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| London, United Kingdom |  Review on March 16, 2011: |
Angelheart1962
Rating:  | Review Topic: General Review
At last! My CR-1 visa was approved yesterday 10 months after my USC hubby filing the I-130's for me and my 2 sons.
Our appointment was at 9am, but following the advice of other VJers we arrived at the embassy early after locking our phones up at Goulds (£3) about 200 yards away.
We got to the embassy at about 7.40am and there was already a queue outside to get in, mostly teenagers going to Camp America etc. A lady checked our appointment letters, another lady checked our letters again and our passports then we were admitted to the airport style security screening office. After our bags were screened we walked into the embassy, handed the receptionist our appointment letters and were given them back with a number on. The non immigrant numbers started with N and ours started with I. We then went and sat in the wating room.
It soon filled up, and there were probably about 200-300 people there at one point. The N numbers get called very quickly and shown on the screen with the window number you have to go to, and every so often an I number would get called. They seemed to start at I900 and we were I905 so good job we got there when we did! At 9.10am we were called for the first time and saw a lady who had the files from NVC, checked all the paperwork, took my fingerprints, gave me a pink form to fill in with my address to give to the person on the courier desk if we were approved, gave me a CD of my chest x-ray, then told us to sit back down and wait to be called again.
Another wait of about 2 hours (take a book and snacks!) and we were called to a window to see the Interviewing Officer. He was very nice and friendly, checked my fingerprints again and looked at the paperwork. Asked how my husband and I had met (online), asked my husband's occupation and asked the children if they were excited about the prospect of living in America. He was so pleasant,it was the easiest part of the whole day! Then he said everything was fine and we were approved and explained to me about the brown envelope I will get which must NOT be opened. He said the visas would take around 7-10 days to arrive, and if I wanted to book a flight I could either wait until I had the visas in hand, or I could book about 3 weeks ahead and it should be fine.
That was it! I took some US size passport photos which I offered to him but he didnt need them as he had the ones that we'd sent to NVC. I was a little crestfallen at that because I'd had them done for £30, but I guess they will come in useful at some point in the future. I also took my husbands tax return for 2010 and other documents and photos, but none of them were asked for. I guess if you have submitted everything to NVC they already have all they need, but its always better to take them along just in case.
I cant believe our visa journey is finally over! Planning to leave the UK in about 2 weeks time.
Thank you SO VERY MUCH to all you awesome people on here who have been a great source of support and answered my silly questions! The waiting is so hard, but you do get there eventually!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #7273