Zaphod

July 21, 2006

First of all... I MADE IT TO THE US!! :D

I'm now here with my wife, got here a couple days ago, and all is wonderful. POE at Newark took all of about 3 minutes - I was done before my suitcase had even got to the carousel!

So, anyways, on to the point. I bank with the Halifax in the UK, and forgot to check what their fees for using cards abroad are. I had a look on their website just now, but couldn't find anything, so I phoned them up, and no wonder they don't want to advertise the rates!

If you use your Halifax Visa Debit card there's a £1.50 fee, plus 2.75% of the purchase cost :blink:

The credit card is the same, but without the £1.50 fee

Also, the 2.75% is *not* capped, so no matter how much you spend, they always take that percentage of it.

Just thought this might be useful for someone else to know, as I had to kind of dig this info out of them.

I think I'm gonna look into this clearinghouse site that everyone on here seems so fond of....

July 13, 2006

Sounds like you're pretty well sorted - always better to have too much than too little though.

Don't forget your appointment letter

July 4, 2006

Hi Zaphod
I have another question - re photos

There seems to be some confusion on size - on one form it says they have to be 2" on another it says 'passport size' so which is it?

I did notice another discrepancy on the DS-230 it says 'for not applicable write N/A' but in the instructions it tells you not to write N/A but to write it in full

You must have the answers as you have already been there - done that - got the t-shirt

These are the specifications I used for my photos, taken from the IV 18 information sheet, which is just titled "Visa Interview"

* 2 inches (50 mm) square with the head centred in the frame

* the head (measured from the top of the hair to the bottom of the chin)

should measure between 1 & 1 3/8 inches (25 to 35 mm) from the bottom of the photograph

* In colour against a white or off white background. Photographs taken in

front of busy, pattered or dark backgrounds are not acceptable

* Unmounted, full face, with the face covering about 50% of the area of the photograph. In general the head, including both face and hair, should be shown from the crown of the head to the tip of the chin on top and bottom, and from hairline side-to-side.

I used the same photos for both my medical and my interview. At the medical they actually trimmed them down slightly with a pair of scissors anyway, though they didn't do that at the interview.

As for the DS-230 part 2, I just put "N/A" in each of the sections that was not applicable, as that's what it said to do on the form itself, and nothing was said about it at the interview, so I assume it was fine.

Hope this answered your questions.. let me know if you need any other info

July 3, 2006

Hi Zaphod - Great Reading
Thanks for this information - it sounds very similar to when we went for our non-immigrant visa - that wasn't too painful either. Great tips also - I'm sure this will help everyone immensely.

We will be travelling down the night before the interview also - so will check out the Travelodge. Did you get your photos done at home or London?

I wish you all the best for the future

Oh jeez, the photos where a whole other mini crisis in themselves, and actually brings up another good point: Have somebody else go over your list of things you need - preferably completely independently to you.

I found a guy locally who could do the photos and went along to get them done. The guy said they'd take a few days to be developed and sent to me. No hurry I thought, I've got about two and a half weeks to my interview, and I don't need them until then.. this was just a couple of days before my medical.

I have no idea how this happened, because I'd read the list of stuff to take to the medical over and over and over (honestly.. probably hundreds of times, and carefully too!), but somehow I'd managed to mentally blank the photos out of that list. I thought I didn't need them until the main interview. I still don't understand what happened, but somehow each time I read that list, I just mentally skipped over the photos.. Never had anything like it happen before

So.. 11 PM on the night before my medical, 6 hours before my flight to London, I do one final check of the list for peace of mind before getting some sleep, and suddenly, I see the photos there and realise I need them *NOW*. Talk about panic!

Luckily for me, the photographer I used works from home, so I immediately phoned and explained the situation.. I felt like a complete ### for bothering him so late at night.

He said there was no way to get the photos before my flight went, as he didn't actually have them, and they wouldn't arrive back from processing until at least the next post.. but said he'd be able to print me off a high quality set on his inkjet, cut to the required dimensions, and if I'd give him about half an hour, I'd be able to drive over and pick them up.

