RJandHamid

You might not want to post personal contact information, as anyone can view and access it. 

We can help you here on the forums, but you need to tell us more information. Are you thinking of going the K1 (fiance) route or the CR1 (spousal) route? Or are you looking at another visa entirely? It sounds to me like you are the Moroccan beneficiary (correct me if I'm wrong). It might be useful for your USC partner to make an account on here, especially since they will most likely be the one handling much of the initial paperwork. 

I think you have a good plan. It's good to take the first visit to get to know each other, and then marry on a 2nd or future visit. This will allow you to include more evidence of your relationship in your CR1 visa petition. 

I visited my boyfriend (now husband) 4 times in Morocco before he came here and we got married. His family has pretty open views, so I stayed in the family home with him each time I visited. If you can't stay in the family home, it can be difficult to find apartments that will rent to unmarried couples. You cannot spend the night with him in a hotel or airbnb without breaking the law, since it is illegal for unmarried couples to share a bedroom in a hotel together if they are not married. Like you mentioned, some private apartment or airbnb owners (even some hotels) will be willing to let an unmarried couple stay together, and people do this often and rarely face any serious consequences. Though, like I mentioned before, this technically is illegal. 

Always glad to see some good news around here regarding the Casablanca consulate. Let's hope the status changes to "Issued" soon. 

I don't think anyone on this forum can answer those questions. Although the DS-5535 has been in use for over a year now, it's still an overall new step in the processing timeline, so I think it's still too early to say what kind of impact it has had on visa approvals or refusals. I think this is one of those things that USCIS won't publicly comment on unless they come up with a concrete way of processing it (either make it mandatory for everyone or clarify how and why certain applicants are chosen to submit the form). Right now it's still seemingly random if you will be selected to submit the DS-5535 or not. Sure, you have a greater chance of being asked for it if you are from Morocco, Pakistan, Egypt, ect, but other than that, we still have no actual evidence to prove that there are certain 'triggers' that lead to someone being selected. It has to be more than just based on a location. 

Was he asked to submit any additional documents after the interview? 

November 2018 statistics are out. 17 K1 visas issued in Casablanca (and 31 CR1).

Have you contacted the consulate yet (via email) to inquire about the interview date?

No November statistics yet. And the 400 dirhams is just the consultation alone. My husband (fiance) ended up paying around 2000 dirhams including the consultation, blood work, vaccines, ect. He saw Dr. Maach in Rabat, but the physicians in Casablanca are a bit cheaper. 

Some administrative processing is normal for all cases. They need time to issue and print the visa. 

What did the CO say at the interview? Were you given the Aramex instructions to pick up the visa? Did they ask you to submit a form called DS-5535?

5 minutes ago, adil-rafa said:

it will be more like a year for the interview / u r looking closer to August for an interview 

it has slowed down a lot

even K1 cases sent to embassy try weeks to get an open date for interview

check the most recent K1 profiles here

for instance in 2009 we applied in July/  interview in November

not like that anymore

 

some of the August cc are still waiting for interview appointments

 

They are a K1 case though, they don't have to wait at the NVC for as long as the CR1 cases. If they get NOA2 in January or even February, I doubt it will take until August to interview. Generally it takes about 1 month at the NVC, then anywhere from 1-2 months to get the interview scheduled and visa issued if approved. 

No, they are open during Ramadan. They only close a day or two for Eid El Fitr.

He can apply for the SSN as soon as he arrives in the US. Documents needed to apply for SSN:

1. Passport with visa

2. Printed I-94 

3. Social Security Application Page 

4. Copy of birth certificate (translated from Arabic to English)

I'd estimate your interview will be around April/May with NOA2 at the end of January. Maybe late March if you get really lucky. 

1 hour ago, Hobidyali said:

It seems like he's adjusting rather well, that's awesome, has he been able to attend college courses? I am assuming this can happen once AOS is done?

 

He hasn't yet but it's something we are starting to look into. He's still not sure what he wants to study. 

12 minutes ago, Hobidyali said:

thanks, we are actually considering this option, except I believe our mosque allows us to bring the form, it's signed there and the Imam sends it off rather than the clerk at the court. I didn't realize we had to be married before, I have to call them and make sure I didn't understand them incorrectly.

 

As for adjustment, how has he adjusted? We are thinking about moving states or cities, do you have any recommendation of a place where it would be easier on him? Culturally speaking I mean, to make a transition less strenuous, any advice would be appreciated.

The adjustment has taken time, as expected. If you live in/near Orlando like your profile says, I know there is a large community of Moroccans in that area, so it might be good for you to stay there for awhile. 

We live in the Chicago area. Not a lot of Moroccans, but still a large number of Muslims from other countries. And the few Moroccans we have met, my husband really hasn't been able to form much of a friendship with them. The only exception is the other Moroccans we have met who also came to the US on a K1 or CR1 visa recently! 

The hardest adjustment for him was first not being able to work for several months and being bored and feeling unproductive. That's certainly one of the biggest negatives of the K1 visa in my opinion. He's now been working at Burger King for about 1 year. Started as a crew member and quickly was promoted to assistant manager. He's started job hunting again as he doesn't want to work in fast food forever. We are going on vacation to Germany and Morocco soon and we'll be gone for 3 weeks. When we come back he'll be going on a full scale new job search!

