Immigrant Visa Pause Update, Sept 27: Kingston Sends a 20-Question Public Charge Form Instead of a Re-Interview, Dhaka Issues Its First Visa
This covers Friday morning through Sunday evening. Court figures are from a government status report as summarised by people who read it, marked with an asterisk; we have not read the filing.
A questionnaire instead of a second interview
Until now every pause-refused case that moved was called back to the window. On 25 September Kingston did something different. A spouse-visa applicant interviewed on 8 July, not a plaintiff, with a medical still valid to December, saw a CEAC update and received an email with an IR1 public charge questionnaire to complete and upload to CEAC. No re-interview. The form has twenty questions in five sections: general (age, marriage date, destination city, work plans, education), health (conditions, how treatment will be paid for, which US insurer and policy), family status (how many dependents the petitioner supports, including parents and extended family, and their medical needs), financial status (both salaries after tax, other earners in the household, real estate and its value, assets, debts) and public assistance (current or past benefits, including food banks, and any institutionalisation at government expense), plus a joint-sponsor section. A Stockholm applicant says the same form arrived on 11 September and has had no reply since answering it. The full question list is in the re-interview guide.
Dhaka's first issuance, reported first-hand
A diversity visa plaintiff first interviewed on 1 April was emailed on 15 September, re-interviewed on the 17th, sat at Ready for a week, moved to administrative processing on the 24th and to Issued on the 27th, a Sunday, which is a working day in Bangladesh. That is the first issuance at Dhaka anyone has reported about their own case. Six of the seven plaintiffs re-interviewed with him reportedly reached Issued within a day or two. Non-plaintiffs at the same post, one interviewed 1 February and one in May, still have nothing.
Bogota now assigns dates, sometimes with one business day's notice
Alongside the 23 September emails asking applicants to book their own follow-up, Bogota has started setting dates directly. An EB-2 applicant verbally approved on 20 April was emailed at 16:30 on Friday for an interview on Monday the 29th, with a medical that expires on 6 October and no instruction to redo it; he is weighing whether a visa valid for a week is worth attending for. A mother interviewed in March was set for 30 September, the same day as her husband's first interview. A wife and stepdaughter were set for 1 October and told to bring passports for the whole family group, updated financial documents and every original, though only the principal need attend. Warsaw invited a non-plaintiff couple, parents interviewed in March, to a second interview on 6 October. London gave a Pakistani applicant refused in January a 21 October re-interview with a new medical, which he may not be able to reach now that his UK permission has lapsed.
Quiet posts, and two that answered
Dakar replied to a January refusal that cases will be handled in interview order. Yerevan answered emails from 27 August and 8 September on the 25th, with a CEAC touch. Jerusalem told a spouse case it is not processing immigrant visas at this time. Almaty (a CR1 from 30 March), Tirana, Riyadh and Islamabad, where six applicants answered a roll-call with "no", report no emails. Second-hand reports say Casablanca began phoning ordinary refused applicants on Friday with interview dates and a medical due within two days; nobody has confirmed it about their own case yet. Manila's K-1 from 1 September and IR1 from 24 August, Mumbai's IR1 from 28 August and Paris's K-1 from 2 September are still waiting, while Paris did rebook a 25 August immigrant case for 22 September.
Visitor and work visas
Two H-1B cases at Chennai were issued within one and four days of a 221(g), one without any request for social-media links because the DS-160 already carried full URLs, the other through an online form emailed the same evening. A London visitor-visa applicant given a white 221(g) in July received a 214(b) refusal letter two months later, with no documents ever requested. Beirut asked a Bangladeshi visitor applicant whether he knew about the 10,000 dollar visa bond and kept his old passport. Brussels and Lisbon visitor cases sit in processing with no requests. A consultancy H-1B refused in April is still in processing five months on and has lost the client.
The numbers in the government's report*
Per the summaries, the 25 September status report in the diversity visa case says 910 diversity visas were approved for issuance and 452 refused worldwide since 21 September; 968 re-interviews were scheduled and 838 held since 23 September; and zero new first interviews were scheduled. It also says posts that have not finished public-charge training are generally not permitted to resume immigrant processing except for litigation plaintiffs, which matches the post-by-post pattern on the status page. Separately, on 25 September the judge in the CLINIC case denied the government's request to stay her ruling, calling its burdens largely self-created; the government can still ask the appeals court.
By the numbers
37 cases added, 3,581 in the dataset. Four cancellation rows added and one Paris row confirmed with a date: of 72 September cancellations we hold, 7 have a replacement date. The status page now covers 39 posts, with Stockholm, Dakar, Jerusalem, Riyadh, Tirana and Beirut added and nine rows changed.