It was about a half hour drive anyway, so I hopped in the car and shot off. Sure enough when I got there he had them ready and waiting, beautiful high quality prints on good photo paper - basically indistinguishable from 'proper' photos. He wouldn't even take any money for them, saying that I'd already paid for the main prints, and he was just sorry those weren't ready yet

How's *that* for customer service? Most companies would just have their automated phone system tell you to bog off if you called them at 11 PM these days, let alone go to all that effort, and not even charge you for it!

For what it's worth, if anyone is in the Inverness area needing photos, the photographer in question is Ian Rhind at Culbokie - his website is www.rhindphotography.co.uk, and he definitely gets my recommendation! I don't mean to plug, or sound like spam, but really, after the guy did that for me I'm more than happy to recommend him by word of mouth

The inkjet prints were accepted fine at the medical, and typically, the proper prints arrived in the first post the next day

After that, I had my mum check the list of everything I needed for the main interview completely seperately to me. Didn't find anything I'd missed that time, but it's definitely worth having a second pair of eyes going over it just in case.

July 3, 2006

Hi all

First things first - I realise this post is a bit of an epic. If you just want a quick list of tips, skip straight to the end

I know I haven't been a big part of this community or anything - I didn't stumble across VisaJourney until fairly late into the process, but I've spent quite a bit of time since then lurking and reading all the great info here.. and I cannot thank the people who responded to my panicked questions enough

So, now that something vaguely resembling sanity has been restored to my life (for now), I thought I'd take a moment to document my medical & interview experience, as this seems to be one of the biggest causes of worry in this whole process - I know it was for me.

I live in north-east Scotland (roughly round the Inverness area), so there was a bit of travel involved. My medical was scheduled for mid afternoon, so I was able to fly down early morning, get the medical, and back in the same day which was great.

My flight was into Gatwick, and I don't know London at all, but before I went I spent a bit of time looking around on Google Maps and Google Earth - also, Wikipedia is an invaluable resource for finding out random things - it was there I learned about the Gatwick Express train, which goes between Victoria station and Gatwick airport every 15 mins.. that was handy (bit steep at £14 each way though)

I considered taking the tube, but figured in all likeyhood I'd get myself horribly lost if I tried (Stop laughing, Londoners ), so I just got a taxi from the station to Bulstrode place, where my medical was.. again, a bit pricey, but it was good to have the peace of mind of knowing I wasn't going to get myself lost and miss my appointment

The medical was really easy and painless, and has been covered in great detail by other people, so I don't think I have much to add there - though if anyone wants to hear any specifics, let me know and I'll try and fill you in. The one thing worth mentioning is that I'd had all (yes.. ALL) of the vaccinations on the list that I was given. It cost a fortune, and I went around feeling like some kind of radioactive mutant for about 2 months..

Turns out there are two lists for vaccinations - the one I'd been given was literally just a flat list saying "You need to get these", so I did.. but there's another one the doc had at the medical that I hadn't seen before, which had a kind of sliding chart showing which vaccinations are needed for which ages. By the looks of it, most people are only required to get a couple - it turned out that I only needed *two* vaccinations, and one of those was the MMR, which wasn't on that list! d'oh!

Fortunately, the doc was able to give me it right there and then - cost me another £30 though, but the main thing was it didn't cause me to fail the medical or anything like that.

Now, the interview itself....

My visa is a CR-1 (Spousal immigrant visa)

I spent a great deal of time beforehand scouring this site and others to determine every possible bit of paperwork I might need. I got a great folder from Tesco, I'm not sure what the proper name for it is, but it's plastic (rainproof!), and divided into sections inside, with little tabs that you can label.. I had my papers organised into the following sections:

Required Documents:

Appointment letter

DS-230 Part 2 (aka 'application for immigrant visa and alien registration' form)

Passport

Birth certificate (long form)

Marriage certificate

Police 'certificate' (basically, a letter saying nothing was found in the convictions category of the police computer)

Photocopies of Required Documents:

Photocopies of each document listed above

Evidence of Relationship:

Lots of photos of my wife and I together, including wedding photos

Itemised phonebills from years back showing I'd called her

Cards and letters she'd sent me

Letters she'd sent me

List of all the dates she'd come here and I'd gone to the US

Evidence of Financial Support:

Copies of the affadavits of support from my wife, her mother, and her step father

My bank statement

A copy of my latest investment portfolio

A couple of letters from my accountant

My most recent tax certificate from my bank

Having them readily categorised and easily accessable like that was a great help, and I'd definitely recommend it.. much better than trying to shuffle through one big stack of papers when asked for a particular document.

