B-2 visa interview: how much do they care about who you are visiting?

[JFH 12,189]

2 hours ago, seewolves said:

(Re: naturalization, that's a long way off yet and we'll be moving back in together *way* before then anyway. I know it's a weird situation...when it comes to love, you do what you do to make it work, right?)

It will be even further off if you continue to live apart. If filing under the 3-year rule you need to demonstrate that you have spent that whole time in “marital union”. Voluntary separations do not count as “marital union” even if you are still very much on amicable terms. Maybe citizenship is not important to you but if it is then this is something to consider. 

[Boiler 43,859]

If you assume they know everything you do not want them to know and nothing you do you can not too far wrong.

 

From a Uk perspective it does sound odd.

[Russ&Caro 1,548]

I don't mean to pile on here, but you might want to reconsider your decision to live apart from your wife at separate addresses. From your timeline, it looks like you just arrived here. This is exactly the time period from which you want to collect evidence that the marriage is bonafide. And when you live apart almost from the instant that you landed here, it's not going to look good when attempting to remove conditions on your green card in 2 years. Now, if as you say, you plan on reuniting and living together in the future, then it's probably fine and you will collect good evidence at that time. However, if you emotionally drift apart and the reunion never happens, then you're going to have a difficult time removing conditions and receiving a 10 year green card, even if you divorce and you use a waiver because there will never be a time that you can point to where the marriage looked like a traditional marriage, even for a few short months.

 

Anyway, best of luck to you, your wife and your friend.

[mushroomspore 3,043]

Yup, also chiming in that this decision to live apart may bite you badly in the future for RoC and N400. USCIS will inevitably pick on this. It won't matter why you're doing it or how short this period of time is. What matters is that they will not perceive it as continuous marital union, which are requirements for RoC and N400 if you file N400 under the 3-year rule.

 

Your wife petitioned you for a spousal visa and you now have a GC. By doing so, USCIS presumes not just that you plan on residing in the US permanently but that you do so with the American spouse who petitioned you. The fact you are not living together right when you moved here is going to be suspicious to them and for good reason. As pointed out earlier in this thread, the US and Europe have very differing attitudes when it comes to romantic relationships and marriages. In the US, it's considered very strange tok not be co-habiting with your spouse continuously, especially after marriage. The US government sees it this way. Just my two cents. Good luck.

Edited September 6, 2018 by mushroomspore

[TM92 527]

5 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

On a different tack, I think this could possibly come up when it’s time for your removal of conditions or naturalization interview and they scrutinize the bona fides of the marriage.

1 hour ago, Russ&Caro said:

I don't mean to pile on here, but you might want to reconsider your decision to live apart from your wife at separate addresses. From your timeline, it looks like you just arrived here. This is exactly the time period from which you want to collect evidence that the marriage is bonafide. And when you live apart almost from the instant that you landed here, it's not going to look good when attempting to remove conditions on your green card in 2 years. Now, if as you say, you plan on reuniting and living together in the future, then it's probably fine and you will collect good evidence at that time. However, if you emotionally drift apart and the reunion never happens, then you're going to have a difficult time removing conditions and receiving a 10 year green card, even if you divorce and you use a waiver because there will never be a time that you can point to where the marriage looked like a traditional marriage, even for a few short months.

1 hour ago, mushroomspore said:

Yup, also chiming in that this decision to live apart may bite you badly in the future for RoC and N400. USCIS will inevitably pick on this. It won't matter why you're doing it or how short this period of time is. What matters is that they will not perceive it as continuous marital union, which are requirements for RoC and N400 if you file N400 under the 3-year rule.

I presume, based on his IR-1 timeline, @seewolves already has a 10 year GC; so no need for RoC. N400 concerns still valid, imo.

[mushroomspore 3,043]

1 hour ago, TM92 said:

I presume, based on his IR-1 timeline, @seewolves already has a 10 year GC; so no need for RoC. N400 concerns still valid, imo.

Yes because once the doubt is there, it is hard to remove. Burden of proof is always on the applicant.

[TNJ17 1,329]

13 hours ago, seewolves said:

That's not a very friendly insinuation.  She really is a friend. But I take the point. 

 

She lives and works in the Netherlands, but is from Bulgaria. 

 

When you say that it's weird, do you mean that you think it is or that you think immigration will? Because to me it isn't strange to have friends that are members of the opposite sex, whether married or not. When we lived in the UK it's not like the only friends we had visiting from the US were women. My wife has plenty of male friends.

It’s not that have friends or not. It’s that a lone female from another country is coming to stay with you, a married person. That’s potentially a red flag for her. Anytime a tourist is coming to stay at someone’s house they’ll always think they’re going to abuse their stay. It’s different if she were coming with a hotel reservation. 

[TNJ17 1,329]

8 hours ago, missileman said:

Agree.  I'd venture to say it WILL be scrutinized....and should be, imo.

Agreed. Married people don’t have separate homes unless it’s a job relocation issue. 

[Kwiecia 6]

This whole situation looks very suspicious, to say the least no matter your intentions.

[Urbanto 4]

Your personal situation aside and sticking to the original question, if one were to put themselves in a consular officer's mind, it can go couple of ways; either a flat out denial even before reaching to the point of looking at who's the inviting US person, solely based on CO's judgement that applicant fails to prove her non immigrant intents, OR curiosity piques the interest and CO starts digging further into the nature of relationship b/w the applicant and the US inviting person. That's where the oddness of this whole situation could come into play. However it's highly, very very highly unlikely that consular officer would start looking into your own situation or refer your case to USCIS for investigation. Consular affairs come under State Dept while you as LPR living in the US are now under USCIS. Both these departments are severely over-stretched with their routine workloads and don't have the luxury, nor proper established protocols to go off on such mundane tangents and dedicate their scarce resources to check out apparent anomalies in an individual's background after the dust has already settled. It's more of big fish items e.g organized frauds, terrorism or individual humanitarian cases where these 2 departments come together.

 

So, the worst case scenario would be that either your friend gets denied because she couldn't prove her genuine non-immigrant intents or she gets denied because still, she couldn't prove her genuine non-immigrant intents  😌  She goes back home empty handed, you go back to your empty apartment LOL 😁  (no pun intended).