Hello, everybody. In this video, I'm super excited to provide you some information directly
from the NVC. This is based on the minutes of a meeting that took place between the American
Immigration Lawyers Association and the National Visa Center. In that meeting, they answered
a lot of questions that all of us want to know. For example, what happens with cases
that are currently documentarily qualified and are currently stuck in sitting in NVC?
When are they going to be sent to the US embassies? How many cases are currently pending at NVC,
whether their immigrant visas, whether their K1 visas? And what's going to happen with
those cases in the next few months? Will NVC require the applicants to update their information
again, including paying for new fees for Affidavit of Support and the DS forms? We’ll answer
those questions as well. Should applicants continue to submit the DS-260 forms, even
though they know that the US embassies and consulates that they are specifically designated
for are closed? Should they consider... should they continue to do so? We'll answer those
questions as well. What's the status of NVC expediting cases? I've been talking about
it a lot. Will NVC continue to entertain those expedited requests? And what's the best way
to do so? We'll answer those questions as well. So, make sure you stick to the end of
this video. I'm going to go over all these questions because they all were presented
at those minutes. And I want to make sure you're going to get this information because
I know a lot of you, guys, are anxious, a lot of you, guys, are waiting. And that's
why I'm here for providing this information back to you. So, let's dive right in. Hello,
everybody, and welcome back to our immigration channel. This is a place where you get the
most up-to-date immigration news, immigration updates, and everything else that you need
to make your immigration journey less stressful. My name is Jacob Sapochnik. And I'm an immigration
attorney located in San Diego, California, and I help clients in all 50 states. Once
again, if you’re here for the first time, make sure to subscribe to our channel so you
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is going to be able to show this video to more people just like you. In this video.
I'm going to give you the most up-to-date information coming straight from the NVC with
questions that you have, probably, and I want to be able to give that information back to
you right now. So, let's jump right in. What is the volume of immigrant visa cases that
are currently being processed at NVC, at the moment, during the fiscal year 2020? NVC reviewed
and processed 77,000 cases per month. This is absolutely crazy. Next question, what is
the number of K1 visas, non-immigrant K1 visas that NVC process every single month? They
responded that every single month they process 2500 K1 visas, 2,500 K1 visas per month, during
the fiscal year 2020. And just so you know, out of all the cases that are being processed
at NVC, 25% of those cases are being represented by attorneys. So, remember they've got thousands
of cases. And based on their survey, 25% of all NVC cases are being represented by attorneys,
which is great because that means that those cases, at least hopefully, are done correctly,
and will allow NVC to push them through a pile faster, hopefully avoiding further delays.
The next topic to discuss is how is NVC handling cases that are documentarily qualified for
posts, embassies, and consulates that have not yet resumed normal processing and some
of them are closed, and some of them are only taking emergency appointments? How are these
documentarily qualified cases being handled? Are they in some sort of a queue prioritized
by date of qualification? Is there a specific standard that NVC is taking to prioritize
those cases that are like I said, that are documentarily qualified that are just sitting
there at NVC? And here's the response of NVC. NVC continues to schedule cases only for posts
able to conduct interviews due to the Covid-19 pandemic. NVC is warehousing cases for consular
sections that have not been able to resume routine immigrant visa processing and cases
with visa categories subject to the various presidential proclamations other than age
out cases, intercountry adoption, and expedites, parent 9 FAM 504.46 upon visa availability,
NVC schedules immigrant visa appointments for visa categories that are able to proceed
in the chronological order of documentarily complete applicants within each visa class
based on post capacity, host country, and Department of State guidance on operating
safely during the pandemic also weigh on this approach. NVC will maintain this approach
as post resume routine visa services. So, as you can see directly from NVC, they'll
be using chronological order. Based on the date the cases were documentarily quantified,
and also, it will depend on a specific post. So, if the posts are able to start receiving
those cases, then NBC will start sending them in the order that they were documentarily
qualified in the first place. The only exceptions are expedited cases, intercountry adoptions,
and age-out cases. That's why, as I mentioned before, continuing to expedite if you can
is crucial right now because that's the only way you can get cases out of the chronological
queue and get them to be shipped to US embassies. The next topic is how many cases are actually
documentarily qualified, sitting at NVC under the different categories, employment, family,
EB5, let's see what NVC has to say about that. As of January 25, 2021. NVC’s queue of documented
complete employment-based or family-sponsored cases, including family preference and immediate
relative cases with the visa number available waiting for immigrant visa interview, is,
family-sponsored - 312,782 cases, employment - 11,504 cases, pending EB5 - 3930 cases.
That's really good information. So, we can see that majority of cases that have been
warehoused, they specifically said warehoused, because embassies are not able to receive
them. Our family petitions, they're stuck at NVC. We have definitely less employment-based
cases. And of course, the least, EB5 cases for now. The biggest crisis right now is with
immigrant visa cases. As you can see, over 300,000 cases sitting, warehoused at NVC.
The next topic is when will embassies and consulates reopen fully. Will NVC be sending
the cases that are documentarily qualified directly to the post based on the request
from the post first. So, the post will contact the NVC and will state, “We are ready to
receive the cases. Can you send them to us?” Is this the right procedure? And if so, should
applicants be contacting the NVC once their embassies or consulates are reopened and request
the NVC to be sending the files to their respective posts? Here's what NVC has to say. As post-specific
conditions permit, NVC will schedule immigrant visa interviews based on post capacity. Posts
generally don't request specific files. Instead, they provide interview capacity by visa category.
posts will determine the volume of visa services that they can provide while prioritizing the
health and safety of consular staff and applicants upon visa availability. NVC fills their available
appointment capacity in a first-in-first-out manner based on the date the case was deemed
documentarily complete. As you can see, the common presumption is that attorneys or applicants
should be contacting NVC to let them know that the posts are open, and requesting them
to send cases to the post is not correct. What NVC is actually doing, they're receiving
data from the specific embassies and consulates, so their visa capacity and availability, and
then they schedule those cases based on the priority of them being documentarily qualified.
