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| Dominican Republic |  Review on May 4, 2012: |
StephanieM
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
05/04/2012
My review is very detailed. I apologize for how long it is!
My husband and I practiced lots of questions for 4 days before the interview (although we are 100% legit i'm so glad we did this). The night before we went to sleep around 11:30pm and I prepared our medium sized duffle bag full of evidence and copies of all documents sent to uscis and nvc. We also had a small shopping bag full of over 500 calling cards. Yes we were very prepared!!
We got up at 5:00am and had some coffee and were out the door by 5:45am. We arrived at the embassy around 5:55am. We didn't know where to park, so some random guy directed us to a parking sort of near the embassy and we parked there along with other people going to the embassy. The guy charged us 200 pesos for parking. We walked 2 minutes towards the embassy and there were already a ton of people in line. The buscones were around but all they offered was passport pictures, they weren't too annoying to be honest. While we were in line, employees with yellow shirts that say INFO on back asked to see our interview letter and gave us a piece of paper with #116. As we got closer another staff member took our interview letter and attached our number to it. We kept the other copy of the paper with our number. Men and women were separated for the security line but it went fast. We were in the embassy and sitting in the infamous metal benches by 7:00am. We sat front and center to see the screen and tv's up close. The embasy is like a giant movie theather with metal benches and a couple of tv's up front. A small cafeteria in the right corner and the windows where interviews take place in back of the tv's. Most of the staff was nice and courteous. Most people were dressed appropriately, and just a couple were a bit overdressed but whatever. The metal benches were full of people. People of all ages. We saw lots of children as well. I guess most families bring the kids including small babies. I saw very few couples with more than a small folder which I assumed was evidence.
A little after 7:30am our number showed up on the screen and the loudspeaker also announced that we should go to window 22. There, a kind lady asked us for my husband's passport, cedula and banco popular receipt. She asked us if this was our first marriage. We replied yes, then if we had any kids to which we replied no. She gave me affidavit of support documents back and kept my husband's cedula and passport. She also gave us a copy of the banco polular receipt. She then directed us to window 13 for my husband to get his digital fingerprints taken. We sat back down after that.
I was more anxious rather than nervous and urinated like 6 times, I don't know what that was about. We bought a cappucino (which was pretty good), some mints and a club soda at the cafeteria. There are water bubblers so water was free. We watched as couples and entire families were called for the interviews and most walked away with a green slip and smiling. Others were separated during the interview and then approved, and a few were separated and then called to window 11. I can't say we saw any denials but there were 2 or 3 couples that were being investigated. We left before them. By 9:30am I was super anxious and sleepy. The metal benches were hurting my bottom and I couldn't get comfortable. I took out my frustration on my poor husband and everything was annoying me all of a sudden. By 10:15am there were only like 25-30 people still waiting and mostly everyone had payed domex and left. I thought we would never be called when #116 finally showed up on the screen around 10:35am the loudspeaker said for us to go to window 20. The CO was in her mid to early 30s and greeted us with buenos dias. We greeted her back and she swore us in. She talked in Spanish the whole time and we understood everything she said. Her accent wasn't thick at all. She was very nice and smiley. She asked us the following:
To my husband:
- What is your wife's job?
- How long has she been at this job?
- Has anyone ever petitioned for you? (no)
- Have you every traveled to Puerto Rico? (no)
- Have you had problems with the police (no)
- Have you met her parents personally? (no just talked to my mother via phone)
- What are your wife's parents names?
- What are your wife's sister's names?
- Who does your wife live with? Here he got nervous and said my parents and forgot about my sisters and grandfather but it was fine.
To both: (Since we were never separated she just asked these questions and I got ahead of my husband and I answered most of them. My husband would add to my responses as well)
- How and when we met... She asked this twice cause she wanted more details.
- When did you get married?
- Who went to the wedding? She asked me if my parents went, I said no because they couldn't make it but my godmother went
- Did we have a wedding party/ceremony? (no)
- Have either of you been married before? (no)-
- Any children in common or outside of this marriage? (no)
To me:
- Do you have Dominican parents (yes)
- Why were you in DR for holidays 2007-2008 (vacation and visiting families, this is when my husband and I met)
- How many times a year have you come to see him? (around 2-3 per year) I gave her both my passports (one current, one expired) and she looked through my stamps of entries.
- What does your husband do for a living?
Finally she asked to see wedding pictures and commented how pretty our wedding pictures were and how she knew the place where we took them (jardin botanico).
She also asked to see regular pictures and we gave her pictures from 2008 since we looked so different. She asked us twice who certain people were in the pictures.
Finally she said congrats your visa has been approved!!! The whole interview took no more than 5 minutes. My husband and I gave eachother a small kiss and she said go ahead hug and kiss so we laughed and gave eachother a big hug and kiss. She was very very nice. We thanked her and payed domex. We opted to pick up the visa in the Santo Domingo domex office hoping it is ready very soon. We walked out of the embassy before 11:00am !!!
Honestly if your relationship is legit you have nothing to worry about. My advice is to go over lots of questions just in case as we are human and do forget some things. Be confident and prepared for anything. We had tons of evidence but all she asked for was pictures and my passport.
Just be prepared, and don't worry you will be fine!!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #9613