My interview, was for 10:30 AM, so I decided to fly down the night before and stay overnight. Booked online at the King's Cross Travelodge - when I went to get a taxi there, it turns out there are 5 of them, all called the King's Cross Travelodge, but fortunately I had the full address to hand - also, if you're staying there, request a quiet room when booking. I was right over the train line, but managed to get a reasonable night's sleep anyway.

In the morning, got up, showered, shaved, ate some breakfast, checked out, got a taxi, and was at the embassy a little after 9

The appointment letter said not to arrive more than half an hour early, but I wanted to allow plenty of time. I could already see two lines of people queuing outside the embassy, as had been described here, but it was far too early to join them, and the weather was lovely, so I went and sat on a bench in Grosvenor square.

Of course, nervous and waiting, the minutes felt like hours, but 10 o'clock eventually swung around, and I went to join the queue. I wasn't sure which one, so I approached one of the armed police and said that I had an immigrant visa interview at 10:30.. he pointed to one of the lines and said to join it, so I did.

The whole place is surrounded by fences, and there's a sign that says "Visas", with little directing signposts everywhere, and people to show you where to go, so you really can't take a wrong turn or get lost.

Pretty much every new person who came along seemed to be unsure as to which queue to join, but it seemed like one was for appointments of 10:00 and earlier, and the other for later appointments.

After a while a guy came round the corner, and started walking up and down the lines, asking if anyone had any questions, concerns about their ID photos, or fees, etc. A few people seemed to be worried about their photos, and had him check them, but in each case I saw he said they were fine.

By the time I reached the front of the queue, it had just gone 10:30. The guy there asked me to wait a while until the queue at security (the next stop after this queue) had shrunk a little.

After about another 5 minutes, he asked for my passport, and what time my appointment was.. I told him, and he looked through his folder.. he spent quite a while flicking through the pages, and it seemed like he couldn't find my name in there.. he had just started to ask for my interview letter, when suddenly he found it, and told me to proceed to security.

Security consisted of a walk through hut with an X-ray machine and a metal detector.. basically, much like security at an airport. They told me to put my jacket and bag through the X-ray machine, and I walked through the metal detector.

They saw on the X-ray that I had a PDA in my bag, and told me I'd have to leave that at reception when I went in.

I followed the signs round, and came to reception. The guy there asked me to turn my mobile off, and gave me a numbered tag in exchange for my PDA, then told me to go up a small flight of stairs, through the doors, and take a number.

I went up the stairs, but the doors wouldn't open.. somebody saw me struggling with them and tapped a code into the electronic lock to open them, and I went through into the waiting room.

On entering the waiting room, to me left was a desk where they were giving out tickets. I'd heard on this forum about people getting tickets marked with the wrong type of visa ('immigrant' or 'nonimmigrant'), so checked mine when I got them, and sure enough they said 'nonimmigrant'.. I mentioned this to the girl at the desk.. rather strangely, she seemed to think that a CR-1 was a nonimmigrant visa, but I showed her my letter which said "CR-1 immigrant visa", and she apologised and replaced the tickets with ones marked immigrant.

After that, it was just waiting. There are basically lots of rows of seats, and a few monitors on the ceiling which show the numbers being called, and queue stats and things. After about 25 minutes I was called to window #14, which was round a corner down a short corridor.

The man at the window asked for my numbered ticket which I gave him, along with my application letter (Come to think of it though, I don't think he actually asked for that)

I was a little surprised to find that unlike most post offices and similar setups, these windows didn't have microphones/speakers for talking through, just the gap under the glass. Between the fact that the guy on the other side spoke kind of quietly and all the background noise, I had to ask him to repeat himself a few times - I suspect this could cause difficulties for anybody hard of hearing.

