Immigrant Visa Pause Update, Oct 6: DOS Says 706 Cases Reviewed, 318 Approved, 388 Refused; Sydney Holds Second Interviews; Mongolia Re-Interviews in Four Days

This covers Monday, the show-cause response day in the main pause case. Figures from court filings are marked with an asterisk and come from a community summary of the documents, not from our own reading of the docket.

The government's numbers*

Both sides answered the judge's 24 September order to show cause. The Department's declaration, signed under penalty of perjury by a senior consular official, says every immigrant-visa post has resumed processing cases refused under the pause and is actively reassessing them. The numbers behind that: of roughly 43,000 applications refused in connection with the pause, about 706 were adjudicated between the 21 August ruling and 30 September. 318 were approved for issuance or issued; 388 were refused under some provision of the law. The Department adds that its system cannot tell an internal approval from a visa physically in a passport without checking each case by hand, so 318 is not 318 passports returned. Diversity visa cases are counted separately.

Three things in the filing match what this tracker has been recording for six weeks. Remanded cases get a fresh public-charge review, not a reinstated one: officers keep the old record, complete the new worksheet, consider updated information, may hold a second interview, and decide on circumstances at the time of the new adjudication. A 14 September cable requires managerial review of immigrant visa decisions, including every case where an officer overcame a public-charge refusal, with the totality-of-circumstances analysis written into the case notes (age, health, family, assets, education and skills including English, past cash assistance, welfare received in the home country, the affidavit of support). And a 21 September instruction tells posts to work pause cases in the order they were refused, plaintiffs and prior exception requests first, with remanded cases exempt from the in-person training though not the online part. Plaintiffs asked for 30 days for their members and 60 days for everyone else, with supervision; the government asked for no deadline. The 55% refusal rate among the 706, for a population that had already been found eligible once, is the number applicants are arguing about tonight. The re-interview guide now carries the filing's description of the review.

Sydney holds its second interviews

The two non-plaintiff spouse cases emailed around 30 September had their second interviews on 6 October. Questions were about health insurance and savings and nothing else. One applicant, already on the petitioner's employer plan, was asked for no documents; her passport was kept with an administrative-processing sheet. The other was asked to upload additional financial documents and told no further interview would be needed. Both first interviewed in July. An EB-3 applicant at Frankfurt reports the same shape from an earlier interview: 221(g), no documents, verbal approval, CEAC unchanged a week on.

Mongolia moves in four days; Kazakhstan, Nepal, Thailand do not

A pause case first interviewed at Ulaanbaatar on 9 February was phoned by the embassy on 1 October and re-interviewed on 5 October, the first report we hold from that post. Against that: Almaty has not started non-plaintiff re-interviews at all; Kathmandu applicants report zero re-interviews, every case still Refused, and a post that has stopped answering emails it used to answer within two days (several saw a CEAC touch dated 6 October); Bangkok has not been heard from. Riyadh's own website says routine visa processing is unavailable in Saudi Arabia and the embassy is closed until further notice, which sits awkwardly beside a declaration that all posts have resumed. At Tashkent a plaintiff re-interviewed two weeks ago at a day's notice is held in 221(g) for an expired medical that the post has told the clinic he does not need, relayed by a friend.

A first interview, during the pause

Frankfurt interviewed a pause-country national on 6 October as a first interview: a direct consular filing by the spouse of a US service member. Twenty minutes, the petitioner questioned too, on both incomes, savings, how they met, housing, car, her education and why she moved to Germany, her insurance plan by name and premium, career plans. Bank statements to follow by post; the officer said a manager now reviews every file and makes the decision. Naples is doing the same for military spouses: a 2 September cancellation rebooked for 23 September, a white 221(g) for evidence of finances despite a high petitioner income, documents emailed, CEAC to administrative processing on 5 October. Military and DCF cases are the one class of first interview moving anywhere.

Kingston's questionnaire reaches March; Bogota books to mid-October

An IR1 first interviewed at Kingston in March received the twenty-question public charge questionnaire around 4 October and uploaded the answers through CEAC, with the medical expired and no instruction to renew it; others there have simply gone for a new medical. Bogota has re-interviews on 7 and 14 October for the end-of-April cohort, the emails asking only for financial information and the insurance plan, and one applicant was told the portal has a technical fault and given a date around 15 October. Cairo and Amman continue at a few re-interviews a day, 30 to 45 minutes each, five approvals reported so far.

Outside the pause

A Mumbai IR1 approved on 20 August, Issued on CEAC the next day, went Ready on 1 October and Administrative Processing on 6 October with the passport still held: the third status-runs-ahead-of-the-document case this week. At Chennai an L-1 with a dismissed DUI handed in certified court records on 19 September and has had no touch since; a commenter in the same position waited three months for the first date change. A Kuala Lumpur H-1B held for social-media verification since 15 September has no email address to write to. London's rebooked 20 October immigrant interview was cancelled; applicants there have found no slots since July. Relayed from a nurses' group, an EB-3 rescheduled from 24 August to 11 September at London was approved after questions on the job offer, savings shown on a banking app, and insurance. Two F-1 refusals for returning students, one a senior with 16 credits left, and a mother, sister and grandmother refused together for a graduation.

What the day adds

Twenty-three records added. Sydney, Kingston, Frankfurt, Bogota, Kathmandu, Almaty, Tashkent, Riyadh and London rows rewritten; Ulaanbaatar and Naples added to the status-by-embassy page. One London cancellation added. The guide gains the 5 October filing, the Kingston March questionnaire and three interview accounts. Today's dataset is crowdsourced and anonymised.