@Özge-Dengiz, içinde söyledi: IR1/CR1 sureci ve mulakat deneyimleri (ABD vatandasi ile evlenip Turkiye'de Green Card almak)

Arkadaslar DQ olduk fakat bana onay maili gelmedi bu durumu yaşayan var mı

Do you mean the confirmation email sent to your personal email (like Gmail)?

They sent the DQ confirmation message to my personal email. I then checked CEAC and saw the message I was DQ'd and all my documents also changed to "Accepted."

Do you have the message within CEAC saying you are DQ'd and are your documents "Accepted?" If so, you are DQ'd. If you didn't receive a message to your personal email, I would double-check they have the correct email address.

@yasmin982 It is true that Ankara has issued very few IR1/CR1 visas to Turks lately. In September-November, they issued 148 IR1/CR1 visas, but only 14 of those went to Turks (9%). In other words, 91% of IR1/CR1 visas went to non-Turks in that 3-month period. Pre-COVID it was much different with most months having more than 50% of visas going to Turks (from Oct 2019 to Jan 2020, in an average month, 62% of IR1 visas went to Turks).

During COVID, only Turks (and I think legal permanent residents) could get interviews, so the backlog of non-Turks/non-residents grew large. It seems like they are making up for that now by processing more non-Turks who couldn't be processed during COVID. But it has been over a year since everyone could be interviewed, yet the backlog remains large. You would think after a full year of operation, they could balance the caseload, but that sadly isn't the case. Even still, non-Turks are waiting longer than Turks, so it is rough for them too.

Many Iranians (probably most) are processed in Ankara because Iran doesn't have a consulate. I don't blame the Iranians for this issue, however, it creates a situation where Turks are put at a disadvantage through no fault of their own. And we also know many Syrians and Afghans come through Ankara too.

One thing I find annoying is how many IR5 (parents visas) they process. For example, in November, they processed 168 IR5 vs. 51 IR1/CR1. That is over 3 times the amount. Naturally there will be more IR5 because they do them in spousal pairs, but they are going much beyond that. I think it is easy to argue that having your spouse is more important than having your parent, but that is just my opinion. Maybe the backlog is even greater for IR5, so that is why they are doing more.

On the bright side, we can say that Ankara has definitely increased how many immigrant visas they are issuing. The numbers are greatly increased from last year, but it just doesn't seem like they are prioritizing IR1/CR1 visas at this time.

We know they have the capacity to process many immigrant visas. For example, for DV visas, they were issuing over 200 per month for a few months and did over 600 in September! If, just for one month, the prioritized IR1/CR1 visas, they could likely clear the whole backlog. And DV visas are probably more complicated than IR1/CR1 visas, so it isn't a complexity issue.

Put simply, Ankara isn't prioritizing IR1/CR1 visas. They aren't ignoring them either, but they seem satisfied issuing around 40-60 per month (that is the range for the last 6-months).

The communication from the consulate on all these issues is absent. It would at least be nice to know how they are prioritizing visas and a rough estimate of the backlog in each category. As a US citizen, it is frustrating that a government agency can withhold such basic information, especially since they give estimates of non-immigration visas! Pre-COVID when the wait times weren't bad, I understand not releasing such information because you could expect an interview in 1-3 months and that was consistent. But given these unprecedented backlogs, you would think they would show some compassion and give us a little more information so we can do some life planning.

I find some comfort in tracking the numbers (obviously I am a little obsessed :slightly_smiling_face: ), but there is little we can do except wait. The way the are processing and prioritizing isn't clear or consistent, so it is bascailly useless to predict what they will do next.

The best piece of information we have is knowing when our friends get their interview dates and when they were DQ'd. Right now we have 7 people from August-October waiting for interview dates. They are:

@lucky2022 - DQ late August
@Handan - DQ August 30
@Naile-İlyas - DQ August 31
@AE123 - DQ September 29
@ekdodo - DQ October 17
@mazeno - DQ October 20
@t34 - DQ October 30

Please add anyone I might have missed.

