First Time H1B visa - 221g white form

[GGMU99]

Biometrics-Date: April 5th 2021 (1:00 pm)

• went to the VAC center 30 mins before the appointment although they did let me in 15 mins before my appointment 
• I put my bag in the private lockers provided in the ground floor. Paid 50 Rs
• Documents asked were passport and DS160
• Officer told me to carry passport, ds160 and other supporting do so to the consulate interview 

 

Visa Interview- April 7th 2021(11:30am)

• Went 2 hours early to the consulate. There were lots of people waiting  in line. 
• Auto drivers were charging outrageous amounts to store personal belongings (1000 RS)
• A little over 11:45 they let our batch inside the gate. We had to wait in another line 
• After 20 mins or so they started letting us in to the security room. Checked passport again.
• We went inside another their room where they checked our passport again and asked us to sit down and wait for our turn
• After 10 mins or so was asked to move to the other line before going inside for the visa interview (checked passport) wait 5 mins
• Waited in line for 5 more mins before going to meet the VO
• VO- Hello, How are you?
• Me- Hello, I am good. How about you?
• VO- I am good. pass me your passport 
• Me- gave her the passport. 
• VO- Who do I work for?
• Me- Madam I work for XYZ
• VO- how long have you been with this company? 
• Me-  since ***
• VO- how long were you on opt
• Me- until oct 2018 
• VO- what is your job title?
• Me- told
• VO - what do you do?  
• Me- told (direct full time in house project based job)
• VO- what is your salary?
• Me- told 
• VO- she provided me a know your rights pamphlet and asked me to place my right hand for fingerprints 
• Me- took the pamphlet and said Yes to know my rights question and gave the fingerprints. At this point it looked like she was about to give me the visa 
• VO- do you have your court documents with you?
• Me- yes and passed her the documents
• VO- so what happened? Were you over-speeding? 
• Me- Not really but I had an accident with road side property.
• VO- was alcohol involved?
• Me- yes (mine was 0.052 BAC)
• VO- okay, and started going through the court documents thoroughly and started typing( atleast 2 mins)
• Me- I told her that that this is the only offense in my 6 years of driving record and that I am a very careful driver.
• VO- okay, and went to talk to her colleagues. 2 mins later, Comes back and says she cant grant my visa at this time and returns my passport to me.
• Me- I was shocked although I knew this was a possibility but was not expecting this as it happened almost 4 years back.
• VO- Also, take this form and follow the instructions. You will need to compete this medical test and send the results to us. Also send us the court documents via email. 
• Me- How long this will take. I need to be back in states for an important project which will be starting soon. 
• VO- This wont take long, just try to complete this as soon as you can and follow for email from us. 
• Me- Thank you and yes I will get on this asap. You have a great day.  Forgot to ask her how to send the court documents to her.

Was very gutted by this but pulled myself up to get all this things taken care of. Came back to hotel and called the Apollo  hospital for an appointment. Didn’t get appointment until April 9th. Was told to come between 8-10am. 

Called consulate again for the email address(nivnd@state.gov) and was provided one. Sent the docs to this email address. Was still not sure if this was the right email address so i sent an enquiry to ustraveldocs email address. Haven’t heard back from them yet. 

 

Medical Test- April 9th 2021

• went to the Apollo hospital around 8am. The front receptionist asked me about general covid related questions and asked me why i was there. After telling her the reason, she asked me to go to the fourth floor. 
• Fourth floor:
• was asked to show passport, passport copy, 6 photographs, 221g letter and copy 
• They gave me bunch of forms to fill out and then asked me to wait for blood/urine/vision test
• After getting done with all that they asked me to go for chest x ray and then at the end gave me a cd and all the rest of the forms. 
• The main desk person then told me to go to 10:00 am psych appointment
• Psych building- different
• Went 30 mins before my Psych appointment which was in opposite building. The psychiatrist was a lady and she greeted me. She asked me about my career and interests. Then she asked me to explain in derail about the incident. After all that she gave me some advice and told me that she will give me a clean report and said all the best. 
• Personalized checks-fourth floor
• After the psych appointment, was asked to wait for general physician appointment. After 40 mins or so the general physician (she)called me in. 
• She asked me about general details and asked me if the information she had was correct. She then asked me date  of the incident and if I smoke. How often I drink and if I had any surgeries. After this she took my bp, and check my body for any physical pain. She then told me that they will send the report to the consulate the next day by eod. And will let me know if there were any abnormalities with my blood test results.
• After this i took the receipt and went back to the hotel. Called ustraveldocs provided phone number and asked them about the next steps. To which they said to wait for the email/letter from consulate for passport drop off. 

