godcherisher: DV Experience Testimony

Alhamdulillah, All praises go to GOD.

Exactly one year after submitting our entry to the DV 2013, we got our visa delivered by courier today. As a token of appreciation for all the insightful information I have been able to gather from this forum I would like to share with you our whole DV 2013 experience.

Thursday, November 3, 2011: Application to DV Lottery 2013
This was the second time I applied since 2008 and it was the first time I entered my wife as an applicant. t all started on that date at exactly 1:37:46 PM EDT when I entered two separate applications for my wife and myself. It was quite stressful because I remembered that it was the last day to enter the application and I was on a business trip overseas but somehow I really wanted to give it a shot. I called my wife and elder daughter to ask them to send me scanned copies of their passport pictures and passport numbers. After much tweaking on the photographs to match the required specifications as per DV guidelines, I managed to complete the submissions.

I carefully saved the confirmation numbers, sent them to my private email and put a reminder in my outlook to check back on the result by May 1, 2012.

May 1, 2012: Selected and 1st NL
On that day, I attempted to check but the server was quite busy so I waited till the next day. At first, I checked with my confirmation number and I saw the message “ENTRY HAS NOT BEEN SELECTED”. Without much conviction, I checked for my wife and oh my god, the page looked different and I immediately new that she was selected. She was on a long phone call (women) and I waited patiently for her to finish. She completely forgot about the fact that I even applied for both of us so I let you imagine her surprise when I told her that she was notified by KCC. When we saw that about 100000 people are preselected but only 50000 visas were available we immediately rushed to collect the documents needed to pursue the application. We took pictures, completed the forms, checked diligently that everything was OK and sent the forms for my wife, my two daughters (my third daughter is already US citizen by birth. We lived there for about 4 years in the past on a L1 visa, which is inter-company transfer).

May 1, 2012 – August 17, 2012: The long wait
Her confirmation number was quite low DV2013AF00005XXX, so we knew that we should start gathering our documents as soon as possible especially with the nomadic life we have had (we lived in about 6 countries for the past 20 years).
However, we didn’t want to do it to early because we knew that some police certificate for instance are only valid 3 months from the issue date and the medical is only valid for six months. Therefore, we waited till we got our 2nd NL which arrived on August 17th 2013 which stated that our appointment is scheduled on October 3 at the US consulate in London . From that moment we started rushing to get all the documents pending and made arrangements for our medicals at Knightsbridge doctors in London. Everything went well but we started realizing that time was flying fast especially for the documents we had to get from countries where we had limited connections available.


October 3, 2012: DV Interview at US Consulate in London
We had our appointment at 8:00 AM so we left home (we live in London area) very early in the morning to be on time for the interview. Before arriving at the embassy, we stopped at a pharmacy nearby to consign our bags and non-essential effects for the interview. We found already a small queue ahead of us but most of them were non-immigrant visa. We handed our 2nd NL and the reminder letter we got from the US embassy two days before the interview and quickly passed the security check (airport style baggage scan)

At the reception, we were issued a calling number (I906) and were directed to a large waiting hall where we found lots of people waiting. Again most of them were non-immigrant visa and US citizen coming for their passport renewals.

At about 9:00 AM we were called at a window where we met a nice and friendly lady. She requested the notification letter and went to check if our medicals were sent by the Doctor’s office. After a while she came back with an envelope containing some XRay CD which she handed back to us stating that we should keep them and be ready to present it if ever it was requested at the port of entry She started collecting our documents in the order specified while asking few questions at the same time and scribbling some notes. I noticed that she had also the pictures, which we sent to KCC back in May and realized that there was no need for us to bring additional pictures.
Everything was in order except that we were missing one police record from one of the country where we were living before.
She then asked us to go pay the DV visa fee at the cashier which I did using my debit card. After that, she asked us to go wait in the hall again for somebody to call us for an interview.

At about 10:00 AM, we were called at another window for the interview. It was a young person who was conduction the interview. He asked my wife to step forward as the principle applicant and asked us all to raise our hand and perform the oath.
Here is how a short synopsis of the interview:
• C.O: Good morning, blablabla
• Wife: Good morning, blablabla
• CO: When did you play the lottery
• Wife: about a year
• C.O: Did you pay somebody for that
• Wife: Surprised, looked at me (for advice) and I nodded no because I was suspecting this to be a trick question
• C.O: What did you study
• Wife: XYZ
• C.O: One of your kid is US citizen, how come
• Wife: We lived there for more than 4 years while my husband was assigned there
• C.O: I have to cancel your current non-immigrant visas (Each of us had a 10 years B1/B2 visas which were still valid at the time of the interview). He stamped the visa pages with “CANCELED WITHOUT PREJUDICE”
• C.O: Called my elder daughter and asked her what she is doing
• Daughter: XYZ
• C.O: Please sign this paper to swear that in case you are issued a visa, you will not get married before going to the US
• Daughter: signed
• C.O: All your documents are in order but I will have to follow due process and wait till I receive all police records before granting the visa. He then gave us a blue sheet saying that the visa could not be approved today and indicated that we need to submit to them the missing police records along with our 4 passports as soon as possible through a secured courier service (DXSecure).

During the whole interview, I kept a low profile and let my wife responded to the questions without intervening since she was the principle applicant.

October 17, 2012: Sent missing documents and passports
We finally received the police records 10 days later and it was picked up by the courier service on Tuesday 17th for delivery to the US embassy. They also gave us a tracking number to allow us to monitor the progress on our application.

November 2nd, 2012: Visa processing completed
I was systematically checking twice a day to see if there is an update and even sent an email to the US consulate to inquire about the progress of our application to which they replied:

“Thank you for your email.

We can confirm that your documents have been received and your application is under final review. We regret that we are unable to guarantee that the visas will be issued by a specific date. Please be assured that you will receive the documents as soon as possible.


Sincerely,

Consular Information Unit
U.S. Embassy, London
CONS/CIU/GS

This informal method of responding enables us to respond to you within a shorter time. No record is being made of this correspondence. If you need to e-mail us again, please return this e-mail.


This email is UNCLASSIFIED.”


On November 2, I received a text message saying that the documents are ready for collection on November 5. As I couldn’t bear the waiting anymore, I immediately called the company to arrange for a delivery on Saturday at a premium fee.

November 3rd, 2012: Visa delivered
Today, exactly one year since we entered the lottery, the courier arrive with a big sealed envelope containing 4 envelopes each labeled with our respective names along with our passports. I checked with my wife the visas and they are all valid for six months.

We often spend xMas period in US and we have already made arrangements to travel to Atlanta during that time in order to activate our green card. We are looking to move sometime in the summer once the kids have finished school and to give us also time to prepare our departure smoothly.



Congratulations bro!!!! I'm so happy for you and ur family!!

Gentiger:

God will fix it. Remain hopeful but live beyond the American dream.

xtonosa: Hi guys,plz, I want to find out if anyone has been selected in this october as kc has promised. I've been checking my status since october 22 and my page still remains like my entry has not been selected and come october, kc will select more entries. This is the info I've been getting since may. Plz people, is kc not selecting as they have promised ni