|
|
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Review on February 9, 2021: | raphy2021
Rating: | Review Topic: IR-2 Visa
First off, to get inside the consulate, you have to wait outside for an officer to come out and tell them that you have a scheduled interview. There's a lot of guards.
The thing is, you will only be able to have your interview if you did your biometrics at an ASC (since my case was expedited, the US Consulate scheduled mine to be done at the RIO ASC)
There were at least 8 people in the consulate waiting for their interviews, all of them had their interviews first and I was the last one.
There were actually two interviews. The first one is some sort of pre-interview where they check if you brought all the necessary documents (they give you a list once you're inside the consulate and they ask you to put them in order) In the pre-interview no questions were asked, also in the pre-interview they kept my passport after I gave it to them. In the real interview, the officer asks if you want to have the interview in English or Portuguese.
The officer also asked if I were married (weird since I'm 16 but ok), If I had ever been to the US illegally, some questions from the DS260 just to confirm them, If I had another visa (I had a B2 visa) and that's it. The only documents they asked me for was my Mom and Dad's divorce certificate.
My visa was approved and issued on the same day. I have it on my passport right now. When the officer that interviewed me saw that it was issued, she danced. It was pretty cool overall but the wait times are huge, I got there at 9 am and I had to stay until 4 pm but tbh it was worth it since my visa was issued on the same day, and had I not stayed there I would have had to wait god knows how long to receive it.
My advice is: Go there as soon as you're done collecting the biometrics at the ASC and make sure to leave your phone at the hotel. (we stayed in a hotel called Hotel Itajubá, it was very cheap R$140 and we just had to cross the street to get to the consulate so very close) You're not allowed to bring your phone inside the Consulate.
Good luck, If you haven't already I would recommend you to try expediting your case I believe the US Consulate in Rio is considering more expedite requests than ever.
| |
|