K-1 Visa Approval

[rdashcraft 0]

Just want to share our experience about the interview process with everyone.

Male living in Dallas, TX. Female Fiancee living in Toronto.

Just as other people have mentioned, you cannot get into the US Consulate until 7:40 AM.

Being one of the first in line at the door may or may not matter at this point.

My Fiancee and I arrived at the Consulate at 7:50 AM and once we were through Security, we were lucky to even find a chair to sit in.

We were told no cell phones, not bags, no purses, etc. We adhered to this. Once we got in, we saw people with all kinds of bags and even baby strollers. I would say to adhere to what you are told. You don't want to chance being turned away at the door.

The first key thing is that once you are directed to the waiting room, but before the elevator trip, it is paramount to sit near the elevator to get on first. Go to the back of the elevator as the rear doors will open when you get to the 19th floor.

We did not make it on the elevator for the first trip. We were on the second trip. Because of this, we were only "lucky" enough to get number A7. there were only 8 numbers taken for an Immigrant visa so we were next to last.

Be nice to the lady at the counter. Her job might not seem hard but she has to deal with a bunch of impatient people wanting visas.

The people at the windows that process the paperwork before the interview are the same people that process the paperwork for the non-immigrant visa folks. This includes student visas, work visas, and any other temporary visas. Non-immigrant folks did not get a number, they just stood in a line. There did not seem to be a priority order of how many non-immigrant visas were processed before they processed an immigrant visa. Over time, there were probably 70-80 people that were processed for a non-immigrant visa before we were processed with number A7. The goal here would be to get in the first set of 4, not the second set or further down the line. In our case, they called numbers in the order of A2, A4, A3, A1, A6, A5, A8, A7. So in the grand scheme of processing paperwork, we were last instead of next to last. It took almost 2 hours to get to this point. But it took only 10 minutes to verify or update the paperwork with stuff we had brought with us.

On the day we went, there was only one person doing interviews for Immigrant visas. Not sure if this is the norm.

For the Interview portion, A1 and A2 already had their interview even before we even had our paperwork processed.

Each interview did not have a set time limit, but it did go in order. So even though A1 had their paperwork processed 4th, they were interviewed first. So here is were being first off the elevator really matters.

A5 met with the Interviewer 3 times. Not sure what issue they were having.

We got called to the Interviewer at about 11:30AM. So almost 4 hours from when we arrived at the front door.

Our interview took all of 10 mins. We were easily approved.

Basic questions asked of the person immigrating were like:

1. How did you meet him?

2. What does he do?

3. How did he propose?

4. What does he do for a living?

5. How do you stay in contact with each other?

6. Have you been to visit him?

The key thing to remember through all the waiting is --- "You have waited for many months to get this far. You can wait a few more hours".

Side note: There is a soda machine and a snack machine. They take only Canadian money. The snack machine only takes "old-style" money.

[NikLR 13,232]

Thanks for the review! Congrats on the approval.

[Emily and Nathan 39]

CONGRATS! Can't say I'm not jealous!!

[RN_SUN 12]

Congrats !!! My turn is coming soon. I'm so nervous.

[NikLR 13,232]

btw I read your review as "get there early!" Because then youre in and out by 9 - 930am vs hours.

[Udella&Wiz 325]

Good news and a helpful review

[spareows 7]

Very helpful, thanks! Feeling super nervous

[MissSarah 22]

Don't be nervous! I had my interview this morning, I'll post my review below. I was more nervous at home before heading out for the interview - I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep! Once I arrived at the Consulate I wasn't nervous anymore.

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Since I live in Montreal it didn't take too long for me to arrive at the Consulate. I arrived at 7:20 a.m.; I was the only one there. About 10 minutes later a couple more people showed up, and once they opened the doors more people were waiting in line to get in. We were called in one by one to enter the building where a woman asked for my passport and Appointment Confirmation. I then went through security - no issues except the guy sitting behind the monitor mentioned that there was a CD in my tote bag, I told the guard where it was and he saw it was part of the medical exam and that it was in a sealed envelope, so he let me through. (They did let some people through with phones, there were little cubby-holes behind the screening area where you could leave them, but it's much quicker to leave your phone at home so you don't have to deal with that.)

