Immigrant Visa Pause Update, Oct 5: Tokyo Breaks a Seven-Week Silence With a Training Letter, Islamabad's Inquiry Form Bounces, One More Second-Interview Approval
Post by post
| Embassy | Status | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | No decision | First reply since July: form letter on training begun 'in early August', no reschedule |
| Islamabad | No decision | Navigator inquiries bounce as 'code missing'; February non-plaintiffs have nothing |
| Paris | Cancelled | 1-2 Sept K-1s touched 30 Sept, no dates; DV interview cancelled 4 Sept unrescheduled |
| Auckland | Cancelled | DV-2026 interview cancelled 4 Sept, still no date after the Medani order |
| Algiers | No decision | March CR1 pause 221(g), no documents asked, no contact since the vacatur |
| Phnom Penh | Cancelled | No K-1 dates released since August; November not opened |
| Manila | Refused | 25-year-old visiting a citizen grandmother who would pay: 214(b) |
This covers Saturday into Monday morning in Asia. A weekend, so thin on outcomes; the useful signals are what posts are saying when they finally answer.
Tokyo answers, seven weeks late, with a training letter
A petitioner who wrote to Tokyo on 26 August got a reply on Monday morning Japan time: the first contact of any kind from the post since July. It is a form letter. It says the Department launched a global public-charge training initiative "in early August" and that the post will be in touch; it does not reschedule anything. Two later inquiries and a senator's constituent-services request are still unanswered. The applicants in the thread read the date two ways. One takes it to mean the 60-day clock started earlier than the 26 August announcement and may already have run, which would fit Tokyo issuing a non-pause spouse case on 1 October with no second interview. The other notes an officer at Ankara telling a 10 August interviewee to "watch the news and your email", and concludes posts knew before applicants did. Both are inference. What is fact: Tokyo now replies, and still schedules nothing. The case behind the inquiry is a Brazilian-citizen IR1 interviewed in July whose passport the post has kept since, with a joint sponsor earning many times the threshold.
Islamabad: the inquiry form rejects its own output
A US citizen with two IR2 daughters interviewed on 6 February, refused under the pause, describes trying to reach the post the only way it allows: the immigrant-visa navigator generates an email with a coded subject line, and every send bounces with "ERROR! CODE IS MISSING IN SUBJECT LINE". The family cannot transmit citizenship (physical-presence rule), the mother holds a green card and commutes between countries, and the children wait. Two non-plaintiff spouse cases from February report the same nothing: no email, no CEAC change, the inquiry form returning an error. Islamabad's movement remains the plaintiffs re-interviewed on 30 September, relayed, and the mass CEAC touches of 28 to 30 September.
One more second-interview approval, post unstated
A spouse first interviewed on 5 August 2026 and refused under 221(g) was emailed on 2 October to attend a second interview on 5 October with the passport, went with every document, and was approved; the officer could not say when the visa would be ready. The poster did not name the embassy. It joins Guatemala City, Rio, Budapest and London from Friday as a non-plaintiff cleared through the second-interview route, and it is the shortest email-to-approval we hold: three days. The re-interview guide has the question lists; an Islamabad applicant asked this weekend whether non-plaintiffs face the public-charge questions at all, and the answer from every first-hand report so far is yes.
Cancelled in September, still nothing in October
Paris K-1s cancelled for 1 and 2 September saw CEAC flip to Ready with a 30 September last-updated change, and no date followed. A DV-2026 interview at Paris cancelled around 4 September and one at Auckland cancelled on 4 September have nothing, even though the court order lets posts finish diversity cases past the fiscal year. Cambodia has released no K-1 dates since August and has not opened November. Manila's 27 August K-1 cancellation got a CEAC touch and no date. Two rows added to the cancellations tracker, and Algiers and Phnom Penh join the status-by-embassy page.
The Ready-status cohort
Several pause-country applicants compare notes on a particular pattern: a 221(g) at the interview that cites the 75-country pause, no documents requested, and CEAC reading Ready ever since rather than Refused. February, March (Algiers CR1) and April (an IR2) interviews are in the thread, plus a non-pause F4 case from July. Ready with no request is not a signal of anything; it is the state the file was left in. The CEAC decoder covers the difference between a touch and a decision.
Outside the pause
At London an H-2B applicant who disclosed a minor arrest and brought a clean ACRO certificate got a 221(g), then a 214(b) a week later with the "ineligible at this time" box ticked. At Manila a 25-year-old government employee with travel to eight countries was refused 214(b) for a two-week visit to a citizen grandmother who would have paid for the trip; the thread's consensus is the sponsorship, not the record. Mumbai has no F-1 slots for students whose programmes have already started.
What the day adds
Seventeen records added. Tokyo, Islamabad, Paris and Auckland rows rewritten; Algiers and Phnom Penh added. Two DV cancellations added, the Paris 1 September K-1 annotated. Tuesday is the show-cause hearing in the main pause case; the Second Circuit stay decision is also pending. Today's dataset is crowdsourced and anonymised.