@ekdodo Yes, there are two people with DQs on 9/15/2022 that have interviews on February 2 and 9th. That is a difference of 140 and 147 days from DQ to interview.

I haven't seen anyone with a DQ between September 16th and 30th, here or on other forums. But we do have quite a few spread across October (and a few from August too).

Hopefully they schedule our friends from August the last week of February and then do October DQs in March.

In 2022, February and March were the busiest months for IR1/CR1 visas, where they issued 89 and 81, respectively. This was compared to 57 in January and 69 in April. Hopefully this trend continues for 2023.

@trbilgin, içinde söyledi: IR1/CR1 sureci ve mulakat deneyimleri (ABD vatandasi ile evlenip Turkiye'de Green Card almak)

@koro idk, I’ve seem to have loss a lot of hope to receiving an interview email anytime soon. In December things we’re going smoothly for Turkish Citizens, but now it seems a few interviews a week are being issued.

I DQd in November, I was hoping to have an interview come February. With how slowly it’s going people DQd in November will be lucky if we even interview the end of March time.

God, I hope I’m wrong and we’ll start hearing about interviews being issued this come this week.

I completely understand. We were DQ'd November 30th. I expect an interview in April, which would be a 5-month wait. I am hoping things don't slow down even more. It is a bad situation.

@ekdodo Yes, the time to review documents for DQ has decreased to 29 days, however, the case creation email is at 62 days (in June of 2022 it was 11 days).

I think this is mostly a gimmick. NVC is purposefully slowing down the case creation time so the monthly number of interviews goes down faster. In reality, they aren't doing more interviews, they are just slowing down the number that are eligible for interviews.

I don't think it puts much pressure on the embassies. They can only do as many interviews as staff capacity allows. What needs to happen is that backlogged embassies hire more staff. Or they focus more heavily on immigrant visas rather than non-immigrant visas. But actually, in some embassies like Islamabad, there is evidence they are focusing more on non-immigrant visas. The current wait there for an interview is nearly 2-years after DQ for IR1 visas! I don't think this is happening in Ankara though.

I was hoping to see interview letters this week. Disappointing. The last one we saw was sent on January 2nd. Even if they send some on Monday, assuming they give at lease 30 days notice before the interview, that means those interviews would be in late February.

Has anyone seen them give less than 30-days notice before an interview?

@Saad There is currently a 7-9 month wait for non-Turkish citizens. Some have waited a bit longer than this but I haven't seen any faster. Non-Turks who were DQ'd in March-May received interviews in December. One non-Turk got an interview for January who was DQ'd in late August, but his case is a transfer and a bit different than a "normal" case.

This information comes from a relatively small sample (fewer than 15) of people from Facebook.

@Özlem-K-K Congratulations! Did the email for the interview date come today (January 6th)? You were DQ'd on September 15th, right?

@kdrr Congratulations on the interview date and thanks for letting us know! Seems like you are about 3-days short of a 5-month wait time. So they are currently scheduling interviews about 4-5 months after DQ. Hopefully they send more this week.

@AE123 The information I use comes from here https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics/immigrant-visa-statistics/monthly-immigrant-visa-issuances.html

@koro November was a good month for IR/CR visa issuance. Ankara issued 226 IR/CR visas, which is actually the most they have done in recent history. This is mostly coming from the 168 IR5 visas issued.

They issued 51 IR1/CR1 visas, which is pretty normal but below the average in the previous 12 months (which was 61 IR1/CR1).

Somewhat depressing for Turkish citizens, in November, only 2 IR1 and 5 CR1 visas went to Turkish citizens. This has been the trend for the last few months. Note that the the Department of State data only show how many Turks received visas, not where they are living. For example, if you are a Turkish citizen living in Germany and get your IR visa through the Berlin consulate, you would be recorded as 1 of the 2 IR visas that went to a Turk in November.

