AOS Interview yesterday

[KGSodie 0]

Natasha, Vika and I had our AOS interview yesterday at the local USCIS office. To my surprise, they didn't keep us waiting too long (maybe 5 minutes), and then took Natasha and I in (Vika remained in the waiting room) for some old-school Spanish Inquisition. Just kidding - the woman really only had 2 questions for us which she spent about 20 minutes on. For Natasha, she wanted to know if she was aware of my past marriage and of the fact that when I met her I was still legally married (she was). For me, she wanted to know if I was aware of Natasha's previous K-1 visa. She didn't ask these questions like this - for my ex she asked me questions about the marriage, and for Natasha's previous K-1 she asked her who the guy was and what happened. It is my assessment that the real purpose was to gauge our reactions to these questions and see if we were both honest with each other. Or maybe I'm just paranoid, who knows.

We brought our entire mountain of paperwork with us (all the original documents whose copies were submitted with the AOS applications), plus everything we thought would be need for the 'All supporting evidence' blanket requirement, but in the end she only wanted to see two things: proper identification at the start of the interview, and then photos. We had prepared two photo albums, the first from my trip to Russia where I met all of Natasha's family, and the second of photos from going to visit my parents as well as photos of the wedding and family activities since the wedding. She didn't even ask for anything else. I'm going to assume that our mountain of paperwork scared her off, or maybe she had an early afternoon tee time to make.

The most interesting part for me was when she brought Vika into the interview, and at the end of asking her some general questions (how do you like living here, was it difficult starting school without speaking any English, how are things at home, etc) she gave her the scared straight speech:

"Vika, you may make some American friends here who like to break the rules, and steal things from a store or experiment with drugs. If they are caught, not much will happen to them, other than maybe they will pay a fine. But if you do these things and are caught, you will go back to Russia for the rest of your life. No one here will care that your Mother lives in the USA. You will go back to Russia for the rest of your life, so you have to make good, smart decisions, even if your friends don't."

It was an impressive lecture, and something that quite honestly had never crossed my mind. I also assume a lot of this lecture applies to Natasha too!

Anyway, we 'passed' the interview and their passports were stamped with the temporary green card, and she confiscated the I-94 forms from the passports and informed us that the permanent (2-year) green cards would arrive in the mail in about two weeks. She made a point of telling Natasha that if I died and she wanted to remain it the USA that she would need to submit the application for the 10-year green card herself, about 3 months before the 2-year card expires. Maybe I looked a little peaked or something to the interviewer, but in Russia you don't say things like this (talking about someone dieing) so Natasha cringed a little, and the woman wrote down the form number on a post-it note and Natasha affixed this to her passport for safe keeping.

In the car afterward I asked Natasha if she was happy to have her green card and she replied that she wasn't really happy, just relieved that we were 'done'. She says her feelings on this might change when she has the real green card in her hands, kinda like a kid with a new toy on Christmas.

So, that's my (mostly) matter-of-fact report of our interview experience!

[raymaga 25]

Congrats on the successful interview.

I thought the speech the officer gave to your step-daughter was a good one. I forwarded it to my daughter who has just gone away to university. She has her 10-yr GC, and won't be eligible to apply for citizenship for 2 more years.

Best wishes to your family.

[KGSodie 0]

Thanks raymaga, I appreciate that. It was a good speech, I agree.

[Blues Fairy 0]

Congrats KGSodie!

We also passed our AOS interview today. Barely found the damn building; it's the new Triangle office that's not yet on any maps or GPS. The interview itself was easy-breezy; the hardest thing was to try not to make fun of each other like we usually do. The immigration officer, luckily, turned out to have a sense of humor.

So we're good for 2 years. Hurray!

Edited September 30, 2008 by Blues Fairy

[KGSodie 0]

YPA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ngoc-Anh 1]

congratulations!!!

[Turboguy 6]

Congratulations and also to BluesFairy as well. Our interview was a lot tougher but never a grilling. Ours lasted an hour and a half at least. The first question she asked threw me for a loop. She asked me who X X was and it turned out to be my wives first fiancee and first K-1 trip. Had she asked by first name only it might have been better but we never talked about his last name. She just kept asking questions and we kept answering them correctly. When we left the office was full of people. Probably the ones she should have been interviewing if she had not gotten so stuck on us. Anyway, that is behind and I am sure you are both happy to have that step behind you.

[akdiver 3]

For us, AOS was mostly a non-event.

We were actually seen a few minutes early. After being sworn in, we took a seat and he asked for my wife's passport, and my driver's license. He didn't want to see my passport, only my driver's license.

