Embassy Interview Experience

[PachucoBro 3]

Review of Bogota Embassy

September 2006

Locating the Embassy

Unlike most cities in Colombia the Taxi drivers in Bogota don't seem to know where places are. So be sure to have an address available for them to go by and maybe an idea of the direction the Embassy is from where you at. The embassy is a large, white, 2-story building with several large satellite dishes mounted on the roof.

Entering the Embassy

There will be markers on poles outside the entrance to the Emabssy numbered 1 - 4. If you have some form of the K visa line 3 will be the one you want. Closer to opening time there are announcements via loudspeaker telling you what line to be in. It is all in Spanish so listen close or make friends in line.

The announcements and the Embassy employees who will soon be checking documents of the people in line will tell you to have your Passport and Interview Notice paperwork available for viewing.

After you have been checked off for having a reason to be there that day you will file in to the Emabssy. There are two lines and I believe they seperate by male or female. This is also where you will be told to check-in your cell phone or other electronics that could possible record anything, audio or video. If you have a cell phone that does nothing, but make and receive phone calls, you should be abel to take it in. If you phone has a camera on it be prepared to check it.

The entire Embassy process, the waiting, the interview, everything... happens outside. You are in a sort of quadrangle with four walls and a large portion of the area has a built up roof and the most of the rest has some sort of canopy or coverage against sun and rain. On two of the walls are several windowed stations. Reminiscent of a prison visit with bulletproof glass, stainless steel counter, a small opening to pass paperwork under the glass and even a telephone handset you need to pick up and use if you are to hear anything the embassy personnel tells you.

Be sure to bring clothes to keep you comfortable in the day's climate. There is a small stand that sells various types of coffee and pastries for breakfast so if you didn't get a chance to eat something no problem. Restrooms are also near by and easy to get to.

First Stop - Assembling Your Paperwork

Your first stop will be a waiting line where someone will instruct you on assembling the 'Investigation Folder' (I.F. for short and yes I made up the name for the folder, but it will make sense later). The instructions for the I.F. is essentially what you got in Packet 3 where it talks about what information you need to have for your Interview. They ask you to put all your paperwork in the exact order as on the list. They also ask you not to use any staples, clips or other binding type stuff. Just insert all the papers loose in the proper order.

Also, they ask that you NOT include all your evidence of relationship in this folder. Simply hold onto that information for later.

When you are issued the folder the person notes your name to make a list of who to call for the Second Stop. So after you are done with assembling your folder just wait for them to call your name to go to the Second Stop. If you are not ready no big deal just tell them you are not and they will go to the next person. Just be sure to flag someone down when you are ready or they may forget about you.

Second Stop - Verification of Paperwork

When they call you name next you will be directed to a particular window based on it's number. All the windowed counters have a number on a banner next to it easily visible from anywhere. This stop is for submitting your I.F. for the Embassy Personnel to review and investigate further. I believe that this person merely ensures you have included all the right paperwork in the folder and have filled in some of the DS- forms properly. This person enters some information in to the computer. Will ask a few questions in spanish to your finacee, but are merely questions about the paperwork, nothing like the interview questions. No worries here. This person will not need or want to talk to you (the american citizen) so just stay back and quiet. Also at this stop they will ask you fiancee to place their index fingers on a computer type fingerprinter for security.

Once this person is done with you they will return to you some paperwork that they no longer need and the I.F. will then be looked at by someone else who will actually analyze the information in the I.F.

At this point you still have not been interviewed and you still are holding on to your eveidence of relationship. You will now proceed to what could be described as the longest wait of your life.

Third Stop - Waiting for Interview

The time for this stop depends on many things such as what your position was in line at the first stop. Those that turned in their I.F. first will have their investigation process started sooner obviously. It also depends on what kind of K Visa you have, how much papaerwork you have that needs to be looked at, etc. Our process was very straight forward, no previous marriages, no kids in the foreign country, just two single people wanting to get married. We also were like 3rd in line at the First Stop so we only had to wait maybe one and a half hours for the interview.

The Interview

Everyone fears this and I did also until the morning of the interview when I woke up. Why? Because I KNEW deep down we had all the paperwork assembled IN ORDER, filled in, in duplicate. We had all the evidence we felt necessary to prove our relationship, which was:

Photos from my first visit to Barranquilla (8 photos)

Photocopies of various ATM and hotel receipts (4 pages)

Airline Iteneraries for my 2 visits prior to the Interview (8 pages)

Printouts of phone card purchases (2 pages)

Printouts of Skype calling histories (4 pages)

Printouts of Yahoo Mail Folder with just emails to/from my finacee in list format (6 pages)

Printouts of 4 emails in full with text and headers (6 pages)

In our case I also knew that there was no reason to be denied due to our relationship not being evident as I had visited Colombia 2 times, once for an entire month and had all kinds of proof that we had been communicating the entire time. I never had any photos of us other than from my first visit which were included in my I-129F petition. I did not print out all 200 emails sent to and from each other. I merely selected 4 from within the first 3 or so months since I did not have much evidence in the way of phone cards for that time period.

Now on to the actual interview... While you are waiting you will be listening for the overhead speaker to call out the name of your finacee. The message will tell you what window to go to. Get up and go with your fiancee and stand behind her in silence, but with a pleasant smile on your face. She will talk with the Consul on the telephone and you may be able to hear a little of the other side of the conversation through the small window opening.

This is where the Consul will ask the infamous QUESTIONS and ask for the evidence of the relationship paperwork. If you are one of those that brought a suitcase worth, please have ready a small concise packet of evidence and give it to the Consul stating you have more evidence with you IF needed.

Here were our questions:

Where did you meet your finace (US Citizen)?

On the internet. In a chat room on Yahoo Messenger.

How long have you known each other?

About 10 months.

The consul then saw I was standing there behind my fiancee eager to speak to him so he spoke to me in English asking the same two questions and a little chit chat about the internet.

DONE!

The consul then began to explain how to pick up our Visa and told us both how in Spanish. He stated that the Visa would need to be picked up in TWO days, which was different than everyone else had experienced. In our experience as well as two others we meet at the Embassy, return the next day and the Visa will be there waiting for you after 4:00pm.

Some things to note about our experience. Our Consul was a 'white guy' that spoke fluent spanish and had the world's WORST accent. I was there with my finacee at the interview. We had a very cut and dry petition as stated earlier, no foreign children, no previous marriages, we had solid evidence of a relationship with 2 visits to colombia prior to the interview. All these items I think contributed to our petition being so easy.

[Danny&Adri 1]

The consul then saw I was standing there behind my fiancee eager to speak to him...

CONGRATULATIONS! And best of luck.

As for me, the consul saw me there standing much as you were, but he never even glanced my way. Of course I didn't care one way or the other once he handed my fiancee the receipt and said, "Come pick up your visa tomorrow." B)

[jmwprof03 0]

guys, all this talk of interviews has got me allllll excited.

we have waited months and months for this and i cannot beleive that it will be happening at the end of the month. i have sooo much to do before carlos arrives. now, the interview seems like a breeze and getting things prepared is the hard part! haha. any thoughts on what in the hell i need to do before he gets here??

list:

hmmm...make keys

???

hahahah...i am just so happy for all of the you guys.

[Peter Miami 0]

Hey PachucoBro,

Congratulations again and thank you for posting a detail account of the interview.

Good luck,

Peter Miami