Visa Interview Experience

[Travelpro 3]

Hi VJ,

Had our interview Nov 12th which I attended with my Fiance. We got approved and just waiting for the text to pick up our Visa. What an interesting experience.

I arrived the weekend before to help my fiance prepare. We had completed all the older forms 156, 156K so we spent the weekend doing the DS-160 instead. We completed it and then asked our lawyer to log in and review. After we got her approval and double checked again we submitted it on Nov 10th. We brought the old documents just in case but of course we didn't need them.

We arrived at the embassy at 4am and we were third in line. We finally left the embassy at 3pm. What a long day.

There were only 2 other petitioners there. I won't get into the details of the process as many have posted already; 4 step process (1) finger print (2) initial interview (3) second interview (4) Decision of approval/denied.

We debated if I should go to the window or not. I have such a bad memory and I of course love my fiance and know here well. She was just worried that I would be asked questions also in which I didn't have the answer. She decided to go to the window alone. One of the other petitioners also did not go to the window while the 3rd petitioner went to the window with his fiance.

My fiance was asked the usual questions about me. I can't remember all the questions asked but...

- How we met

- When we met, how many times I visited, and when the last time was. I think her answer helped us a lot. "He has visited me 6 times in the last year, and mam, he is here now". "Where is he now?" "In the waiting area mam?" "Wow, that's nice".

- She was asked about my job. Then asked for my W2, 1040 but not asked for my employment letter.

- Where I lived

- My fiance showed the interviewer the large book we made of phone records, skype, email...the interviewer just looked at it and handed it back. Though we front loaded months of communication.

- She was asked for the receipt of the visa application even though its not in the instructions. Luckily, the night before I decided to stick it in our packet the last minute before going to sleep.

- There were some other questions but nothing difficult. She was at the window only for a short time compared to many others. Actually, she was worried why she didn't get asked more questions and we could hear the other windows. I explained because they believe you. if they were suspicious, they would have asked more question and not to worry.

The second interview was even shorter. She was asked some of the same questions I listed above. She also explained I visited 6 times "Really!" "and sir, he is here now in the waiting area". "Really!" Actually, she explained so much detail with each answer each time the interviewer said "Ok that's enough" then next question... "OK that's enough"...

Some people have posted not to tell them more that they ask and to keep the answers short. We felt the opposite. Especially from the others we heard interviewed. The less they said the more questions that were asked.

Then the forth step is to be called back to the window and they would tell you if approved or denied. This time I went to the window. The person looked at me almost the entire time and said "your documents are in order and you are approved. You have decided to pick up the Visa? OK, just go home and wait for ToGo to call you". During this process, I observed that sometimes in this 4th step, there were groups called and then there were individuals called. I observed that the fiance's who I heard iinterrogated were called in the group. I didn't hear all of them interviewed of course. I can only say they were included in the group to hear if they were accepted or denied. When we were called, it was just us that were called. I also observed one of the other petitioners and his fiance being called to the window alone. I won't make any conclusions just post my observations.

Some observations

- It didn't seem that being 3rd in line at 4am influenced the order we were called to the window.

- There were so many "mature" women applying for the Visa. I honestly expected many young girls there but there were very few.

- One poor woman who we made friends with didn't have her police clearance even though it was instructed many times during our wait to have all your documents. After she waited all day with us she was sent home without a visa to get her police clearance, HOWVER, we were not asked for a police clearance. We believe because we filed the visa with a Manila address and this woman was from another part of the Philippines and needed a police clearance from her town/city.

- We could hear many others getting interrogated because the interviewer was not happy with the fiance's answers. I could only hear the interviewer as they spoke through the intercom. I heard:

--> "You should know your fiance" I could not hear anymore from this interview. It seems when the interviewer was unhappy, they spoke loud. If the interview was going well, we could not hear anything

--> Another interview the interviewer kept having to repeat questions then I heard "does your fiance speak Tagalog? Then how do you communicate? Do you plan to have an interpreter in your marriage?".

--> Another interview I heard "do you know anything about Minneapolis? How can you marry someone, then move half way around the world to a foreign country and not know anything about where they live? Why do you want to marry him? No, I want to know why you want to marry him...Then I couldn't hear much after that.

--> I heard others having a rough time but the above is was stuck out the most.

I will post other comments if they come to mind.

[Jeanna 21]

Congratulations for you both!

[LoveLife2 5]

Hello,

My Fiance and her two kids ages 7 and 9 had interview Yesterday/Today 11-14-2013 and it went very well. My girl speaks English very good and is always asked in her job to represent the company when English is needed. I never thought of what accent her English sounded like but here is her brief description of the interview:

\

At U.S Embassy..
Pre-screening counter :(after few questions)..maam you have a british accent
ME:(huh? I just smiled..)

After how mny hours of waiting finally I'm infront of an american.consul..
Again after few questions he said good u answered like Maegan Young.lol!i have a good news ur VISA IS APPROVED!GOOD LUCK!

THANKS GOD!

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I'm still laughing and smiling!!!

God bless all and keep your faith in your love.

[Greenbaum 12,259]

Congratulations. You describe exactly what I had experienced when I was at our interview a month ago.

I went to both Windows and there were no relationship questions from either consulates. But like you said they know how to weed out those that do not have a strong case for a real relationship.

Very happy for you guys. Safe travels to you both.

[Hank_ 9,174]

Congrats!!