What's Coming Next

So now that we have received our federal approval (I-600) what comes next?

Here's the remainder of the process (information is courtesy of my adoption friends also going through this process)

NVC - All of your information is sent to the National Visa Center (NVC) in New Hampshire. The NVC sends the information to the US embassy in Korea. NVC In is when the NVC receives your paperwork; NVC Out is when they send it off to Korea. How long it takes a family from I-600 approval ( also called federal approval) to NVC In varies as some USCIS offices batch their I-600 approvals and only send them to the NVC periodically (instead of as soon as the I-600 is approved). Also impacting the timeline is that some USCIS offices email the information and some send the information by regular mail. We have seen this part go quickly for others using our agency and also living here. I'm hoping we have this done by Friday 2/12 or at the latest next week.

EP - EP stands for Emigration Permit. South Korea has two types of travel permits. One is similar to a US passport and allows a Korean to come in and out of Korea. The second type of "travel permit" is permission to emigrate. In the later case, a travel permit is granted to the person (i.e. your child) by South Korea giving your child permission to leave Korea for the purpose of emigrating to the United States. EP is not the actual travel certificate, rather it is permission to process the application for the travel certificate. You may or may not hear that your child has EP.

P3 - The US embassy sends a packet of information to the Korean agency. This packet is referred to as P3. The Korean agency submits to the completed packet the US embassy for the travel visa. The packet includes things like the adoptive parents' I600, I864, birth/marriage/divorce certificates of adoptive parents, etc.

VI - After P3 has been sent back, a "Visa Interview" (VI) is scheduled. I say "Visa Interview" in quotes because no actual interview takes place; the Korean agency does not take the kids down to the embassy to be interviewed they just make an appearance at the embassy.

Once the child has their VI the travel could should only be days away. Once the call comes you purchase your tickets and head out at the earliest possible time!


In the past a family could assume that they would be traveling in about 6 weeks from where we presently are. However, Korea is SUPER SLOW now. Last year they stopped issuing EP's in May (because they had met their quota). So the families who received their referrals in May/June are just now traveling- 8 full months later- I can not imagine anything more agonizing. The bad news is that Korea is not showing any signs of speeding things up so we're left guessing as to when our travel call might come.

I am hopeful that we travel before June 11th so that we have our little girl home by her first birthday- but there are no guarantees. Our agency has said don't expect a call before summer. But my heart can't help but hope.
I believe God is watching over our little girl while we can not and I'm so thankful that she is in the wonderful loving home of her foster family.