Approved in S.F today!

sherose · September 7, 2006

Hello All,

Had a successful interview in San Francisco today. We were scheduled for 10:30 and called in at about 11:15. The officer was bussinesslike, but nice. I was a bit surprised at what he wanted, also surprised that he looked at so little of the mounds of paperwork we brought with us. He first swore us in, then began to ask a few questions while making notations and markings in our file. When did you meet? Where did you meet? How did you meet? When were you married? Where were you married? Who was in attendance? He asked my wife where she had learned her English? Also asked her if she had worked in the last 5 yrs, which turned out to be quite humorous as my wife is Thai and uses the Buddhist calendar. So she told the officer she had been laid off of her last job in 2544, we chuckled, then I explained that if you subtract 543 from her figure of 2544, we would arrive at the appropriate (Gregorian?) year.

He took my employer letter, only my latest pay stub, and one photo of us. What did surprise me was his request for my (USC) original G-325A from our I-129F Fiance petition and also a copy of the original I-129F petition (1 page) itself :hehe: , fortunately we brought it with us. He said that he needed to keep the entire file complete. I would have thought that the CSC would have forwarded those documents. But seeing as we never received our original approval notice from CSC, nothing surprises me anymore. Me thinks they were lost, perhaps by CSC :wacko:

He didn't look at or ask for, joint bank account info, utilitiy bills, beneficiary info, insurance info, mail addressed to us, none of it. We walked in with 15 pounds of paperwork and walked out with it nearly intact. Towards the end of the interview he said he was going to approve our petition and asked if we were planning on travelling any time soon. This was my opening. We are not actually planning on travelling any time soon, but I took this question to mean that if I had said yes, he would perhaps put the I-551 stamp in my wife's passport. I replied, no, we are not planning on travelling, but my wife never received her EAD and has a job opportunity opening up very soon and we would also like to get her California ID card (both are true) as soon as possible and would he be willing to place the stamp in the passport. To which he replied, "Today is your lucky day" and stamped the passport with the I-551 :dance: The wait to be called was about an hour, but the interview itself was over in about 15-20 minutes.

Many thanks to all on this board for making this possible.

Peace, Evan and Meaw

allynella · September 7, 2006

Congrats (F)

iceyspots · September 7, 2006

congrats on your approval :dance:

type2negative · September 7, 2006

Man, comparing to others going thru 630 Sansome street , they were grilling you there.

Peggy · September 7, 2006

Congrats

Clownies · September 7, 2006

Yay, congratulations! I had my appointment at 115 pm the same day! I didn't get the stamp unfortunately, but was approved.

The IO didn't ask me for any "old" papers, but was "grilling" me indeed about the evidence of our relationship, even though we had many pics, lease agreement, joint bank account..