interview experience. Baltimore office 11/29/2011

[koshka-mishka 0]

Hello VJ users, just wanted to tell you about our AOS interview on 11/29/2011 in Baltimore. Our interview was scheduled for 1:30 pm and we got to the Fallon Federal building around 12:35, just to be early and it was a good thing we did. The Federal building is really busy and gets lots of visitors that go for INFOPASS, immigration interviews, immigration court and so on so it takes a while to go through security. When we were already in the waiting room I've heard somebody's lawyer say that the line had just got bigger and there was like 50 smth people waiting to get in. Anyway, the waiting room was pretty packed, there were probably around 20 couples waiting to be interviewed and the interviewing process seemed to be moving along really quick - most of the couples were in and out in 10-15 mins. Still, we were called in around 1:40 by a white middle aged lady that was really smiley and nice. She swore us in and then asked for my passport and my husband's drivers licence. When she saw Dave's licence was from Mass, not Maryland, she asked him how long had he been living in Maryland. He said that it had been over a year, but he didn't convert his licence because we are heading back to Mass in near future. The lady was ok with that answer and we chatted for a little bit about the difference between living in Maryland and in Massachusetts. Then she asked us if we have any more evidence we would like to add to our file and she said it should be bills, insurances and so on, so I gave her a couple of electric bills with our names on it, a dental bill that shows we had dental work done at the same day under my husband's insurance and a bank statement for our account. The lady didn't really look on the papers I gave her, she just added them to the file. Then she looked at my binder and saw a separate pile of papers that our lawyer put together for us (we used a lawyer to help us file everything), that had copies of everything that was send with the original packet. The IO started going through that pile and then I realised that when I was communicating with my lawyer via email and sending her our pictures together only like 8 pictures came through and that was all we had in our application There were no pictures of me with his family, no pictures from our small wedding, just some random pictures from 4th of July and stuff, so the IO asked us to give her a couple of pictures from the day we got married. I gave her like 3 pictures, she took 2 and asked why no one from my Dave's family attended the wedding. After that she started going through forms and asked us some questions about each other like dates of births, birthplaces, she also made Dave pronounce my full name (that was funny, because Russian names are not that easy to pronounce sometimes!) and smiled at him struggling with my middle name. We also had to tell her names of each other's parents and then she said: " Your I-130 is approved, now moving to your permanent residence application". After that I had to answer all the "No" questions. After that the IO was doing smth on her computer and asked us about how we share cooking, cleaning and such, so we told her that we both cook & clean and that I walk our dog the most and then we showed the picture of our dog to the lady. That picture was in a photo book I've ordered earlier online and the IO said I did a good job and our book is really cute. After that she said that she really has to start the next interview and told us that they are scheduled every 30 minutes and there is still a lot of couples that have their interviews today, After that she escorted us to the waiting room and started saying goodbye and I was like: " So we are approved, right?". I was really confused, because I thought she was supposed to tell us the decision while we were in the interview room and tell us about ROC, but she didn't do any of that! So, the lady smiled and said "Yes you are". I also asked her about the stamp - I am trying to make it Russia by the end of December to see my family and celebrate New Year - and I was told to come back for the stamp if I don't get my card in the mail soon enough. I got card production email in couple of hours after we got out of the building so hopefully I won't need to come back for the stamp. All in all it was surprisingly a very pleasant experience!

Thank you VJ for relieving my stress before the interview, because reading about other people's experiences sure helped us not to over stress

[ndu26 114]

Hello VJ users, just wanted to tell you about our AOS interview on 11/29/2011 in Baltimore. Our interview was scheduled for 1:30 pm and we got to the Fallon Federal building around 12:35, just to be early and it was a good thing we did. The Federal building is really busy and gets lots of visitors that go for INFOPASS, immigration interviews, immigration court and so on so it takes a while to go through security. When we were already in the waiting room I've heard somebody's lawyer say that the line had just got bigger and there was like 50 smth people waiting to get in. Anyway, the waiting room was pretty packed, there were probably around 20 couples waiting to be interviewed and the interviewing process seemed to be moving along really quick - most of the couples were in and out in 10-15 mins. Still, we were called in around 1:40 by a white middle aged lady that was really smiley and nice. She swore us in and then asked for my passport and my husband's drivers licence. When she saw Dave's licence was from Mass, not Maryland, she asked him how long had he been living in Maryland. He said that it had been over a year, but he didn't convert his licence because we are heading back to Mass in near future. The lady was ok with that answer and we chatted for a little bit about the difference between living in Maryland and in Massachusetts. Then she asked us if we have any more evidence we would like to add to our file and she said it should be bills, insurances and so on, so I gave her a couple of electric bills with our names on it, a dental bill that shows we had dental work done at the same day under my husband's insurance and a bank statement for our account. The lady didn't really look on the papers I gave her, she just added them to the file. Then she looked at my binder and saw a separate pile of papers that our lawyer put together for us (we used a lawyer to help us file everything), that had copies of everything that was send with the original packet. The IO started going through that pile and then I realised that when I was communicating with my lawyer via email and sending her our pictures together only like 8 pictures came through and that was all we had in our application There were no pictures of me with his family, no pictures from our small wedding, just some random pictures from 4th of July and stuff, so the IO asked us to give her a couple of pictures from the day we got married. I gave her like 3 pictures, she took 2 and asked why no one from my Dave's family attended the wedding. After that she started going through forms and asked us some questions about each other like dates of births, birthplaces, she also made Dave pronounce my full name (that was funny, because Russian names are not that easy to pronounce sometimes!) and smiled at him struggling with my middle name. We also had to tell her names of each other's parents and then she said: " Your I-130 is approved, now moving to your permanent residence application". After that I had to answer all the "No" questions. After that the IO was doing smth on her computer and asked us about how we share cooking, cleaning and such, so we told her that we both cook & clean and that I walk our dog the most and then we showed the picture of our dog to the lady. That picture was in a photo book I've ordered earlier online and the IO said I did a good job and our book is really cute. After that she said that she really has to start the next interview and told us that they are scheduled every 30 minutes and there is still a lot of couples that have their interviews today, After that she escorted us to the waiting room and started saying goodbye and I was like: " So we are approved, right?". I was really confused, because I thought she was supposed to tell us the decision while we were in the interview room and tell us about ROC, but she didn't do any of that! So, the lady smiled and said "Yes you are". I also asked her about the stamp - I am trying to make it Russia by the end of December to see my family and celebrate New Year - and I was told to come back for the stamp if I don't get my card in the mail soon enough. I got card production email in couple of hours after we got out of the building so hopefully I won't need to come back for the stamp. All in all it was surprisingly a very pleasant experience!

Thank you VJ for relieving my stress before the interview, because reading about other people's experiences sure helped us not to over stress

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

[vonso 0]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Happy for you!! Enjoy Russia!!!!

[koshka-mishka 0]

Thank you! I'm really excited to have USCIS out of our lifes for a while

[daryl&lada 8]

Congratulations and thank you for sharing!

[NancyNguyen 1,657]

Congrats to you!!!

[jojolicious 38]

Congrats!

[koshka-mishka 0]

Thanks everybody for all the congratulations! I've got my green card in the mail today, just 6 days after the interview

[Pupsik 4]

congrats!!!! Ill be in Russia for New Year as well!!!