CR1 Interview Review(21 Dec)

[dronden 0]

I am just now back from China, finally have some free time, so I thought I'd put up my thoughts of my wife's recent visa interview.

Medical: We arrived at 7:00am for the medical, and there were about 10 people waiting ahead of us. At 7:30 they opened the doors and we got numbers for our order in the exam queue. The whole process took a few hours and my wife ended up needing five shots. We returned the same day at 2:30pm, and waited another hour as they compiled the results.

Doc Intake Day: We arrived at 12:00pm, and there was quite a long line outside the embassy. At 12:15pm they started letting people inside the embassy. They took all the required documents except my tax transcripts, which they ended up taking on the interview day. She was asked a few personal questions, including if she was a CCP member. We left at 2:30pm.

Interview Day: We arrived at 6:45am, and were near the front of the line outside the embassy. This didn't end up helping us at all, as my wife was one of the last ones out that day. They started letting people in at 7:30am, and the process was the same as the day before. She said the interview was incredibly easy, and the rest was just small talk about her past travels. She was told she passed the intervew, but that there was one issue.

The only issue was over the I-864 vs I-864EZ. The person interviewing my wife looked at the I-864EZ I submitted, and asked for the original (he meant the I-864 non-EZ version). My wife was given a copy of the I-864 and was told to mail it into the embassy with her passport, and was told that we couldn't just sign the paper and submit it in person. We walked down the street to a China Post, filled it in, and sent it. The embassy received it (we have an EMS delivery receipt), and we were told it could take 1-2 weeks of additional processing. So right now we are just waiting for them to process our I-864 and mail out the visa.

Overall the process was fairly painless. I'm a little disappointed they didn't accept my I-864EZ, and searching just now I found Djwalker60's post saying they don't accept it(it would've been too late for us anyways, as his post is dated 02 Nov 2012). Also they only took one year of my tax transcrips at the interview, even though I had three years with my wife. If you have submitted an I-864EZ I suggest you send your wife/husband into the interview with a signed I-864, and maybe you won't have the same issue we had.

Thanks to everyone on VJ, as it made this whole process significantly easier. I know many of the tips for EP really helped, as EP seems underdocumented on government websites.

[bigdog 376]

Congratulations, way to go.

[Darnell 8,479]

Thanks for writing up the review, and posting it in the Embassy Review Section. You Rock !