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| London, United Kingdom |  Review on January 23, 2017: |
Adam&Allison
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
I'm going to break this review down into four parts, the first part will be about queuing to get into the embassy the second will be about security, the third will be about the document check inside, and the fourth will be about the actual interview.
1) Queuing to get into the Embassy on a January morning in England, as you can imagine, was quite cold. There didn't seem to be much structure to the queuing, there was two separate lines without guidance as to what line was for what. I joined the shorter queue at around 9:40am - my appointment was at 10:30am - and then an employee of the embassy walked up and down the queue doing a document check, I told her I was here for a K1 interview and she told me to come out of the queue and go to the front and let her colleague know I was attending an immigrant visa interview. K1 is classed as an immigrant visa at the embassy, just so you know. I went to the front and let the person at the desk know I was sent to the front by her colleague and she seemed confused. She apologised and told me to rejoin the queue as she wasn't sure why I'd been sent down - so I rejoined, ten minutes later I got to the desk again and she let me in no problem after taking my DS-160 confirmation page.
2) Security is pretty much just like an airport security. One thing to note here that caught me out, they allow iPads and stuff into the Embassy now - however they do NOT allow attachable keyboard cases on the iPads. So I had two options, I could go out and go to Gould's pharmacy down the road and rejoin the now even longer queue, or I could bin my iPad case. I decided to bin it as I'd been wanting a new one anyways. After that I went through the metal detector and was allowed entry to the Embassy.
3) Upon arrival inside the Embassy I was assigned a number and told to go to the waiting room, I went in and was waiting for roughly 10-15 minutes before my number was called. The waiting room is pretty much like an Argos waiting room, and various numbers ping up on a big screen so it was difficult to do anything but sit and wait. I had taken a book in, but didn't get to read any of it. I went up to the window after my number was called and was greeted by a woman who took my documents. She requested; Police certificate, birth certificate, affidavit of support, letter of employment (she specifically asked for this), passport, passport photos and courier/visa fee receipt. After receiving these she then asked me for an updated letter of intent to marry from my fiance as my I-129F petition had expired. I handed the letter over and she told me to go take a seat and wait for the Consular Officer to call my number again.
4) I was only sat for about 15 minutes before my number was called again, so up I went to the window and was greeted by a really nice American man - he asked me how I met my fiance and he thought it was funny that we met discussing the Obama - Romney election from 2012, given that it was inauguration day that day. He then asked how many times I'd visited Allison in the USA, I told him, and he then said 'I'm gonna go ahead and issue your visa - go wake up Allison, I guess it's about 6am in Pennsylvania?' - he handed my birth certificate back, told me my passport and documents will be with me soon - and that was it!
Overall a really easy experience, I'd spent months worry about this interview for it all to be over very quickly with the result I wanted!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #21235