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| Montreal, Canada |  Review on June 29, 2006: |
happyimmigrant
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Our interview was scheduled for 9:40 am. We headed over to the US Consulate at 7:30. There were a few people milling about outside the doors, and a couple security guards were there. The consulate itself is completely nondescript - there are no signs, and the entrance is off the side of a building - if you didn't know just where to look for it, you'd have no hope of ever finding it.
At 7:45 they opened the doors and let us in. We were amongst the first allowed inside. They checked my interview letter first, and Holly's US passport. We were sent through a metal detector, and our belongings X-rayed, just like at an airport. Some people who got in before us had things they were not allowed to have (cell phone, etc) and had to sign them in to retrieve later. As a result, we were the first ones sent through to the elevator waiting room. We sat down and waited for the elevator to open (it had a temporary barrier against it).
At 8:00, a guard came in, removed the barrier, and opened the elevator. We were the first ones in - knowing that we would be exiting out the back of the elevator, we went straight to the back - but then turned around to face the front, as one would normally do in an elevator. Everyone else that entered saw us facing the front, and did the same. The doors shut and we rode up to the 19th floor. It arrived, we turned around, and the door opened, letting us out first. Holly headed right, but I knew to turn left out of the elevator, saw Window 14, and lined up in front of it immediately. We were first in line. The woman checked my letter and gave us a ticket - C1, first one of the day. Even though our interview was not scheduled until 9:40 am, we knew that it was actually done on a first-come first-served basis. Holly heard the couple behind us muttering and complaining that they didn't get to be first in line. They got ticket C2.
Every window in the place is thick bulletproof glass, you talk to the employees through a speaker, and there is a small slot at the bottom to pass documents through.
We sat and waited for about 15 minutes until our ticket was called. We got called to window 8, where a woman asked for my documents in rapid fire - faster than I could produce them. She seemed to be satisfied with what I gave her, however. I did not give her any financial support information, any photographs - nothing except the official USCIS forms that they wanted, my passport, my passport pictures (2), medical packet, and the other things on the checklist they had sent in Packet 3. When she asked one question, and I answered "no" rather softly, she looked up, not having heard. Holly said to her, "he said no." She butted in, "I didn't ask YOU, I asked HIM." She was really not very nice.
She then told us to return to Window 14, pay our $100 fee, and return with the receipt to her window. She said, even if she wasn't there, just to slip the receipt through the slot. She told us not to wait for her there, because we would miss being called for our interview. We headed off to Window 14, paid our $100 (US, cash), got our receipt, and returned to Window 14. By then, there was another employee there, talking to two more clients. We stood there for about five minutes waiting for her to finish with them. I told Holly to go back to the waiting room in case our number was called for the interview. A minute later, it became obvious that the people at that window were confused and disorganized and were going to be there a long time. I butted in and asked the woman behind the window if I could put my receipt through the slot. She said, "oh, just put it through the slot in the window next to me, that will be fine." So I did, and returned to the waiting room.
We waited. And waited. Ticket C2 was called, the couple got up and went to their interview. I heard my name called, asking me to go to Window 8 again. We got up, and the original woman was there. She asked where my receipt was. I told her that I had put it through the next window, as the other woman had told me to. She very angrily said, "well that is NOT what *I* told you to do! I don't care what SHE told you to do, *I* said to put it through THIS window!" She found my receipt, and we returned to the waiting area. As we left her area, I was muttering obscenities under my breath about how this was so typical of this entire process, how you are continually told contradictory things by different people, and Holly quickly hushed me up, sensing that a year's worth of frustration with this idiotic system was about to emerge just before our interview. She was probably right.
The C2 couple emerged from their interview. They had been in there for a good 20 minutes. They did not look happy. They had looked nervous to begin with, and as they were leaving, Holly thought that the girl was blinking as if holding back tears. Not good. We were called into our interview shortly after.
The interview itself was the easiest part of this entire process. The interviewer was a kind and polite man who didn't bother with any formalities - no swearing of oaths, nothing. He immediately put us at ease. He asked us how we met, where we planned to live, and when we were going to get married. That was it! We answered together, and I think it was rather apparent that we were together and happy. He told us to come back at 2:30 the next day to get the visa, and gave us a little card that would gain us entry back into the consulate. It was 9:30 am.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #663