₦airaland Forum

Welcome back, dear VO!
Lagos Consulate General told me about 2 weeks ago they would schedule my spouse's interview as soon as they received our case paper documents. It's been a week since the documents were delivered at the consulate but no interview date yet. I have sent an email but no reply. Do you have any idea what could be going on there?
Thank you , Ma'am.
V/R,
Amazinglove

Good day, Ma'am.

Thank you for your continuous assistance to us on this forum, even when we appear impatient

NVC has contacted me about your approval of my expedited request. Thank you again for that. So are they going to schedule my wife's interview from here in the US or send the case to you for scheduling in Lagos?

Respectfully,

A loving husband

VisaOfficer:
!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I just went back through your posts to find your case number, and then I searched for it in all my mail folders, and it turns out that my deputy had asked NVC for more information back in June. They replied on July 20 -- just as my deputy was departing post. I can't tell if she replied to NVC or not -- but, just in case she overlooked it when she was leaving, on July 23 I replied to NVC as follows:

Good afternoon,

Not sure if this was answered – but we will be glad to accept the case for expedited processing as soon as it is documentarily complete.

Thanks,

So, you should be hearing from NVC soon!!! Sorry, I had no idea that was your case! Glad to give you good news though. Just give NVC a few more days to respond -- they get a lot of e-mail.

Hurray!!!

Yay!!!!

Thank you so much, VO. You are the best!!!. I don't even know whether or not I should start crying now. Finally, I receive some good news! NVC had sent me an email in June that the case was completed June 19th.

I am so glad I'm beginning to see some light.

Thank you again, VO from the bottom of my heart. God bless you in all your endeavors!

VisaOfficer:
Your case is still at NVC, so there's nothing we can do here. That's why we keep referring you to NVC -- we can't expedite a case that we don't have. If NVC asks us to expedite a case for the spouse or child of an active military person, we will say yes, and we've said yes to several such requests lately. But the request has to come from NVC, as we don't have control of the case here in Lagos until they send it to us.

Thank you so much for your repy, dear VO.

I believe NVC is not being honest with me then. Each time I call, they tell me the expedite request has been forwarded to you guys in Lagos and they are only waiting for your approval or disapproval.

I just wish I knew all the truth surrounding my case.


Thank you

Dear VO,

It seems as if no one really reads the contents of emails sent to LagosIV@state.gov because I get the same message each time I email with a specific request. It has always been that same generic message asking me to "Please contact the National Visa Center directly at NVCInquiry@state.gov if you wish to request expedited processing, as all interview expedite requests must be routed through that office" whereas the bodies of the emails I send is about the expedited processing requests I have already placed with NVC. I just don't get it. It makes me really mad each time.

I must confess that this is the most frustrating experience I have ever gone through my entire life. It is making serving in the U.S. Army more stressful than it actually is.

At this point, I am leaving everything to God. I have had enough of being treated like ping pong by both NVC and Lagos Consulate. I deserve better.

Thank you for your help, as always.

VisaOfficer:
There was a period, during the worst of the computer breakdown in June, when the only cases we could expedite were life-and-death medical emergencies, but I don't remember turning down any relatives of active service members during that period. It may have been when I was out of the office and someone else was covering for me, though. You're free to place another request with NVC, but there's no action I can take on my end without hearing from NVC.

Thank you for your response, VO.
I am just thinking of letting our case follow its normal processing time-frame. Who knows whether or not requesting another expeditious processing would further slow things down. Case complete date at NVC was 19 June 2015.
In the meantime, may I ask if my wife needs a new police certificate. Her current cert was issued in January 2015 with an expiration date of 3 months after issuance.
Thank you so much.

Dear VO,

I am posting on behalf of my wife (Yeah, the husband is taking over now... ). We had earlier mentioned about us requesting expeditious processing of our case being an active duty military servicemember. I called NVC today to ask about it and the customer representative told me the request was probably rejected by you guys in Lagos. I am just really sad that we're being tossed up and down over a simple request (I have requested expedited service twice now).

It's unfortunate I have not been able to follow our case more closely due to my engagement in military trainings over the past 12 months. Other servicemembers I know get their spouses over here as early as 6 months or less after filing their I-130s. Ours is already 1 year, still with no interview date.

I don't even know what to do with my tax situation since I filed an extension hoping she'd get here before the Oct 15 deadline so I can file as "married filing jointly". I would be eternally grateful to you if you can help us. Our case number is LGS2015547024. Thank you!

VisaOfficer:
As you suspect, the order isn't based on priority dates; it's based on the date the case is complete and ready to be scheduled. (Maybe if two cases are ready on the same day and there's only one slot available, they look at priority dates? Not sure about that.)

Not sure why your case wasn't expedited -- unless your husband didn't submit the request to NVC in the first place, or didn't submit evidence that he's actually active military when he made the request for expedited processing. Whenever NVC asks me to expedite the spouse or child of an active military member, I always say yes, personally.

He actually did send NVC proof of being an active duty servicemember via email attachments to NVCexpedite@state.gov but I guess folks over there didn't just want to help. But anyways, I hope to be with my husband very soon, by God's grace.
Thank you so much, VO. You have been of tremendous help on this forum. God bless you!

VisaOfficer:
We are the busiest Consular post in Africa. At present we're seeing more than 1,000 immigrant visa beneficiaries every month, and that number is growing each month as USCIS sends us more and more cases! To give you an idea of how much our IV caseload has grown, we are seeing almost as many people now as we were when Nigeria was eligible for the Diversity Visa program (and in the next couple of months, we'll be seeing just as many or more people...).
As a CR-1, you're not "competing" with anyone, but you do have to wait your turn. As soon as your case is ready to be scheduled for an interview, you join the same queue with all other IR and CR applicants, and will be given the next available appointment.
For numerically limited visas (but not CR or IR visas), the annual total is indeed fixed at 25,620 family-sponsored visas per year, but Nigeria has yet to see a year with 25,620 numerically limited family-sponsored cases. At the rate that our numbers are going up, though, I suppose it could happen in the not-too-distant future!
http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy/bulletin/2015/visa-bulletin-for-august-2015.html includes some explanations of how the various visa categories are limited by number, if you really want to get lost in the details.

You are the best, VO. I promise this will be my last question for now :
When NVC schedule IR-1/CR-1 interviews, is the order in which they send completed cases to you based on priority dates or the times the cases were completed? Also, my petitioner (my husband) is a member of the US Armed forces and I was thinking my case would be expedited because of that but it's been a year now that we've been on this journey and all efforts committed by my husband to bring me over quickly had proved abortive. Why is our case different than other military spouses who have enjoyed expeditious processing?
Thank you!!

Thank you, VO for your prompt response.
Please, how many immigrant visa interviews are scheduled each month on the average? Are there also a fixed number of interview slots for different visa categories each month? As a pending CR-1 immigrant, would I be "competing" for slots with other immigrant and non-immigrant visa categories?
Thank you, again.

Dear VO, could you please tell me when immigrant visa interviews are being scheduled? My case has been completed at NVC since mid June but no info as to when the interview would be scheduled. Help me please!!