gougou

It looks like that any messages/questions I sent to Guangzhou will be attached to my case for their future reference: last Friday I asked a question using the Consulate Guangzhou's online form regarding whether or not an applicant under 18 year's old can be a accompanied by one parent to the interview (the official Guangzhou website has conflicting messages: the English page says Yes while the Chinese page says No ), here is Guangzhou's reply: ----------------------------------------------------------- We regret that our message has caused you some confusion. Please allow us to offer a help to clarify it for you. Due to visa hall's limited space and security concerns, our security guard will give admission based on applicant's situation when s/he is under 18-year-old while over 14-year-old. It is really hard for us to accommodate all related people especially if we have full schedules on that date. Your cooperation will be highly appreciated. Last, please rest assured that we will invite the parent or guardian again if interviewing officer thinks it is needed during the interview. ----------------------------------------------------------- Then this morning when I called the DOS hotline to check case status, the officer who took the call immediately read the above response to me and said the answer was Yes if I really want to go with my son for the interview. Obviously my question and Guangzhou's reply have been recorded into their system and linked to my son's case. Unfortunately the officer who took my call this morning didn't know how to check if Guangzhou has received the physical file or not, the only thing she could tell me was that the case has been loaded into the system but no interview date set yet.

Thanks dnoblett, that's the information I'm looking for. Ideally, I was expecting answers from those who went over this non-electronic NVC-to-Guangzhou file transfer(via DHL) process recently. I called the DOD hotline twice, the 1st time I was told that Guangzhou had already received the physical files for my case (it was only one week after they sent me the "case forwarded" notice), then one week later when I called again, the status went back to "In transit"...

Yes Randy you're right, my son's following-to-join case follows the priority date on my EB3 green card application which was Dec 2003, and it's current at this time (Sept 2004)¡£ Following-to-join case might not be popular, instead of filing an I-130, I filed an I-824 for my son's following-to-join case, and I'm not required to submit I-864 (Affidavit of Support), sure I can file an I-130 application if the F2A priority date is current or very closed to current like it was in late last year. I fully understand how my son's following-to-join case works, and the case processing is reaching its final step: waiting for P4 / interview date. The only thing I don't know is what I asked in my original question: After I got notice from NVC saying that they had forwarded the case to Guangzhou, how long would it usually take for Guangzhou to receive the file and set an interview date?, for this E3 following-to-join case, I was required and have submitted ALL original documents£¨except the medical exam£©to NVC, including all original civil documents and the DS-230 application.

Not sure how the USCIS/NVC use the visa categories, but this is what printed on my case: "Preference Category: E3 - SKILLED WORKERS", I guess that E3 category is different from the E3 visa. As a green card holder, I myself am not under any work visa, for my son's following-to-join case, except for the visa category, it's esentially a F2A: Spouses and Children of Permanent Residents case.

Thanks Randy! The E3 visa might be a little bit confusing here: Actually I'm a green card holder applying the following-to-join visa for my son who is currently living in China, as my green card was approved based on EB3 - employment based 3rd preference, when I filed the following-to-join application for my son, USCIS/NVC also put my son's case under E3 visa category, even though the case is more like a family based case, and even simpler: there is no sponsorship nor document like I-864 affidavit of support needed. Because the case was put under E visa category, we're unable to request electronic processing and have to play the waiting game...NVC noticed me that the case was transferred to Guangzhou on Oct.26, 2011. Of course, the follow-to-join aspect puts you in a different category, but I think family members are processed fairly efficiently for H1B categories. The company I used to work for had to put someone in a hotel in Beijing while his H1B was being processed so he could come to the US. If I remember correctly, that was for around a month. His family came later, but I don't remember how long that took, or why she didn't come with him.

Thanks. I wish I could be able to opt into the electronic process, unfortunately, the E category visa is not eligible for electronic process at this time.

My case is an E3 following-to-join case, received notice from NVC 2 weeks ago saying "The National Visa Center has completed its processing of your case and forwarded your file to the designated American Embassy/Consulate.", just wondering, currently, how long would it take for Guangzhou to receive the the case file and send out the P4 interview packet? In Chinese: 目前从 NVC 发广到广州领事馆收到文件、发出体检面签通知书，大概需要多长时间？我的案子不是电子化处理的，全部是是传统纸质申请文件。