• Hello Members, This forums is for DV lottery visas only. For other immigration related questions, please go to our forums home page, find the related forum and post it there.

EU region lodged - can we live outside of the EU until interview?

OnTheGo

Registered Users (C)
Hi All,

We are selectees from the EU (my wife is the principal applicant).

Q - Is there any restriction on living outside of the EU until NL2 will be received?

We will have to get police certificates from that 3rd party country no matter what, as we already lived there (not USA) for a long time, but I wonder if there could be any adverse impact on our DV application by going through EU, but then being based in another country during the DV process?

We would surely be going to be in the EU for the interview and at this point it is not clear whether my wife might actually be staying in the EU until that happens (as she has a secure job) and only me going ... hence we were not planning on changing the interview place, even if both of us were going ... since we don't want to 'mess up' the DV application.

BTW - our country (EU) has a visa waiver program with the USA ... is there any restriction on traveling to the US from now onwards, as a tourist without endangering the DV application?
 
No restrictions on living elsewhere during the process. Don't forget that all people applying for the GC will need to attend the interview with the primary applicant. Also will have to have a medical in the same country as the consulate where you are interviewing - so that will imply two trips for all family members. You can also opt to process your application in another country - but just be aware youi might have to translate documents to the local language.

The Visa waiver based travel is unaffected by your DV application.
 
Cheers, just on another point...how recent do police certificates have to be prior to the interview? I think they say the interview notice comes about 4-6 weeks prior to the date, but can each police certificate be organized months ahead or is there any specified expiry?

We actually lived in 3 countries since the late 1990's (4 for my wife), and we do already have police certificates for two of them but they are from back then, stating specifically the time that we had lived there...would that be sufficient or would new updated certificates be required, even though we never lived in 2 of those countries since?
 
In the UK the police certificate is valid up to 6 months old according to the police - however I understand the consul accepts them up to 12 months old. I wouldn't leave it too late - so try to predict your interview date and submit the request at a good time for that....
 
Cheers Simon, lastly .. I read somewhere here where someone was stating that the date of the medicals determines the time of latest possible entry to activate the visa, not the actual date of the visa issuance. So for instance, if you have medicals early, i.e. 2 months prior to visa issuance, you will only have 4 months to enter the US.

Would you say the same applies to the police certificates from what you read or heard?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I can't remember/find where I had heard that now - so worth being cautious. The link below is from the police about the certificates they issue, but the 6 months referred to in the FAQ was superceded by the other comments I read. I plan to request the police certs 2 to 3 months before my interview (guessing the date of interview) and that should be fine to cover the later entry date as well as interview (although I am now likely to move to the US ahead of the GC.

http://www.acro.police.uk/Police_Certificates_FAQs.aspx
 
I am now likely to move to the US ahead of the GC.

Doesn't a temporary entry visa give you problems via the fact that you would have stated somewhere on the application for that visa that you don't have an intend to immigrate? I also read somewhere here that this might create issues but I could be wrong. On what visa type are you going to enter the US?
 
Doesn't a temporary entry visa give you problems via the fact that you would have stated somewhere on the application for that visa that you don't have an intend to immigrate? I also read somewhere here that this might create issues but I could be wrong. On what visa type are you going to enter the US?

I will enter on an H1-B - and that allows "dual intent", meaning the GC process isn't a problem - but you are correct, for most other visa types it does create an issue.
 
Top