Interview complete!

[Elviorion 0]

Well, it's over. My wife came in on a tourist visa june of 08 and filed for an extension. While awaiting the decision on the extension I proposed to her in December, and we were married 7-8-09. We applied for her change of status a few weeks later, had her biometrics around a month and a half ago and just this past Tuesday had our interview.

We were a bit worried about the interview as she was denied the extension, and had previously be denied a tourist visa as well as a student visa. We were further concerned by the fact that they seperated EVERYONE for their interviews while we were waiting. We had been warned about the denials on her reccord, warned about the coldness of the interviewers and stuff like that. I dunno if they keep an eye on you while you wait or what but our interview lasted only 15 minutes and they didn't seperate us at all. We went in, were sworn in. He asked for my bio (bday, name, social, addy, phone etc) then hers, took a look at our photo album and copies of bills. Told me some bad news about my background check (seems someone is using my social for work in another state) and approved us. The guy wasn't overly friendly, but he wasn't rude or cold either. Was a very good experience for us

We did all the paperwork ourselves, never involved a lawyer or consulted one. It was stressful making sure we had all the right documents and forms, but luckily my wife is good with such things. Start to finish our process to get her from an expired tourist visa to approval at the interview was roughly 7-20-09 to 11-17-09. Four months isn't so bad. Biometrics were in Millwaukee and interview was in St. Paul Minnesota.

Goodluck everyone!

[C0881 2]

Hey Elviorion, congratulations! Did the Immigration Officer take your wife's I-94 and Stamp I-551 on her passport?

Well, it's over. My wife came in on a tourist visa june of 08 and filed for an extension. While awaiting the decision on the extension I proposed to her in December, and we were married 7-8-09. We applied for her change of status a few weeks later, had her biometrics around a month and a half ago and just this past Tuesday had our interview.

We were a bit worried about the interview as she was denied the extension, and had previously be denied a tourist visa as well as a student visa. We were further concerned by the fact that they seperated EVERYONE for their interviews while we were waiting. We had been warned about the denials on her reccord, warned about the coldness of the interviewers and stuff like that. I dunno if they keep an eye on you while you wait or what but our interview lasted only 15 minutes and they didn't seperate us at all. We went in, were sworn in. He asked for my bio (bday, name, social, addy, phone etc) then hers, took a look at our photo album and copies of bills. Told me some bad news about my background check (seems someone is using my social for work in another state) and approved us. The guy wasn't overly friendly, but he wasn't rude or cold either. Was a very good experience for us

We did all the paperwork ourselves, never involved a lawyer or consulted one. It was stressful making sure we had all the right documents and forms, but luckily my wife is good with such things. Start to finish our process to get her from an expired tourist visa to approval at the interview was roughly 7-20-09 to 11-17-09. Four months isn't so bad. Biometrics were in Millwaukee and interview was in St. Paul Minnesota.

Goodluck everyone!

[RebeccaAndPhil 5]

Wow I'm sorry to hear someone is using your SSN

But congrats on the approval!!

[marie09 5]

Congratulations on your approval! Thanks for sharing your story...

[juliava 80]

Congrats! The stress is over now!

That SSN - issue is scary though!Did you know about it before?

[lady-alone 0]

Congratulations!

Edited November 19, 2009 by truckerlove

[trillium13 84]

Congratulations!

Strange about your SS#. What does one do about that?

[Elviorion 0]

Thanks for the congrats

No, they didn't stamp her passport but said we should expect her Green Card in the mail in a few weeks.

Not sure what exactly to do about the social security number yet, as it seems the IRS doesn't really care about that sort of thing and it only gets reported through FTC and crediters..I need to still do some more digging. The guy said it doesnt look like he's using my social for credit purposes, just work. Gave me his name and last known address to start off from but couldn't offer any further help on it. I had no idea before this that it was happening, and as he's not using it for credit I guess the only way I could have found out was through a background check...sneaky. On the one hand it's scary and not a good thing, as he COULD really mess my life up until I get it sorted out. On the other hand if he's using it for working purposes he'll be paying in social security on taxes and it'll benefit me come retirement LOL.

All in all, while not friendly, our interviewer was helpful and professional. I DO wish we could have left there with some sort of "AH HAH!"..stamp in the passport, acceptance letter..something. But he said it would process and we'd get the approval in the mail very soon, with the green card following a few weeks from now. Surprised how fast the whole process went for us, 4 months start to finish.