BIZ

VJ Family,
I am happy to inform you that our interview was approved, visa received, and my wife is here with me now J. See my signature below for details. This wouldn’t have been possible without all your help, and I sincerely appreciate everything.
Dwheels: Many THANKS for all your help.
Interview details:
I went to the interview with my wife, but CO instructed me to take my seat as he interviewed only my wife. The interview lasted for about an hour, with over 70 questions.
The first 20 minutes was about our relationship, in which the CO was very impressed about our documentation and commended us for the level of details presented for each category of documents (we sent over 400 pages of docs proving our relationship with detail descriptions and a table of content).
The remaining 40 minutes was related to and invitation I gave my wife about a year ago. Although we did not state it anywhere on the application that I was inviting her as my cousin, she might have mentioned that at the first interview, and it came back again last week at our IR-1/CR-1 interview. Good thing was that we prepared for this ahead of time and my wife delivered. After 40 minutes of debate between my wife and the CO, our visa was approved.
My wife is still trying to remember all the questions she was asked at the interview, and I will post them under my embassy review forum by next week.
Best lessons learned & Suggestions:
NEVER invite your spouse as your cousin or as a family member as it could come back and hunt you. The beneficiary should be familiar with all the documents presented, including the ones sent to USCIS and NVC and be able to explain them in detail. If you are taking a lot of documents to the interview as we did, arrange them nicely in page dividers, and a table of content page for easy reviews. Utilize the embassy reviews from your country and get familiar with what others say, and compile a list of frequently asked questions. (We did this and compiled a list of 60 frequently asked questions for our embassy for the last two years, and about 45 of them were asked). Good thing was that we had prepared answers for all of them so it went well. Prepare your spouse for the day by conducting mock interviews. We had about 8 different mock interviews, and it really helped!! Stand your ground with the CO and don’t just settle for yes Sir or Madam all the time. My wife challenged the CO on a lot of things and it worked out well for us. I saw another beneficiary at the interview in which the CO told him to go back and bring more evidence. He stood up and challenged him as to what exactly he wants again since he presented the same docs already but CO didn’t want to look at them. He argued with them for about two hours and by the time he was done, his visa was approved. You have to be nice though. Know your facts, and be consistent with your answers. At the end, we give GOD the glory and honor for his guidance and mercy throughout this difficult journey.

Great news!! I am very happy for you. If I remember correctly, your checklist was related to police clearance that was received by NVC on June 27th?
Do you know when NVC actually reviewed your checklist?

First of all, I am not trying to complain, but only sharing my views in a logical manner. This makes me very confused about what NVC is doing. It looks like it’s taking them longer to review IV packages now than AOS, although if I understand correctly, the new vs. old AOS drama created backlogs for AOS reviews. I am not sure if they stopped reviewing IV packages during the new vs. old AOS drama break.

If your husband is paid $10 per hour, his weekly income will be $10X40 = $400. Then his annual income will be $400X52 = $20,800.
Also, u may want to consider the I-864EZ if you meet all the following (Much simpler form):
1. Your husband is the petitiner; AND
2. He is using only his income, and he is not self employed. In other words, his income is shown on W-2(S); AND
3. You are the only person being sponsored on the AOS.
See for details: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=15d05d4c6608e010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=db029c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD

@ M and A:
I mailed both packages to:
National Visa Center
Attn. CMR
31 Rochester Avenue Suite 100
Portsmouth NH, 03801-2914
This address can be found on the document cover sheet at the payment portal. Please don’t forget to include that cover sheet with your documents. That was the only thing i printed from the payment portal.
Please note: If you are mailing only the AOS package, mail it to the same address, with Attn. CMR AOS

Lets hope for the best and am pretty sure we will have more approvals very soon