|
|
| London, United Kingdom |  Review on July 16, 2013: |
lost_at_sea
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
DCF CR-1 Visa interview review.
Arrived around 7:30 for an 8am appointment. There was already a queue, but it got moving pretty quickly. A woman was checking people's appointment letters in the queue, and when she got to me with my husband she asked if I'd put him on the access list - said yes, she went off to check, and returned with my interview letter with husband's name written on it.
Went through security then through to reception, where we got our ticket number (I904) and went on into the ugly waiting area. It was pretty busy and even busier by the time we left - looked like a lot of student visas being processed.
After about 20 - 30 minutes, our number came up for window 1. We had a young-ish American man go through our forms. He was fairly jovial. Took my passport, photos, birth certificate and police certificate and my fingerprints.
When we got to the I-864, I let my husband explain what he'd included (our taxes are a little complicated) and clerk took what he needed and gave a majority of our paperwork back. He ended up taking most recent year tax return, a statement about husband's stock assets (even though we weren't using those for sponsorship) and a letter of his on-going US employment (mostly for the domicile aspect, I assumed, as we were DCF).
He gave us the courier form, and I asked if we needed to do anything with it right then and there and he said no, that's for the end then sent us away (I was confused, because I thought we paid for the visa at least before the interview) - but I asked if he'd like our marriage certificate (which he hadn't taken so far) and said oops, yes, he would need that. Guess he was on a slow warm-up. Then he sent us away.
A few minutes later, he called us back up, as he'd forgotten to send us to pay for the visa! So, we did that (again, payment taking lady was extremely friendly, suggested my husband pay then take me shopping in the sales) and returned with the receipt. Went back to wait again.
About 10 - 15 minutes later, our number was called again to window 16. A friendly, young American woman greeted us (she seemed younger than the American guy we had first) and was very nice to us. She returned all my original documents that we'd given earlier to the other clerk. She then took my fingerprints again, asked me to sign the DS-230 Part II, and had me swear that I was telling the truth.
She asked me some very simple questions - Have I ever lived anywhere other than the UK? How did we meet? When did we decide to get married? Had I met his parents? Did he have any siblings? What was our wedding like? Mostly very chatty and we were laughing a lot because my husband and I are sarcastic joke makers, and she seemed to like that. We didn't show her any of the evidence I had brought with me. We were probably at her window for about 15 - 20 minutes tops.
A little bit more computer processing and finally she seemed extremely happy to tell me that we were approved! Yay!
I asked if there was anything else we needed to do, and she said no, and we should expect my passport back within 10 days. We then went and paid for the courier (who was also really nice, gave us some info on how to track the passport etc.). We weren't wearing watches, but a glance at the payment receipt for the courier shows we paid for that at 9:21, so we were only there about 2 hours total.
All in all, very simple, very friendly.
| |
|
Consulate / USCIS Member Review #12336