlines what must be brought along to the interview.Iryna received the packet sometime in early to mid November. The interview has been scheduled for December 4, 2001! That leaves very little time to finish everything, and for Iryna to pack, and say her good-byes.
The next step? Get myself prepared for the trip to Warsaw!
Interview
Okay, I haven't had time to finish this up. Coming soon....