As he was looking through the file, he asked how long I worked for the government, and I answered. He said, "well, your file looks very clean - you have all your ducks in a row". Then he asked how we met, and some particular questions about that. He asked my wife if she drives (answered), what kind of car (answered), whether or not she works and if so, where (answered). He went through all of the questions on the Bio form to confirm correctness. He changed three things, stamped it, had her sign that the corrections were true. He asked what flight she took to get here (answered), he seemed surprised that it was direct to Anchorage, and I pulled out a copy of the plane ticket (he didn't ask for it), he looked it over, and gave it back to me. I think he was mostly just curious because it's not usual to have a direct flight to Anchorage from Europe.

He entered a lot of things into his computer during the interview while we were talking and answering questions.

I came in with a big box of evidence, papers, and other such things. He didn't ask to see ANY of it. NOTHING!! He gave us back some extra copies of things from the file (the wedding photo we submitted, extra copies of documents from the EAD and AP applications, etc.). He did NOT ask to see the actual marriage certificate (I was surprised because I sent in a photocopy of the un-recorded hand-written license/certificate).

He collected her EAD from us (which we only had for a month - they really need to improve how that process works). He stamped some of the papers in the file, stamped her passport, and explained that she was approved, and now a permanent resident, what the stamp in her passport meant, about conditions, the need to apply to remove them in 2 years, and so forth.

I jokingly complained that he didn't want to see any of our evidence, and he said that basically, we had the best file he had ever seen, and we would be surprised at how many people have lame files (how do they ever get an interview, why don't they get RFEed??) and come in completely unprepared, and how if he needed to, he would be asking for things left and right. He explained for several minutes that he appreciated the effort involved in preparing the paperwork we sent in, and making it nice, tidy, complete, and so forth. He asked how I filled out the PDF forms because they were not-handwritten, but not fillable, and I explained I used Photoshop to make them into images, and then edit the text on there. I think he was really just mostly curious.

That's more or less it - the whole thing was 15 to 20 minutes, with most of that being spent with him looking through the file, making sure things were in there and entering things into the computer. The only question of real consequence that he asked was "how did you meet?". He was very professional, and "about his business", serious, but not what I would call "friendly".

I noticed that two days later, our status on USCIS had changed to "On X, after approving your application, we ordered you a new card. Your card will be mailed to you as soon as it is ready." I got an e-mail from USCIS indicating, "This case has been approved. On X, an approval notice was mailed." That morning, we had a "Welcome to the US" notice from USCIS.

Cheers!

AKDiver

Edited September 30, 2008 by akdiver

[KGSodie 0]

Interesting, AK. I asked about their EAD cards, and the woman said that the stamp in the passport obviated them but she didn't ask for them or anything.

I didn't convert the PDFs to images since I have the professional version of Acrobat, and can use the typewriter mode to 'fill in' the fields. I do agree it's silly that the time gap between receipt of EAD and the interview is so short that getting the EAD is almost worthless, even though you have to pay for it whether you get it or not.

Thanks for the reports, guys, I enjoy reading them.

[akdiver 3]

I didn't convert the PDFs to images since I have the professional version of Acrobat, and can use the typewriter mode to 'fill in' the fields.

Well, so did I...but either I didn't know about that feature at the time (likely) or it didn't work for some reason.

I do agree it's silly that the time gap between receipt of EAD and the interview is so short that getting the EAD is almost worthless, even though you have to pay for it whether you get it or not.

Yeah, all POEs should be like JFK and just stamp your passport with it. It's lame that they do not. There is no sense in that one POE doing it and not having the rest do it.

[1HappyGuy 45]

Most of the AOS interviews I've heard of, including our own have been pretty easy. Anything over 20 minutes is unusual it seems. They asked us about previous K-1's and then concentrated on current stuff like bank accounts, tax returns, etc. Since we were married in January and the interview was in May, we didn't have tax returns. And, as I explained, without a green card the social security administration would not issue a social security number. Without that number, you don't exist in this country.

Finally some recent photos of us visiting my daughter's family across the country seemed to satisfy the officer. It was over before we new it. The interview for my stepson was even quicker, with no speech about the wrong crowd and being sent back to Ukraine forever. I guess it depends upon the officer, but probably also the age of the child. My stepson was almost 21.

[akdiver 3]

without a green card the social security administration would not issue a social security number.

That is entirely untrue. My wife had her social security card in hand two weeks after arrival, and a month before we even got married.

[Chuckles 0]

without a green card the social security administration would not issue a social security number.

That is entirely untrue. My wife had her social security card in hand two weeks after arrival, and a month before we even got married.

Similar experience here. Got the SSN without the greencard. however, it said something like, not eligible for work on it, or something, my memory for these details is horrible.

[slim 1,519]

My fiancee (at the time) came with a print out from the interview that had her social already on it. She was issued one there. Didn't have a card, only a number. We went to the office a few days after her arrival and got the card.