And of course, he misses his family and friends in Morocco. He tries to call his mom every day. We both like to eat Moroccan foods, and lucky for me he can cook most Moroccan dishes. We eat a lot of tagine and lentils! 

3 minutes ago, Hobidyali said:

Thank you, can you share your experience with marriage at the mosque?

Sure. We went to several different mosques in our area to ask about the process and cost of having a simple Islamic marriage ceremony. The first one we went to wanted to charge us $500! We ended up walking straight out of that one. Fortunately we found another mosque even closer to where we live that offered to do the ceremony for free (we did make a donation of our choice though). 

We set up a date and time with the imam. The 'ceremony' (it's more like short lecture) is very simple and took less than 30 minutes. Basically the imam talked about the importance of marriage in Islam and the rights of the husband and wife. We discussed the mahr (dowry) amount which I kind of just said a random number because we just needed to put something on the marriage contract. My husband and I signed it with 3 male witnesses present, as well as my mom and my brother present who are both not Muslim, but the imam encouraged them to come be a part of the ceremony anyway. 

And that's pretty much it. Now we have a Islamic marriage certificate, which is also written in Arabic. It will be useful for us when we travel back to Morocco and want to use it as proof of marriage to stay in a hotel or something. 

As a side note, I'm not Muslim, only my husband is. Non of the imams we talked to had any issues marrying a Muslim man and a non-Muslim woman, since this type of marriage is allowed in Islam. Most mosques do require you to be legally married before they will preform an Islamic marriage ceremony. We had to show our marriage certificate and the mosque actually kept a copy of it. 

The DS-5535 is taking a lot longer than a week to be processed at this time. There is a thread going where others who have been asked to submit the DS-5535 are keeping track of how long it is taking to issue a visa. It seems to take an average of about 1 year now. I hope your outcome is different and it does only take a week or so as the CO said, but I would also be prepared for a longer wait. 

We had a courthouse wedding less than 2 weeks after he arrived (mostly for AOS purposes)

Had an Islamic marriage at a mosque a few months after the courthouse wedding. 

Had a big party/ceremony with white dress and my family flew in from Germany a few weeks after the Islamic marriage. I did book this venue in advance before he had the visa in hand, but I was able to negotiate to move the date or be issued a refund had the visa not been issued. 

You cannot file a K1 visa if you are married.

Consummate the marriage in February and then file the I-130. It's understandable to not have many joint accounts early on in the marriage, (especially since you don't live together) but you might be able to add her to your insurance policy, as a financial beneficiary, ect. 

@Lottaair I have given you an answer to your original question a few times, but here it is again: Yes, he needs to know at least basic English in order to have a successful interview. The reason I say this is because the consular officer will want to know that you are able to communicate, and not just by using Google Translate. He has plenty of time to start studying and practicing his English before he has an interview.

People here are just trying to help by giving advice and talking about their actual experiences with the Casablanca consulate. They'll try to tell you to be careful and warn you about scammers, because unfortunately it is something we do see occasionally through the Casablanca consulate as well as other countries. We don't know you or your fiance personally, so no one can say with certainty if you are being scammed or not, but regardless of what the outcome is, you are free to take or leave the advice you have received here. 

I think this thread has run its course...

OP, here is my answer to your original question: Yes, he needs to know at least basic English in order to have a successful interview. The reason I say this is because the consular officer will want to know that you are able to communicate, and not just by using Google Translate. He has plenty of time to start studying and practicing his English before he has an interview.

The thread seemed to derail when I and several others tried to caution you about the difficulty of the K1 (and CR1) visa path through the Casablanca consulate. You can take from that what you want.

There is no immigration fee paid for the K1 visa. The only fee that you needed to pay was $265 for the interview. 

We have listed things that lead to denial in Morocco:

- Not a lot of time spent in person together. This means getting married or engaged after just 1 visit. It generally doesn't end well, especially if you are a, 

- Older woman marrying a younger Moroccan man

- lack of a common language. You can't always use Google translate to communicate. Moroccan Arabic is especially difficult to translate into English and context is often lost. 

How to increase your chance of approval?

- Spend time in person together. This means multiple trips, the more the better. Don't file until you have gone at least 2 times. This will help you to load your petition with relationship evidence from all of your visits. This is what the CO will focus on. The often don't care about trips made after you file and often won't look at any additional evidence brought to the interview (I'm speaking specifically about the Casablanca consulate here).

We all want to take the quickest and easiest route to bring our loved ones to us, but immigration (and especially the Casablanca consulate) is never quick or easy. It does require you to sacrifice time and money, no way around that.

2 minutes ago, Lottaair said:

They have never met another woman. 

Based on his religion and his experience in kissing me.. uh no.. he has NEVER been with another woman. He has ZERO experience in how to treat a woman. It's like a kid learning. So I don't understand why you would think he has had other relationships because of his age. 

I'm confused. I didn't see any comments bringing up his previous relationships? Though now that you mention it, that is something to look out for. Sometimes scammers will marry an American for the green card, divorce them once green card is in hand and then go marry a Moroccan woman to bring to the US...