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| Baltimore MD |  Review on August 28, 2018: |
hectorkhuon
Rating:  | Review Topic: Adjustment of Status
Our interview was scheduled for 10:15 AM on August 28, 2018. This was for adjusting from a K-1 Visa. We dressed in business casual clothes. I wore a tie with a dress shirt and pants. My wife wore a dress shirt with black khakis. We arrived around 9 AM and there was plenty of parking. We were not allowed to be checked in 30 minutes prior to our scheduled time, so we had to wait. At 10 AM, we entered the building and went through the security checkpoint. I had to take off my belt and belongings and put it through the X-ray. We walked through the metal detector and got our belongings back off the conveyor belt. It was exactly the same as an airport screening. We then showed our interview letter to the front desk and had it stamped. We were told to enter the waiting room and wait at the stop sign. At the stop sign, we were gestured to walk to Window 6 where we showed our interview letter again. The officer asked who the beneficiary was and I told him it was my wife. He gave us a ticket number and told us that we would be called by name. We sat down and the time was 10:24 AM. It was pretty busy. There were many families in the waiting room. They were calling people in through Door B on the left and Door A on right of the waiting room. About 10 minutes later, our name was called from Door A on the right side of the room. We followed the officer to her office where we were asked to take a seat and she shut the door behind us. Our interviewing officer was named Keating. She informed my wife that the interview would be recorded. First, she took a photo of my wife and took digital scans of her left and right index fingers. Then we took our oaths by standing and raising our right hands. She asked us for our identification. I gave her my Driver's License. My wife needed to supply her foreign Passport and used her EAD card as identification. Officer Keating asked if the address on my license was our current residence and mailing address and I confirmed that. She then opened a binder with our submitted i-485 application and began reading and asking questions from it.
She asked these questions (Reading from the i-485):
For my wife...
1. What is your full name? - She said her full married name in which she took on my last name.
2. Have you used any other names? - She answered no mistakenly, forgetting that she changed her last name after getting married. Officer Keating noticed that, but continued.
3. What is your date of birth?
4. Where were you born?
5. What is your Social Security number?
6. How did you guys meet? - She gave a brief history of our relationship.
7. Is this your current mailing address?
8. What was the date of your last arrival in the U.S.? - Her last arrival was the date on her Form I-94.
9. You came here on a K-1 Visa?
10. What was your previous residence? - She said Cambodia and gave her previous house address from there, but mixed up the house number slightly. The officer noticed that.
11. (Reading from the i-485) You lived there from 2005 to 2017?
12. Are you working? - She said not currently. The officer wrote-in her occupation as "Unemployed" on the i-485.
For me...
13. Have you met her parents? - I have met her parents.
14. What are their names?
15. When did you travel to Cambodia? - I listed every year I traveled there.
For my wife...
16. What is your marital status?
17. What is your husband's full name? - She answered correctly and the officer asked me if it was correct. I confirmed it.
18. What is his date of birth?
For me...
19. Where were you born?
For my wife...
20. Where did you get married?
21. (The officer then started asking every single question from Part 8 of the i-485. It was all the "No" questions. Around 90 questions.) - It took about 20 minutes. It was tedious, but my wife listened carefully and answered.
22. Is this your current phone number to contact you? - I put my phone number as the primary contact and let the officer know that it was mine. She was fine with that.
For both of us...
23. What are your plans for the future? - I answered that we wanted to finish school and start a family.
For me...
24. You go to school?
25. What do you study?
For my wife...
26. You go to school also?
27. What do you study?
The officer then asked for any other documents that we wanted to submit. I gave her an updated i-864 Affidavit of Support, since I recently filed taxes. She did not take the i-864, but kept the supporting documents (Tax Return Transcript, Form 1099-MISC since I was self-employed, and bank statements from the past 2 months). I also provided my proof of citizenship with a copy of my Passport which she accepted. Then I gave her our evidence of relationship (joint Tax Return Transcript, joint bank account statements, cell phone bill, recent plane ticket together, copies of identification with same address, copy of joint debit cards, chat logs, and photos). She took all of our evidence and put it in the binder. We provided an album with 20 photos. The officer browsed through our pictures and commented that it was very nice. Then she gave the photo album back. She took our interview letter with our ticket number and informed us that she did not need anything else. She printed out a "Notice of Interview Results" for us to keep. The notice informed us that our case was being held for review. My wife asked if we passed and the officer said that it would take up to 120 days to make a decision. However, she said there were no issues with our case that she could see, so we would know the results fairly quickly. Officer Keating was stern, but friendly at the same time. She escorted us back out to the waiting room and we said our thanks. The whole interview lasted about an hour, we finished at 11:20 AM. It was a fairly good experience and straight-forward. We just tried to remember everything and we did our best. There were no trick questions and the officer was not rude. My wife just wished we were given a result right away. We just have to wait. My advice is to provide as much evidence of relationship that you can. Make sure it is new evidence over the course of the marriage. Study all the information that was filled in on the i-485 Application because that was the majority of our questions. This includes names of parents, married name and maiden name, current and previous addresses, birthdates, arrival dates, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, and more. Stay calm and answer truthfully. I will update once we get a decision.
(updated on August 28, 2018)
(updated on January 5, 2023)
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #24527