He asked for each of my documents and the accompanying photocopies in the order given in the list of required documents (passport, DS-230 part 2, birth cert, marriage cert, police cert)

Occasionally after giving him one of the documents, he'd wander off to get something and talk to people. Really, it looked like it was more to natter with his colleagues than to actually process anything, but I didn't mind that.. made the whole thing feel quite a bit more relaxed, and reminded me that these people are human, after all

When he came back, he gave me back my documents (except the passport), along with the x-ray from the medical, and a courier sheet. He told me to go take a seat again, fill in the courier sheet, and wait for my number to be called again.

I didn't have a pen with me, so I used the one on the counter to fill in the courier form - which is just the address you want your visa posted to, and then went and sat down again.

I'd been sitting down for a few minutes when I noticed the guy next to me was fiddling with his X-ray envelope.. which kind of made me think.. hang on.. where's mine?

With a sudden moment of panic, I realised I'd left it on the counter when I'd filled in the courier sheet.. I dashed back, and fortunately found it still there.

Back to my seat again, and this time I waited about 45 minutes. Strangely, this time I didn't see my number appear in the call queue at all, I was just called out of nowhere, this time to window 13 (glad I'm not superstitious

It was a different man at this window.. he greeted me with a friendly smile, and asked how I was.. I said I was a little nervous, and he said "No need to be nervous With the immigrant visas, the answer is never no. Worst you ever get is 'I can't issue you one today' because there's some paperwork out of order or something that'll take a few days to fix"

Well, that was quite reassuring, but still, I certainly didn't want any delays either.

He asked me when my wife and I had first met, whether we'd met face to face (which I thought was a little odd considering we're married..)

he asked when she'd come over the last time and how long she'd stayed, and a couple of things about her recent employment.

He then said.. "She's got two children, right?", which really surprised me - no, no children...

"So, she supports her mother and step father?" Errr... no.. in fact, they're sponsoring me.. I was starting to get a little worried at this point

Then the bombshell dropped.

"I'm sorry to say, I'm not going to be able to issue you with a visa today, these affadavits of sponsorship aren't completed correctly, and I can't accept them as evidence of financial ability"

I was stunned, to say the least.. the really strange thing is, my wife's affadavit was apparently fine, but the other two weren't, but as far as I know they were all completed in the same way

I said something to the effect of "Is it just the financial aspect of this that's a problem? because I have my own assets.. I have savings in the bank, and an invesment portfolio"

He asked if I had evidence of this, and I showed him my bank statements and portfolio.. he took photocopies of them, and said that's fine, and he'd be happy to issue me a visa on the basis of me being able to support myself (*PHEW!*). He crossed out a couple of things on some form, and wrote something else in.. and that was that.

I thanked him, went over to the courier desk, handed over my form, paid the £9.50 courier fee, and stumbled back outside in a daze, somehow remembering to pick up my PDA from reception on the way out. Total time taken, around 2 hours.

So there you have it.. I know this has been a bit of an epic - is anyone still awake at this point? but after all the help I've had here, I figured the least I could do would be to write up my experience in the hope it might be useful to somebody else.

So, finally, before I wrap this up, here's a list of things I'd say are worth knowing:

1. Take the appointment letter. I nearly forgot this, as it isn't actually listed on the documents to take.

2. Don't panic. My heart-stopping moment aside, it's really no more stressful than sending a parcel at the post office

3. Organise your documents well. It really does make it easier to dig things out quickly

4. Take everything you can think of. You probably won't need it, but better to carry mountains of extra ####### around, than to be missing the one paper you absolutely need

5. Remember to take photocopies of everything.

6. Bags are no problem. The letter says you won't be allowed to take bags into the embassy, and I was a bit concerned about that, but my medium sized shoulder bag with my overnight stuff was no problem, and I saw people queueing and getting in with much bigger ones.

7. Check the ticket you're given when you take a number, make sure it's correctly marked 'immigrant' or 'non immigrant'

8. Pay attention to the numbers being called - my second one seemed to come out of nowhere

9. Take a pen. I only had to fill in a courier form, but I saw other people doing much longer forms.

10. Don't leave your x-ray sitting on the counter.. only an idiot would do that..

Thanks again to everyone who helped me get here, and good luck to anyone who's got their interview coming up.. hope you've got something helpful out of this!