As I mentioned before, and he also confirmed that embassies and consulates do not contact
NVC requesting specific files. It's based on visa availability and their capacity to
conduct interviews. Again, we still believe that doing a follow-up with NVC is prudent
to make sure that your case is being worked on, or at least your case is being considered
to be sent to the embassy once those embassies are fully open and ready to schedule cases.
Another question we want to bring up is what happens if Affidavit of Support supporting
documents and other documents submitted to the NVC is now more than six months old? Will
applicants be required to submit new documents and update that information? NVC clearly confirms
that you don't need to write any documents, any new Affidavit of Support, and supporting
documents even if your documents are more than six months old. That has been confirmed.
Now, the question we want to address is, should applicants continue to submit their DS-260
forms online even if they know that their respective consulates or embassies are currently
closed? Here's what NVC had to say about that. Since NVC has not stopped processing cases.
Applicants should continue to send their fees, forms, and documents to NVC even if their
assigned embassy continues to be restricted in their ability to provide visa services
due to local COVID-19 health restrictions and resource limitations. Completing the DS-260
form is a necessary step towards completing the NVC pre-processing and scheduling of an
immigrant visa interview. Submitting the DS-260 form would enable NVC to commence the review
process performed the known adjudicatory functions and be ready for when posts resume all routine
visa operations. So, as you can see, that's a question I've been getting a lot. You should
not stop filing the DS-260 forms online. continue the process as you get the email from NVC,
all that will continue to be processed, all that should be continued because as NVC indicated,
it will stop the application process if you fail to submit the DS-260 form or fail to
follow the procedure as indicated in their instructions. Another question that was addressed
is what happens when a case is actually sent to the US Embassy are sitting in the embassy
but then the embassy realizes that they are out of capacity. They don't have enough officers,
they don’t have enough space to interview. Will those files be returned to NVC to continue
to stay there and wait for the consulate to resume routine visa processing? And the answer
of the embassy was, no, all cases that are sent to them to the embassy and are about
to be scheduled for interview remain at the embassy. Nothing is being shipped back to
NVC. And the reason is because embassy conditions change on a daily basis. So, if one week or
two weeks, they overbooked, they are busy, cases will just remain in the embassy. And
as soon as they're ready to continue processing. They'll reschedule those cases for an interview.
Let's talk about emergency expert cases. The question was for NVC, should people continue
to do expedited cases if they feel that they need an emergency appointment or faster processing
because they fall under the requirements of expedited? The answer was, yes, continue to
do so. Whether you do get an attorney, by yourself, by using the NVC expedited email,
and not the online inquiry form. If you use the online inquiry form, your expedite request
will be delayed. But they specifically emphasize they still continue to entertain expedited
cases, whether it's for K1, CR1 cases, and all other family petitions that meet the requirements
of the NIE exceptions. Those are still the most effective ways to get yourself a faster
interview if you qualify instead of just sitting and waiting. And the question that was brought
today, we see is, how did the COVID-19 pandemic impact their staffing capabilities and also
their processing power with cases? So, NVC responded, they have Biden rules. Obviously,
and they have all the precautions in place. And quite a few of their staff is working
remotely to continue to process cases. So, NVC never stopped working. They continue to
work. It's a little bit slower, obviously, because of the huge volume and the fact that
they become almost like a warehousing facility for a lot of these cases, but they continue
to work and a lot of the staff is working remotely. So, don't worry, your cases are
still being worked on. Another part of the question that was brought to the NVC was,
how long does it take for a case to get from USCIS once your petition is approved, like
an I-130 or I-129F, how long does it take from the moment it was approved by USCIS to
reach NVC for further processing. And here's what they had to say. Once USCIS approves
a petition for paper-based cases, it typically takes four to six weeks for the physical petition
to reach NVC. After receiving an I-797 approval notice from USCIS, please allow the elevated
time before contacting NVC about a case. This helps ensure USCIS has sufficient time to
mail the case and for NVC to enter it into our database. So, there you have it four to
six weeks from USCIS approval until the file actually gets to NVC and they start working
on the case. Finally, if your case was terminated because of one year of non-activity, the best
way to reopen it is to contact NVC, to Republic Inquiry Form, the online form, and submit
documents to prove that you tried that you maintain contact and your case was terminated
in error. It happens right now. And they'll be able to reopen your case. And I think that's
pretty useful information to know. So, we'll give you a lot of information here. Hopefully,
that was helpful for all of you. I know that some of these topics were covered in this
video. I've been getting a lot of questions in the comments and direct messages, and hopefully,
the most up-to-date information provided in this video will help you navigate the visa
process. I know many of you are anxious. You're wondering when embassies are going to reopen.
They are reopening step by step. Every country has their own procedures. But this information
is important for you to understand how to behave with NVC while your cases are sitting
there, documentarily qualified, waiting for the appointment at the US Embassy. So, once
again, if you have questions, put them in the comments below. I'm curious to know, what
other videos I can make on related topics. If you need my help, set up a consultation.
Make sure you text the number here, 619-483-4549, and set up an individual consultation so we
can talk about your case in specific, so we can talk about your case specifically. Once
again, thanks for watching, and I'll see you in our next video.