April 10th- 

• called Apollo hospital about the reports. They said they will send them on Monday. 
• confirmed on April 12th that they sent the documents to the consulate.

Status :

ceac -refused; cgi: passport is still with the consulate/embassy. I think they mention passport even for medical reports.

April 11th- 

• I wasn't sure if this nivnd@state.gov address was the right one so I recently sent them to ChennaiHL@state.gov and Support-india@ustraveldocs.com as well on April 11th and got the confirmation email from them.

April 19th- 

• Status in the CGI website changed from passport is still with consulate/embassy to document delivery information:
• I have sent follow up emails to Support-india@ustraveldocs.com and ChennaiHL@state.gov but haven't received any response yet.

can someone please let me know what this means and what should be the next steps and when can I expect an email from them to submit the passport. I would really appreciate your help. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have regarding this.

I will do my best to keep this post updated with my any status changes. Hope this post will help others too.

 

 

 

 

[gopalakrishnach]

Thank you very much for your detailed post and I really appreciate this. This post is valuable too many are in similar situation.

[Jz1122]

@GGMU99 Can you please post your update after April 19th and what questions you faced in port of entry. Your posts help me as I'm in same situation.

[Reddy2022]

Hi,

you need to wait for an update  from consulate,it will take  time due to COVID..I am also in same situation and provided reports on feb20th..

[GGMU99]

There hasn't been any new updates to my case yet. I have tried to contact the embassy via email and phone but have only received generic response. At this point I am not sure what else I can do other than play the waiting game and with the current covid situation it might get even more delayed. I have seen some people getting email to submit their passport anywhere from 3-7 weeks. This was before the consulate got closed. I haven't seen anyone getting emails to submit their passport since then. If any of you know any new update with your cases please do let us know. I will update you all once I receive any status change. 

On 4/20/2021 at 5:44 AM, GGMU99 said:

 

11 hours ago, Reddy2022 said:

Hi,

you need to wait for an update  from consulate,it will take  time due to COVID..I am also in same situation and provided reports on feb20th..

 

11 hours ago, Reddy2022 said:

Hi,

you need to wait for an update  from consulate,it will take  time due to COVID..I am also in same situation and provided reports on feb20th..

 

 

[GGMU99]

On 4/27/2021 at 12:25 AM, Reddy2022 said:

Hi,

you need to wait for an update  from consulate,it will take  time due to COVID..I am also in same situation and provided reports on feb20th..

Any Update?

[GGMU99]

No updates yet as of 7th June 2021. Today I sent an email at chennaiNIE@state.gov to apply for NIE from the travel ban. I know it is only for the purposes of avoiding restrictions from the travel ban but I wanted to apply for it anyway and see if it can get an approval or some sort of feedback from the embassy. I read in of the 221g group that one person applied for it and was asked to submit his passport along with more proof for NIE. At this moment it felt like I needed to give it a shot. I need to be back in the states as my project is starting first week of July. With the covid-19 case load sharply declining I thought Chennai consulate would be opening back up today but they extended it till June 11th. I am not sure how fast they can process applications after they open back up as the backlog of applications are piling up. It has been more than 60 days as of now and there seems to be no light at the end of tunnel at the moment. Staying positive but it is getting harder with every passing day. I am not sure how long my employer will be okay with me working remotely. I will update again if I hear back  anything from the embassies. 

[GGMU99]

So after being frustrated for so long I decided to write to Ohio senator regarding my case seeking help from them. I wrote an email to them on june 16th mentioning my case details and how long i have been waiting for to get my visa. I also mentioned my need to get back to usa to get started on my work project and how i was working for most of the 2020 year even during the pandemic and that my company was exempted from the trump H1B ban. 

On June 17th, I got a response back from the senator mentioning that embassy has told them that only thing remaining in my case is the passport submission.

On June 18th, got a letter from the Chennai embassy to submit my passport. I went to the HYD VAC and submitted it on the same day. There was no rush there and the whole process took only 10 minutes. 

On June 21st, CGI status/ Passport tracking status changed to passport is with the embassy

On June 24th, CEAC status changed to AP from refused

On June 25th, CEAC status changed from AP to ISSUED and CGI/Passport tracking status said passport is being received from the consular section and is being prepared for delivery

On June 26th, Received passport at home with NIE letter and NIE annotation.

 

This is really huge relief and I am so thankful to the senators office for the help. I will post my POE experience soon.