As for me.. I've got my Mystery Brown Envelope (arrived 2 days later with my passport), and booked my flight.. next stop, Seattle, via POE Newark on the 18th, and into the arms of my beautiful wife!!

June 27, 2006

Great, sounds like I should have no problem then.. I'll only have one bag, and it's not very big.

Thanks, folks

I'm finding myself worrying about the silliest little things.. but this time tomorrow it'll be all over. I'll let you all know how it went when I get home - least I can do for all the help I've had here

June 26, 2006

I've just noticed that it says on the sheet about the interview that you shouldn't take any bags to the embassy.. I'll have one bag with me with my overnight stuff, change of clothes, and documents in it.. is that likely to be a problem?, has anyone been not allowed to take something like that in, and if so, is there anywhere I can leave it when I go in - with security or somewhere nearby or something?

My interview is on Wednesday btw, 10:30 AM btw

Cheers

If you're staying overnight at a hotel, they will often hold it for you in the lobby...for a small tip of course

Hmm, I'm staying at a Travelodge, and their website says they have a policy of not holding luggage after you check out (which I'll have to do before I go for the interview)

*grumblegrumble*

Well, I can just try to take as small a bag, and travel as lightly as possible

June 26, 2006

I've just noticed that it says on the sheet about the interview that you shouldn't take any bags to the embassy.. I'll have one bag with me with my overnight stuff, change of clothes, and documents in it.. is that likely to be a problem?, has anyone been not allowed to take something like that in, and if so, is there anywhere I can leave it when I go in - with security or somewhere nearby or something?

My interview is on Wednesday btw, 10:30 AM btw

Cheers

May 17, 2006

Yeah, had it confirmed in the UK forum - sorry about the double post btw mods, I didn't notice the UK specific bit until after I posted here

Thanks for the reply, anyways

May 17, 2006

Magic, thanks guys

lol.. I'm panicking about every little detail at this stage. It's just been such a long process, and I've been apart from my Amee so loooongggg, I can't bear the thought of anything going wrong now

I'll try and relax a bit

May 17, 2006

I had thought that the medical and interview basically took place at the same time - that is, you had the medical then went for the interview, but I find now that they're completely seperate, and it takes a couple of days for the medical results to go out for the interview

Does this mean I have to travel down to London for the medical, then travel back down again a few days later for the interview? I'm based in the north of Scotland, so it's a bit of a journey.. but if that's the way it's done, I guess, then that's the way it's done..

Sorry for all the dumb questions today btw, it's just that I just got my interview date today, and it's raised all these issues that I wasn't aware of. I'm just glad this forum exists, as it's the one place I've had any straight answers about anything this whole time!

May 17, 2006

Whoops, I just posted this in the "foreign embassy/consulate" forum before I realised there was a UK specific one.. sorry about that

Hi folks

Well, the good news is, I have an interview date!! June 28th!

The bad news is, I'm having a nightmare getting a police certificate.

I recieved a letter from immigrations stating that "United Kindom police certificates (referred to as a "statement from the National Identity Service regarding Prosecution/Conviction history") are now avaliable. The "statement" will serve to advise the American Embassy, London, whether or not any criminal conviction is held against you."

It states that you should apply at your local police station for this.

I went to my local police station, showed them this, was given a form, filled it in and sent it off with the £10 fee, but what I got back was a letter from the Data Protection Department of the police saying

"You recently sent or took an application form to a Police Station asking if there was any information held about you on Police computers in this Police Force. There is no information in the Convictions category of the Scottish Criminal Record Office Computer System which the Chief Officer is required to give you under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1988."

Is this what I need? or have I got the wrong thing all together?

I checked again at the police station, and this time was directed to phone Disclosure Scotland, but when I phoned them, they told me it was nothing to do with them...

Aargh, I'm being given the run around, and I only have 42 days to my interview.

Does anyone know if this is what I need, or if not, how do I get it?

Thanks in advance!

May 17, 2006