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US Visas and Immigration: National Visa Center Taking Digital Documentation

See transcript of the above video below:

In this video today we are discussing the National Visa Center and specifically recent changes with respect to how they process documentation within that agency. 

What am I talking about here? National Visa Center, in our practice here we deal with a lot of a marriage and fiance visa cases. Strictly speaking in the K categories, K-1 and K-3, you generally don't see a lot of dealings with the National Visa Center unless you see what's called an Administrative Closure in a K-3 case. But that being said, fiance visas tend to process through the Department of Homeland Security process only to be sent on to the National Visa Center and the National  Visa Center acts as a kind of clearing house to make sure that that case gets moved to the Embassy or Consulate where the application is to be filed.

That being stated, the National Visa Center has recently changed some of its protocols with respect to the processing of Immigrant Visa cases.

What are we talking about when we talk about with respect to Immigrant visas? Well CR-1 and IR-1 come to mind immediately with respect to marriage to a foreign national. We see a lot of marriages to Thai Nationals over here. Also IR-2, CR-2 Immigrant cases with respect to step-children of American citizens. What are we talking about with respect to changes in protocol? Recently the National Visa Center has begun a paperless process of dealing with documentation.  In the past when dealing with NVC you had to send in documentation pertaining to a visa application; it had to be sent in paper copy format. Generally speaking you had to send it by either courier or US mail service. This took time. It had to be reviewed and then they would come back and say they wanted either to see more documentation or they would go ahead and move the case forward for processing and scheduling of the interview at the US Embassy or Consulate abroad. Well here recently the National Visa Center has enacted protocols which allow for the uploading of digitized copies of documentation which allows not only faster receipt by the NVC, but in my opinion probably faster review by the National Visa Center's officers because they can just sort of immediately pull that case up and start taking a look at all the documentation contained therein.

I think overall this is going to cause a general increase in the processing time of visa cases, but that being said it should be noted under this current administration there's been much more scrutiny and much more emphasis placed on enforcement and review of cases involving immigrants to the United States. So for that reason it mailed to sort of come out in the wash. 

That being said, National Visa Center, I won't say that they are more convenient to deal with,  but digitized documentation tends to be a little bit easier to handle than handling huge piles of paper everywhere. That being said we generally tend to keep a hard copy of things and it's probably a good idea for those who are dealing with the Immigrant case process, to keep a hard copy of ones case in order to maintain a record of one's immigration experience for lack of a better term.