Our interview was this morning! We weren't approved on the spot. I wouldn't say we had a bad experience - not what we were hoping for - but still not bad.
Our appointment was for 7:30am. We got there at 7am. Parking out front was no problem with the parking mobile app. There's a lot across the street too that's all day $20 cash. The doors didn't open until about 7:15am. It was easy going through security & check-in then you go upstairs to the 2nd floor. The security guard upstairs was so sweet. We waited until about 8:20am. Our IO was very direct and not chatty. She told us how she would like our documents presented and had us designate who was going to keep getting up to bring stuff to her desk when she asked for it. Identification first, then marriage cert/birth certs, then updated bonafides and anything else we wanted to give. We provided my updated employment info, our 2020 return, joint bank statements (we didn't have a joint account prior), our 2020-2021 lease, updated utilities & memberships, and pictures from Sept 2020 to now. Also handed in I-693. There was no small talk and a lot of silence as she looked through things (mostly organizing new in with old and hole punching? not really looking through the bonafides or anything). She explained things as she went along. She went through the I-485 and said she was going to address me first (petitioner) then my husband (beneficiary). She asked me for our address, if I was no longer with my previous employer, the name and address of my new employer, if I was married before, and asked for our wedding date. Then she asked my husband his full legal name, our address, if he had ever been married before, if he has any biological children (he replied no but I have 2 stepchildren and she asked what are their names), and she asked him my birthday.
Then she asked my husband the I-130 questions. He does have an incident from 10 yrs ago at home and we provided all of the documentation court gave us with our package. She skipped over these questions on the I-130 and saved them for last. For the community service and fines under status it says "dealt with". She questioned this and our lawyer's partner said he could only assume this is their verbiage that the requirements were satisfied otherwise it wouldn't say it was dealt with. She said if that wasn't acceptable we would get an RFE in the mail asking for documentation clarifying he did fulfill his requirements. She then said thank you for being so prepared and organized to me and said to our lawyer's partner to only bring them cases like ours.. she said she'd walk us out. As we were walking down the hall, I said "do you mind if I ask a quick question - so we're just waiting to see if we'll get a request for evidence?" She said yes and if it were to go out it'd be today or tomorrow. We were surprised she didn't ask any questions about our relationship, didn't really look through bonafides or talk to us at all.. but we did provide a lot so maybe she felt she didn't need to, especially with the compliment at the end? Kind of confusing. We were out of the building at 9am.
Overall I feel she did like us. I'm thinking it shouldn't be an issue getting something saying dealt with means satisfied over here. Our lawyer called to follow up with us and said she feels the IO is wrong and what we provided is acceptable so she thinks we may just get approved but if they want clarifying info, clarifying info they will get lol. If we don't hear anything in 30 days we'll reach out. Our 2 year anniversary is in less than a month so in a way kinda hoping it gets approved after that so he'll get the 10 year instead (I think it'd work that way at least?). We feel pretty confident we're okay! Just more waiting. What else is new, lol.