K1 Experience - Our Interview Last 24th of February

[Colibri 0]

Good Day, Visa Journey Community,

I have never posted here before, we just always referred to the previous posts as my partner and I made our own way around the process. And so to at least give in return, I would like to share our experience regarding the K1 visa. Though it is undeniably quite a stressful process, it is no rocket science, there aren't secrets and you can definitely do it yourself. If you a have a good, honest, genuine relationship and your documents are well in a row, you're pretty much good to go.

OUR CASE:

We both currently work and live abroad in Macau and we filed our I129-F in September, we weren't expecting it to be at all 'quick!' We got a response of approval in November and didn't start the visa process until we got back from the US in January from our winter holiday.

We were initially under the impression that I will be receiving my documents in Macau and will be able to process everything in Hong Kong since that's the current address I provided and that it would be easier for us to do it where it's an hour ferry ride away and wouldn't require myself to be in a very long leave (given that I just came from a long leave and that I'm really only allowed to take off maximum 6 days) to take care of the whole agonizing process in Manila -which includes the medical, the interview and the CFO seminar. We tried our best to inquire about getting our case transferred to Macau but it wasn't fit for the time frame, given that the length of time for the transfer is uncertain. Of course my NVC envelope with my MNL case number was sent to my permanent address where I grew up in the Philippines and so we had to make a huge decision regarding the leave. Having responsibilities at work, we all know it's not easy to just take off. In short, I took a suicide kind of leave for 20 days to take care of all the process in Manila.

OUR PREPARATION:

Weeks before leaving for Manila, we made sure that our documents are all in order. I asked help from my kind mother in the Philippines to secure for me my Certificate of Non Marriage, Philippine police clearance and sent her my visa payment to be processed in the Bank of the Philippine Islands and othere documents to process my clearance by proxy. Whilst being in Macau, squeezing in between scanty free time, I got my Macau police clearance, employment and other financial papers from HR and the Bank, scheduled myself an appointment after the visa payment and filled/printed out a DS160 form. We consider ourselves fortunate to be living together in the same place to support each other throughout the process. My fiancé of course got his papers all organized. Downloaded forms to fill out and sign. Since he works abroad with me, he never filed income tax returns and isn't issued W2 forms to supply to our I134. I was quite worrisome about it hence we made sure we compensate well by providing enough documentation (even foreign-issued) that he could affix together with our Affidavit of Support which I will list down below, together with everything we prepared, just in case someone has got the same situation.

CHECKLIST:

1. Authenticated Certificate of Birth from The National Statistics Office

2. Certificate of Non Marriage from The National Statistics Office

3. National Bureau of Investigation Clearance

4. Macau Police Clearance (Countries where you lived in for more than 6 months)

5. Visa Payment Slip/Receipt downloaded and printed from ustraveldocs.com/ph and encoded with BPI payment details

6. Lots of 2x2 photo

7. Cash of approximately $250 for full medical at St. Luke's

8. DS160 form filled and printed out from ustraveldocs.com/ph, photocopies

9. Passport and multiple copies of the first page

10. My financial papers: Bank declarations and records of savings, pay slips, employment certificate (stating the date I started working, my position and all my income).

11. I134 filled out by my Fiancé with supplementary/supporting financial documents: Bank letters from Macau and the US, employment certificate (stating the date he started working, his position and all his income),pay slips, life insurance from the company we work at, our apartment papers (deposit declarations, lease agreement), stock market records and another I134 filled out by his father with income tax return and W2 slips. -All we could find just to make sure we rule out all possibilities on the financial part of our case.

12. Evidence of A Genuine Relationship: Photos (We have thousands, literally thousands of photos. We didn't want to just print them and overload so we chose carefully on which ones are best to depict our relationship timeline and the places we've gone to. We nicely laid them out and printed them in color),printout of our flights together, photocopies of our matching passport stamps and employment letters with matching dates, statement of intent to marry, even a couple texts messages from when we were still friends and when we were already together.

