Immigrant Visa Pause Update, Oct 7: Bogota Prints a Visa the Same Afternoon, London Reschedules a Non-Expedited Case, Enforcement Hearing Set for 14 October

This covers Tuesday. The court news is a date: the judge in the main pause case has set oral argument on enforcement for 14 October at 11:00 Eastern, after both sides answered the order to show cause.* Plaintiffs want fixed deadlines (30 days for their members, 60 for everyone else); the government wants none. The appeals court's decision on the government's stay request is still pending, with the government having asked for a ruling by 16 October. Items from court filings are asterisked and come from community summaries of the docket, not our own reading of it.

Bogota: interviewed at 06:45, visa in hand at 14:00

Two non-plaintiff spouse cases refused under the pause were approved at second interviews in Bogota on Monday 6 October, and one of them is the fastest ending in this dataset. An IR1 first interviewed on 11 May received three emails over 2 and 3 October (a second interview would follow; it is set for 6 October; it will be rescheduled), checked the portal, saw the 6 October slot still there and went. In at 06:45, out at 08:15, phoned at noon, visa collected at 14:00. The officer offered a new medical and warned it would delay the visa; she declined and must travel by 22 October. The questions were about her: work plans after the move, how the couple will handle health insurance, work experience, education, children, where they will live, assets in Colombia, her socioeconomic stratum, and whether she had ever needed government aid. Her petitioner lives in Colombia and is not working, so the sponsorship rests on assets; the officer checked with a colleague that this was allowed and then asked him about them.

The other, first interviewed at the end of April, was in the building for nearly two and a half hours including queues and was asked about the petitioner's parents (employers, jobs, how long retired), his siblings' jobs, the names of his co-workers, and at length about the health insurance plan she will join; retirement accounts came up for the first time, and the couple had brought updated bank, brokerage, 401(k) and IRA statements with the W-2s and returns. Approved, passport kept, pickup promised within days, medical not redone. A third applicant at the same window that morning was sent to find a joint sponsor: the petitioner's 2025 return showed a negative adjusted gross income because of the foreign earned income exclusion, and the officer read the 1040 line rather than the salary. Both lists are in the re-interview guide.

Bogota is not working for everyone. Three applicants from the 23 September email cohort, first interviewed on 27 January and 3 February, cannot book: the scheduling portal treats the first interview as attended and will not open a calendar, tickets filed as instructed have gone two weeks unanswered, and one was told to wait two weeks for a fix. An applicant interviewed on 1 October and told everything was approved has CEAC reading Issued and no pickup email five days later, with a flight on Friday. And one applicant who paid for a new medical on their own initiative has heard nothing while later cases were called.

Sydney issues; London approves and, for the first time, reschedules an ordinary case

One of Monday's Sydney second interviews read Issued on CEAC by Tuesday morning: a pause-country national studying in Australia, first interviewed in July, no documents requested at the second interview, passport kept with an administrative-processing sheet. At London a non-plaintiff employment-based applicant was approved at a second interview on a written public charge statement covering savings, an accommodation plan and health insurance; category and dates not given.

London also produced the first reschedule of a case that is not military, not a direct consular filing and not a pause nationality: a CR1 cancelled for 10 September was emailed a new date of 21 October without asking, another immigrant case got 19 October, and an IR1 who turned up on a cancelled date was sent home and had a new date by the next day. The other side of the London ledger: K-1s for 6, 8 and 13 October and an EB-3 for 13 October were cancelled by the 2 October email, and the appointment portal still shows the original dates. The 8 October K-1 applicant intends to attend rather than risk a no-show; the post's phone line called the mismatch odd and pointed back to the web form. Three rows added to the cancellations tracker and the 10 September row moved to rescheduled.

Posts that moved a little

Kigali appears for the first time: a non-plaintiff IR1 given a public charge 221(g) at a February interview was emailed a re-interview at short notice, which the applicant may be unable to attend for work; two other February IR1s there are waiting. Bangkok, relayed from a Thai-language group, held its first re-interviews on Tuesday 6 October, about four of them, and is scheduling only on Tuesdays and only a handful a week; one re-interview set for 13 October was pushed to 27 October, and a petitioner who emailed on 6 October got the generic reply. Naples' military-spouse IR1 from the 23 September interview went Issued on 6 October (Ready, Refused, Administrative Processing, Issued in eleven days), while the post's other cancellations from 25 August to 16 September have no dates. Manila, relayed, held EB-3 re-interviews on a Monday and Tuesday in early October and handed one applicant another 221(g) for marriage evidence.

Posts that did not

Yerevan: a spouse case with a 17 March interview has had silence since, one CEAC touch on 25 September when the post read an email, an expired medical and no instruction to renew it. Islamabad: a 6 February case had three CEAC touches in eight days to 2 October and still reads Refused, and applicants say the post's email channel is closed. Dhaka is disputed: one observer says the re-interview calls are going to cases that were in administrative processing after 2025 and 2026 first interviews rather than to pause cases, with some re-interviewed applicants refused under 212(a)(4), and a relayed figure of two or three passports kept out of fifty to sixty; others in the same thread say the post has not started and the reports are false. A February IR1 there with an expired medical has had nothing. Almaty, Skopje, Accra, Mumbai and Phnom Penh report no movement; a Kuala Lumpur spouse case from June has had no re-interview; one Guatemala petitioner says he has heard of plaintiff visas there but no non-plaintiff ones, which does not match the first-hand non-plaintiff approval we recorded on 2 October. Tokyo's August cancellations are still waiting, and applicants there have started a chat group because the post will not answer.

Outside the pause

A New Delhi B1/B2 account answers a question we are often asked. A family of three interviewed together for two to three minutes on the Thursday before the holiday weekend; the spouse and four-year-old were approved at the window and the principal applicant, an infrastructure-finance professional on his first US application, was handed a white 221(g) with the passport kept, no documents requested and no mention of administrative processing. The family's CEAC went Approved on the next working day and his followed within the week. Two O-1 221(g)s: an O-1A renewal at New Delhi on 28 September asked for the previously approved petition in full, no update after five business days; a first-time O-1A at Manila from 27 August, asked for the petition, transcripts and contract, still reads Refused six weeks on. At Tegucigalpa an immigrant visa approved on 29 July, with a 21 August email promising courier delivery within days, has not arrived by 6 October. A Tbilisi K-1 rescheduled two days before its 2 September date still has nothing; K-1s in Kyrgyzstan and Poland are getting October dates.

What the day adds

Forty-two records added, one updated (the Naples case to Issued). Bogota, Sydney, London, Bangkok, Dhaka, Naples, Manila, Yerevan, Islamabad and Kuala Lumpur rows rewritten and Kigali added to the status-by-embassy page. Three cancellations added, one moved to rescheduled. The re-interview guide gains both Bogota question lists, the joint-sponsor point and the London statement. Next in court: oral argument on 14 October.* Today's dataset is crowdsourced and anonymised.