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| Manila, Philippines |  Review on October 5, 2011: |
Steve and Yurany
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
The first thing that we realized after arriving 1.5 hours prior to our assigned appointment time is that you'll have to wait that much longer if you do as we did. Embassy personnel advised that your appointment time on your letter is the time you should arrive at or be going through the Embassy gate. Arriving earlier simply means longer wait time. I guess that because St Lukes has a first come/first serve policy, it is easy to do the same at the embassy.
Anyway, I returned to the Philippines to accompany my wife for her interview, and to assist her by carrying the massive load of supporting documentation that may or may not have been required by the consular officer to prove our relationship.
First we waited to be called to window 40 for fingerprinting. Then wait to be called again.
Our fist tier interview was with a nice Filipino man who was very business like. My wife did not like him, but I thought he was simply focused on his task at hand. He asked for tax returns, and of course I had brought with me not only tax returns but updated financial information like current paystub showing year to date income, 401k materiel showing my wife as beneficiary, and other supporting financial documentation. Remember, it was months ago that you first provided this kind of information when you completed the application, so bring any updated materials to support your case. Your ability to support your spouse is of major significance in these proceedings. Our idea was to have more than they would ask for, so that if something was requested we would be ready. In retrospect, I would have left the chat logs and the phone bills at home and just focused on the financial support documentation and photographs. He asked her a series of questions like "how did you meet, where did you meet?" etc, etc. He asked to see photographs of our wedding. I had a photo album and held it up to the window and he would look at each photo and direct me to turn the page when he was ready to see the next one. We had so many photos that finally he had had enough already and said we should be seated, be patient and wait for the final interview.
We waited about another 1.5 hours and we were called to window 62. Our consular officer was a middle age woman, either British or Australian, very nice, and the first thing she said when she saw me was that she would be directing her questions at my wife and she may or may not have questions for me.
She asked my wife questions like where did you meet, where does your husband work, what kind of work does he do. What is the date of your wedding (which she forgot because she was so nervous). The CO indicated that she had already approved all of our documents, and my wife's visa was approved. Second interview lasted about 10 minutes and there were no questions directed at me. We were there about 5.5 hours and could have shaved 1.5 hours off our visit by arriving just before the appointment time.
Some of the reasons I saw for denial were for fiance visa applicants never having met prior to applying for the fiance visa, or lack of supporting documentation of their relationship.
All in all, it was pretty smooth and we were both glad we came prepared. Hope this summary will help someone else. We can't believe it's over. Now we just wait for the delivery of her passport and we are so out of here.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #8461