stelyn27

After looking all over the net, and also this site I have a few questions that i really can't find the answers to.
My wife and I have had a letter from NVC stating that our green card application is being processed, we have paid our $380 each, and our sponsor (wife's brother), has paid his fees and completed all the relavent paperwork. We are in the UK at the moment so i suspect that we will get called up to the embassy.
So how long are we going to wait for the pack to arrive?
what is an ASO, and bio-meds ?(might sound abit thick on this one).
would we get the green card in this country, or do we travel to the USA and collect from there?
Any help would be very much appreciated, no doubt I will have a lot more questions before we go, so i thank you all inadvance for the questions that you have more than likely answered before.

cheers

Lyn and Steve

wtkp0u

Been here a while but when I did it there was a medical and embassy interview in the UK that ended up with me getting a sealed envelope. Handed over that envelope on arrival in the US and later received green card by mail.

TruBrit

hi and welcome....sorry can't help with your questions however i'm sure someone will be able to.....i can add though that i went through my green card application while in blighty however my g.card was sent to our usa address at the end of the process..good luck!

blaze

Welcome to the site!
I can't answer your question either I'm afraid but I'm sure that someone will have the right answer for you. It's weird, I vaguely remember having a sealed envelope that I had to hand over to US Immigration too (mind you, it's been 16 years so I could be totally off on that!)
Good luck!

nai_in_av

IIRC if you have only just gotten the letter from NVC saying they are now processing your case it's still going to be a few months.

The letter from NVC is just them saying they have gotten your case from the service center and have assigned a case number. You should be sent some forms from NVC (DS-230 I think) along with the financial info that needs to be completed and sent back. I think it took about 4 months for our case to go through NVC.

Once complete at NVC they will the case (via UPS) to London. They only send batches of cases at a time, so when you hear the NVC information line tell you your case is complete, this does not actually mean its on the way to London.

When the case gets to London you can call and schedule a medical, either in London, Birmingham or Edinburgh. There is a number you can then call, can't remember it now though, where they can give you a bit more up to date information and tell you when your case actually arrives in London (when I called they also gave me my interview date). After your medical you receive the results and xray.

London will schedule you an interview, you want to have your medical out of the way before the interview (they will not issue the visa without medical results). The London interview is held at the Embassy, get there early. We got there at about 7am (for a 9am interview) and there was already a line of about 50 people outside. Once inside take a ticket at the top of the steps, either for immigrant or non immigrant visa (you want immigrant) then go take a seat and wait for your number to be called. The first time its called is to check your documents, and takes about 5 minutes. You then sit back down, and wait to be called again. Second time you are called is around the corner and is the actual interview part. For us it was about 2 minutes and involved the guy saying Welcome to the United States and that was it. A couple days later my passport arrived in the mail with the sealed envelope.

You only get a visa in the UK, the visa grants you entry to the USA. Once you arrive in the USA you hand over the sealed envelope, we carried the xray with us, but no one bothered to look at it, even though you are told to keep it with you (its up to you if you want to carry it or not). The officer at the POE opened the folder and checked the documents, we then went to a seperate area where I was fingerprinted and told my greencard would arrive in a few weeks.

If you have not been there already head over to www.visajourney.com for a huge amount of info. There are shortcuts there to make the NVC journey faster (we used them and saved a lot of time) and a vast amount of experience from people who are going through the same process and who have already been through it.

The info I have posted is only from memory (although it was only a year ago) but please double check it all first. I am not a lawyer. Good luck.

Ray

Insufficient info to give an answer ...

Are you doing what we call DCF ... you are both living in the UK
and have file the I-130

or you are filing for a K-3

Sponsor don't pay a fee ...

Bob

well there's the visa section of the site which will better answer your questions, but you need to say how you plan on getting the greencard etc.

And welcome to the site

fatbrit

Need to know how you are procuring your green cards. If it's a sibling sponsorship (which your post implies) and the sibling has only just submitted the petition, basically you have nothing to do but carry on with your lives in Blighty for the next decade or so! If your wife is a USC, it'll be totally different!

stelyn27

1996 Mar the petition went in for my wife from her brother, who is a USC.
2006 Jun received letter from NVC saying visa process has started.
2006 Jul received bill, paid straight away.
2006 Aug twiddling thumbs inthe UK and awaiting packs from nvc.

Thanks everybody for your replies and also the links.

Lyn and Steve

fatbrit

Okay -- so it's a sibling sponsorship!

To answer your first questions, they move at their own pace. There are two of these: dead slow and stop. Your job is to predict their next move and be ready to respond, i.e. do your homework! You'll have documents to produce and medicals to go to. Find out what they are and where you get them. Don't be surprised if they lose they fifteen times.

I'd guesstimate you're six months to a year off being issued the actual visa. As soon as you have the visa (a large sealed envelope), you have 6 months to activate your status by coming here. As soon as you land, you will go to secondary processing where they will open the envelope, do your thumb prints and stamp your passport. From that moment, you are a permanent resident (green card holder) with all that entails. The actual cards usually arrive in the mail a couple of weeks later.

Ray

I would never have guessed that

fatbrit

Think it was the "sponsorship" thingy that threw everybody. People assumed it was to meet the financial requirement rather than te actual reason for the visa

meauxna

Actually, if you two have paid your visa application fees (the $380) and each returned form DS-230 and your sponsor has paid his fees and returned his I-864(s), you are quite close to being put in the interview queue.
Your next communication will be notice that your cases have been fwd to London, and London will send you a checklist of documents to collect in preparation for the interview.

If you know what's on the list beforehand, you can have all your interview papers ready and return your 'ready to interview' notice in the return post, speeding up your end. The major time consumer on the list is the police check (takes 40 days to get, minimum) so you could start on that if you haven't already.

You can check the progress of other, similar cases in London at visajourney.com--> go look at the "NVC" forum and the IR/CR forum (the Embassy Forum will aso have info for you). Most cases at vj involve spouses, but sibling IV (immigrant visa) cases will be virtually the same. Checking there will give you an idea about the interview queue---could be 2-3 months from now actually.

stelyn27

thanks for the info, could anybody tell me what docs i need for the interview at the embassy? The police check, is that from www.disclosurescotland.co.uk?

ta
steve

meauxna

Steve, please spend a lot more time at the consular website--thay have made some amazing changes & all your answers are there:

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_new...v/docs169.html

Follow the police checks link in that page. You will be applying for an Immigrant Visa.
Submit copies, (except for forms) and take originals to the interview.