K1 visa approved

Carpe-Diem · March 6, 2008

Our Interview Experience Mumbai Consulate (2008-03-05)

7:00AM Reshma arrived in line (20 people already there)

7:30AM Everyone was taken inside the consulate office. For the K visas there is no token number system, you are simply called by name. Possibly because there are so few of them compared to other visa categories. I checked and there are only 25 K1 and 7 K3 visa interviews for all of March 2008. On this particular day, there were 7 K1 and 2 K3 interviews.

8:30AM Reshma was called by name to a counter where an Indian staff member of the consulate collected the Rs. 5,240 ($131) Demand Draft. She was also fingerprinted at that point. He asked just 2 simple questions. Who is sponsoring you? Have you brought proof of relationship? He said that the packet we put together was very well organized. After that he asked my fiancee to wait.

While waiting, Reshma spoke to some other women who were also there for the K1 visa. Some of them were called for the interview with the consular officer before Reshma had her turn and they seemed very happy while they were walking out. So looks like the approvals were rolling in today.

11:30AM Reshma was called for her interview. The consular officer was a young US born Indian lady. She had Reshma take the oath. Then she took her signature on the DS-156K form. She then asked the following questions:

Where did you meet your fiance?

Reshma replied we met on shaadi.com

What is your fiance's age?

What is his date of birth?

What company does he work for?

How long has he been with that company?

When did you two get engaged?

How old are you?

Why did you not get married for so long?

Reshma replied that she was waiting for the right person before she took the plunge.

When did you see him last?

How long has your fiance been in USA?

What visa did he go on?

Reshma replied she did not know. She offered my phone numbers to the consular officer if she wanted to talk to me directly about this question. The lady said that's fine. We don't need it.

Is you engagement with your parents consent?

Show me your photos together.

Reshma pulled out the engagement album and showed her the pics of our engagement ceremony and party from last year. She was asked if she could name the guests and Reshma identified some of them by name.

Show me some e-mails.

Reshma showed her 2 of the latest e-mails. She browsed through them and handed them back. (Was worried about this part since we used to only write once a month, so we did not have too many e-mails.)

The consular officer did not even look at any of our phone logs, letters, receipts, boarding passes etc.

At this point, she told Reshma: "Your visa has been approved. Welcome to the United States."

Reshma left the consulate at noon. We are now waiting for the passport to arrive on courier.