I was under the impression that during the IR-5 visa application process, especially in the visa interview, my personal information (petitioner) would be revealed to my parents intentionally or unintentionally, some of which my parents didn't approve of and therefore were kept in the dark. Recently, I learned from ChatGPT that:
In practice for IR-5, the parent interview tends to be much more procedural and shorter than marriage-based interviews. If the paperwork is clean, the questions are usually minimal.
It’s possible a consular officer could ask something simple like “What does your son do in the U.S.? Is he married?” to see if the parent genuinely knows the child.
But they would not dig into sensitive details like sexual orientation, political views, or intimate lifestyle choices — that’s not relevant to proving a biological parent-child relationship.
If parents don’t know marital/employment status:
That usually does not derail the case, because the consulate already has the information from the I-130 petition and the Affidavit of Support.
The officer might raise an eyebrow if the parent seems to know nothing about their child, but a lack of perfect knowledge is not grounds for denial.
Also, a consular officer would not “correct” the parent by volunteering the U.S. citizen child’s personal details.
The child's green card history is almost never asked, and parents aren’t penalized for not knowing.
However, for Non-immigrant visas: Officers may bring up the U.S. child’s status or life details to assess whether the parent is a likely overstay, which is why parents sometimes learn unexpected things in those interviews. As a result, the likelihood of surprise revelations is much higher than in immigrant visa cases, because the officer is evaluating whether the applicant has strong reasons to stay in the U.S. (via family) rather than return home.
Summary:
Immigrant parent visas: Officers don’t pry into or reveal the U.S. child’s personal life; focus is on documents and admissibility.
Non-immigrant visas: Officers may bring up the U.S. child’s status or life details to assess whether the parent is a likely overstay, which is why parents sometimes learn unexpected things in those interviews.
Also, the Travel.State website states: Every visa applicant, no matter their age, must bring certain documents to the interview, including photographs, and the original or certified copy version of all civil documents submitted to NVC. You do not need to bring your Affidavit of Support or financial evidence you submitted to NVC. Also, a hardcopy of I-130 is not required for the interview per GPT. I think the government has done a good job at compartmentalizing information based on "need-to-know" and protecting the privacy of everyone.
While I am happy to learn this from AI, I am not sure if the AI was just trying to please me by giving the answer I want to hear, because I thought IR-5 being an immigrant visa is more significant and would receive even more scrutiny than a non-immigrant visa interview. Also, there are various experts advising people to do 110% of the work to get approved, e.g., advising parents to also bring Affidavit of Support or financial evidence that were already submitted to NVC. I think we should follow the rule of the law, no more or less.
Also, do interviewing officers deviate from the above and request applicants to do 110%? Or would they out me by accident?
Can anyone please share their experience?