I went downstairs and sat in the first seat by the elevator, then people started to come down one by one. At 8:00 a.m. the guard came down, removed the barricade from in front of the elevator and told us to press 19 when we got in and it would take us up. I walked in, stood at the back facing the back, one other lady did this but everyone else just kind of shuffled in. Once we arrived on the 19th floor, people pushed me out of the way (thanks people!) so they could be the first to the counter. In spite of this I was given number A2. Most of the people there were for non-immigrant Visas it seemed, so it didn't affect me too much that these people were rude.

I waited about 10 minutes or so and the lady (Valerie - super nice and friendly!) called me to hand over the required documents. She asked for my address and phone number, Russ' address and phone number, then started to tell me which documents she needed. Then fingerprints were taken and I was told to sit down. Just as I sat down, she called me back up to the window - she had forgotten to give me a paper to read about domestic abuse. I walked back to the waiting area and she called me back again. When I got to the window she was laughing, and she said, "I swear I had my coffee this morning!" I laughed and said, "It's okay, it's Wednesday, Wednesdays are always like this!" She forgot to take the I-134 and supporting documentation from me. After I passed it to her she said, "I promise the next time someone calls you it'll be for the interview!"

I waited about 25 minutes or so, then my number was called. The guy seemed really nice. We went through the formalities, then the interview got a little more intense. He asked me how Russ and I had met, I told him it was online in a video game, he said, "WoW?" I said, "No, Final Fantasy." He said, "14?" I said, "No, 11." He said, "Really? Do people actually still play that game?" I laughed, nodded and smiled and he laughed along with me. He then asked me what Russ does for a living - I told him the company he works for, and his title at the company. He wasn't satisfied with my answer - he explained that it's a huge conglomerate and asked me to explain a little more - which office he worked at, and the exact role he performs at his job. Then we went through our timeline of how we met, initial contact, the visit Russ made up here to Montreal to visit with me, but the guy wasn't too happy that we had only met once. I had to explain to him that we couldn't get the time off work to be able to visit each other after that. He asked me why I wasn't able to take the time to visit, I explained that I had taken one week off in June to visit my family in Ontario, and then the other week I had off work was when Russ came to visit me. He asked me what I did for a living, I told him I was unemployed (I was laid-off due to shortage of work in December 2013) - then he asked me when Russ proposed to me, it was in August when he came to visit me. After that he explained that I needed to convince him that this was a real relationship, not just something that was arranged, so I talked about how we talk on Skype every day, and the days we don't talk, we send each other messages on Facebook. I told him I had the call logs from Skype with messages and duration of the calls, he looked through the glass and saw my whole binder of evidence. I asked him if he wanted to see it, but he said that it wasn't necessary. Then he asked me what kind of wedding we were going to have - I told him it would be at the courthouse, that I didn't fancy a big wedding. He asked me who would be attending - I told him that Russ' daughter would be there. He asked me about my family, I told him that they wouldn't be in attendance, then he asked me why. I told him that most of my family don't have passports, some of my family don't have the financial means to travel, and the one person who would even be able to consider coming would be one of my brothers but he has a young family and just started a new job two weeks ago so he wouldn't be able to get the time off work.

After all of that, he told me that he was going to approve my Visa, gave me the welcome letter, explained that at the PoE I should expect it to take 2-3 hours for the worst case scenario, and that my passport and Visa should be ready within two weeks. He wished me the best of luck with my new life and that was the end of the interview.

In spite of the guy being a bit skeptical, he wasn't a jerk about it - he was very polite and explained to me why I needed to explain everything to him. People are right when they say the interview is the easiest part, even when they grill you a little bit about your situation. It was a great experience!