In other words, we know that Ankara issued 46 IR visas in November. We also know that a total of 2 IR visas went to Turkish citizens in November across all consulates. Whether or not those two visas were issued by Ankara is unknown. But to be conservative, we can say, at most, Ankara issued 2 IR visas and 5 CR visas. But it is possible they issued zero.

Hopefully they worked through some of the backlog of non-Turks and are now working on Turkish citizens for the first part of 2023. That might explain why our friends here are reporting somewhat shorter wait times (e.g., 4 instead of 6 months) and are getting interviews in January.

I hope that February is a good month for interview letters.

@ekdodo They mostly send the interview letter (IL) on Mondays, but I've seen our friends report getting ILs on Wednesday (@intelcorei5) and Friday too (@MYusuf, @mertdzkr, and @cokbekledik86). This makes sense because they do the interviews on Tuesday and Thursday, so the other days are open for desk work (e.g., scheduling).

Recently, they've consistently sent the ILs about 45-50 days before the actual interview (@cokbekledik86 is an outlier with a 62-day notice). The first interview dates for February are the 2nd and 7th. Forty-five days days before the 2nd is today (December 19th); 45-days before the 7th is December 24th. So I expect IL emails this week on either Wednesday or Friday or the same days next week (Monday the 26th is a holiday).

Congratulations @ggbbww and @missy! This is wonderful news. I wasn't expecting more interviews in January. Maybe they are actually speeding things up.

Congratulations to everyone who got an interview date and thank you for the updates! It is encouraging news.

I have good news and bad news.

Bad news first. The backlog in IR visas increased 26% from July 15th to August 31, per data obtained by Curtis Morrison (July 15th - 1,342 cases waiting to August 31 - 1,701 cases waiting).

The good news. In September 2022, Ankara issued 926 immigrant visas, which was the most of any month in fiscal year 2022. In total in FY 2022, Ankara issued 6,018 immigrant visas. This is nearly double the total number they issued in FY 2019 (pre-COVID).

I was disappointed to see such a large increase in the IR visa backlog between July and August, but it seems they really are increasing the number of visas they can issue each month. From April to September they increased the total number of IVs issued each month (except July, which I assume is because people took vacations). If October's number are similar to September, then that is a great sign.

Thanks @ecom for the information here and in previous posts. I agree that the USCIS and NVC instructions are generally clear and folks should follow those as closely as possible. It is also helpful to hear from our friends here on the forum, recognizing each case is different and that some cases are much more complex then others (and sometimes mistakes are made).

With regards to the police certificate, since the English version doesn't translate everything on the page (i.e., the QR code explanation box), it seems the safest thing to do is upload the Turkish language version. NVC clearly state they accept English or Turkish language documents, so submitting only Turkish documents from appropriate sources (e.g., E-Develt) should be sufficient.

@yasmin982 For the USCIS stage, certified translations are required. For the NVC stage, either English or Turkish language documents are accepted.

Since we already submitted the English language police certificate, we will only submit the Turkish version with a note saying something like "For completeness, we are also providing the Turkish language police certificate as an additional document, to accompany the English version already submitted."

I think combining them into one PDF might be confusing since we already submitted the English version.

@yasmin982 Where on the website does it say they want a sworn translation for languages that are not Turkish?

According to the Department of State guidance "Please note that all documents not written in English, or in the official language of the country from which you are applying, must be accompanied by certified translations." This suggests documents can be submitted in either English or Turkish.

Thank you everyone for the helpful responses. We will add the Turkish language police certificate as an additional document to be safe.

Based on official guidance from the Department of State, it seems that the English police certificate should be sufficient since it was issued from E-Devlet and has the required information and barcodes. But we are at the mercy of the reviewing officer at NVC, and he or she might not like the English version since not everything is translated (e.g.,the QR code explanation box). Personally, this doesn't make sense since NVC accepts both English and Turkish documents, but maybe some officers don't like that not everything is translated on the English version.