*Long post alert (a series of 3 posts actually, due to # of character limits), skip to timeline below if uninterested by the details*
My dear companions on the DV2019 journey,
Seated in a small cabin on a boat in the Baffin Bay, in the arctic region North of Canada, I am finally writing about my DV2019 experience here as the last steps of my journey were completed on Monday this week and as I am waiting to receive the GC in the mail, soon hopefully, after I return to the US and “activate”. I thank all forum members who contribute to this forum and particularly those of my class (DV2019), who have shared their experience with me and to whom I owed to also share mine (
@damo1089 @Winner19 @sofiamau @Mila05 and so many others, you know who you are
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I chose to post my experience in this thread because my journey started as AoS, and only became CP in the very last week of the FY2019!(if necessary and advised to do so, I’ll also post under the CP thread). Please excuse any typos, I’ll blame them on the little sleep I got the past few days
First of all, let me say 2 things:
- Very few people were/are as skeptical as I once was about the DV lottery before I was selected. This skepticism was later put in question/cured when 3 people whom I personally know were selected in DV2015, DV2016 and DV2018. However, there’s no better answer to skepticism than to be selected. And so it was that in 2017, on my third attempt, I entered the dv lottery and found out I was selected in June 2018 for DV2019 (although I was happy to be selected, my reaction at the time was not what I had thought it’d be, probably because my own life experiences have made me wary of celebrating victory too soon, and boy was I right to only be cautiously optimistic!).
- Although I acknowledge that what really matters in the end is completing the process in time to be approved before the FY end deadline, I still have to say that it feels very strange that with my EU region CN in the low 6K range, current in December 2018, with an AoS package early-filed in October 2018, I ended up completing the process the very last day of the FY (!!!), not because there is any guarantee of success when you start the DV process, but because it is yet another reminder that although we have the spreadsheet and experiences being shared, and pointers to follow, and prevailing forum wisdom to abide by, each case is absolutely different and no 2 applicants’ journey will be exactly the same and unexpected bumps and hurdles might happen along the way, and that it ain’t over until it’s really over!
From the outset, a few steps (2NL received, KCC DV fee receipt received, AoS package mailed with early filing, check cashed, text notification NOA received, Biometrics appointment letter) happened for me as I expected, with a relative pace similar to that experienced by other AoS forum members in different locations across the US. Then, as I was dealing with what might be rightly seen as the slowest FO nationwide (due to either being understaffed or overwhelmed with caseload), a very long waiting game began in November 2018 and for me lasted almost the whole FY2019.
However, towards the end of my DV journey, new developments came up so rapidly that I was forced to change course and take radical steps I had not until then considered necessary, especially so very close to the FY deadline, to make sure that I did not lose the opportunity to take advantage of my DV selection (details below).
After submitting my AoS package in October 2018, I made professional and educational plans in the US to travel outside my State but within the US, towards the end of August 2019, early September 2019, trusting that my AoS case will have been adjudicated by then.
After 2 infopasses, 4 services requests (including 2 for “outside normal processing time), 5 Congressmen inquiries and 1 Ombudsman office inquiry (all between February 2019 and early September 2019), I was convinced that there was something wrong with my AoS case, but all these avenues did not yield a concrete answer to what might be causing this delay. The only responses which came from the FO after all these inquiries were either “FO still needs additional time to process” or “your constituent’s application is in the preliminary stages of processing” or some other type of what I’ve come to see as typical, predictable lip-service (unsubstantial responses) from some tier-1 customer center representatives, who just want to get the applicant off the phone.
On my last infopass visit to the FO in June, I explained in a letter (stamped by the FO as officially received correspondence with that date) which I left to the IO who received me that, because part of my PhD program involves studying glaciers and their climate change-induced transformations, I had to travel to Alaska for a week end of August-early September 2019, and that I was hoping for an interview before that trip. The IO assured me that an IL will be coming between June and the week before my Alaska trip.
During that Alaska week, a great last-minute but unforeseen opportunity to join a scientific team on a 2 week excursion in the arctic regions of Canada in early October came while I was in Alaska.
During this time away from my home, a trusted neighbor of mine checked my mailbox every evening and reported to me by email and Telegram texts with pictures of every piece of mail delivered to me on that day. In addition to this, I signed for USPS’ Informed Delivery Daily Email Notifications.
Needless to say that up to as late as September 9th 2019, as I was returning from Alaska and preparing to embark on the excursion in Canada, and despite all follow-up actions taken above, I was yet to receive any IL; and I was yet to receive any satisfactory response from the FO as to why my case had been pending for almost 10 months.
Finally, on September 15th, FO responded to the 5th congressman inquiry and said that there was a pending H1B visa I had applied for in my home country, which was approved but never picked up, and that they requested information about that visa from the DoS. So typical of that FO to just wait until a few weeks before the deadline to provide answers to a case they’d been sitting on for almost a year.
Frustrated by this strange reason to delay my case, I started talking to a few lawyers, but no lawyer had any idea on how to expedite this “request for info to the DoS”.
At this point, as far as I was concerned, I was starting to think about just giving up on my DV case due to the deadline being so close, and I was starting to contemplate a “National Interest Waiver” path to a GC instead.
On September 23rd, as I was passing through downtown Montreal to meet the team I was joining, I passed in front of the US consulate general, and I had the strangest idea: what about CP? I thought about it for a moment, but remembered that KCC was done scheduling September interviews back in July, so it didn’t bode well for me. Nevertheless, I decided to send an email to the consular section anyway and explain my case.
The Consular section replied and asked me to instruct KCC to inform them about my case directly, and that they might be able to squeeze me in for an interview.
The first KCC representative I reached by phone did NOT understand the issue at, she just kept insisting that I should wait for my interview as I had initially chosen to do AoS. I hang up and called again and asked to speak with the supervisor, who understood they issue and just wanted to make sure the consulate was willing to give me an interview this late in the game. On Wednesday, the consulate general responded to KCC with an available interview slot the very last day of the FY (Sept. 30th at 9:00AM). However, as it turned out, I was not out of the woods yet. When KCC tried to schedule an interview for Sept. 30th, their computer system apprentice wouldn’t allow to schedule an appoint after September 25th. So they chose to schedule 1 for September 25th to “get me a foot in the door”, so that there’s at least an appointment on record. KCC’s rationale was that the consulate general would be able to reschedule locally(by email) so as to see me on the day they have a free slot for an interview(Sept. 30th). It took quite almost 40 emails back and forth to convince to consulate general that conducting an interview on Sept. 30th despite a new 2NL with an appointment date of Sept 25th was ok (as KCC asserted). The consulate general said they had to seek guidance from the State Department in Washington, and a confirmation from DC came on September 25th, giving them a go ahead to conduct the interview.
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