13. Couple copies of Patient Data Registration at St. Luke's Medical Center: May be filled and printed out from slec.ph

14. A couple copies of Interview Appointment Letter: ustraveldocs.com/ph

THE MEDICAL EXAMINATION DAYS - 17th and 18th of February, Monday: This is a whole different novel for a two- day experience which I can write about and detail out on a different post.

Summary:

I flew to Manila on the 16th of February, Sunday night, ate dinner with my mother and we went straight to Ermita where SLEC is. Stayed in a nearby advanced online booked hotel. We headed to SLEC at 2:00 AM the next day and was 6th in line. Queued up right outside the building until 5:30 AM when they started admitting patients in. Started the whole process at about 6:30, paced up and down the building to queue up, wait, be taken specimens of, be examined for almost a total of 10 hours. I ended the first day at 11:30 AM. The queuing/waiting part is the most time consuming of all, good thing I have a hotel room for my mom to crash into after she accompanied me during the wait at dawn until I finished.

I was asked to come back for my vaccines and the result the next day at 7:30 AM and I left the building at around 10:00AM.

THE INTERVIEW DAY - 24th of February, 2014, Monday: I and my brother travelled three hours from my hometown to the NAIA airport in Manila to pick up my Fiancé. it wasn't easy for us to be apart for a week, which was the longest we've parted by far, and we can imagine how it could have been going for some long-distance couples who are going through this process.

We stayed in the same nearby hotel where I stayed for my medical and made sure we ate dinner well. We went through our papers, went through my purse and made sure I had no flash drives and that I had gotten my phone and all electronics out of it already. We made ourselves comfortable and then we 'rested' -since we both couldn't fall asleep.

We got up at 3:00 AM, prepared and at 4:00 AM, we walked to the US Embassy which was about three blocks away.

At the Manila Baywalk end of the Embassy compound were little stalls selling food and a lot of people queuing for their interviews. The vendors seem to have the support of the guards to organize the queue of people. They arranged plastic chairs that they rent our for thirty pesos each. Chairs were all lined up in rows on the Baywalk, by the avenue, facing the Embassy to queue people up of different types of visas. That of the K1 is the row nearest the road. I was quite overwhelmed with the whole set up but I calmed after we have settled. At around 4:30 AM we queued and sat 6th in line again.The people arranging the chairs also sell pens, food, and tell the crowd all sorts of things about the interview, some helpful and some boguses, of course to make money out of you, like telling you that your photo is wrong because you're smiling in it or because you weren't wearing a collar in it. They would offer to give you instant photo services that cost a lot with their digital camera, their white cloth they would hang behind you and a runner that prints it out somewhere. I didn't wear collar in my photo, even had glasses on and smiles -I was fine.

My fiancé, I and my brother waited in the midst of the noisy crowd and vehicles speeding by until the dark dawn turned into day.

At around 6:30 the K1 applicants were asked to stand and queue near the reception tent and then eventually into the tent for receiving. From our previous readings, we were under the impression that I can't bring any companions to the interview, not even my fiancé. So we parted at the tent and assumed those other 'couples' entering were for US Citizen Services without even trying to ask.

AT THE TENT is a quick line of admission wherein they reconfirmed and stapled my appointment confirmation page and DS160 together. They looked at my passport, affix at the back cover my online application- generated barcode sticker with my name on it and they placed it in a resealable plastic bag. All of it they handed back to me. I proceeded to the entrance door past the tent.

THE SECURITY CHECK was very strict and airport-like with x-rays and magnets. People were asked to leave all their food and electronics out. They checked me thoroughly and questioned my little Carmex jar and my box of Nerds, told them it's little sugar I need, and I got to carry them in.

THE FIRST WINDOW was also a quick stop from where all passing through applicants, regardless of visa type, present their stapled appointment confirmation page and DS160 and be issued a queuing number. Mine was 6134. They also asked me to go through a certain door and to a certain window to drop my appointment confirmation page and DS160 confirmation page off.

THE SECOND WINDOW is inside the processing area, through Door 2, is where I dropped mystapled papers off. I am uncertain if it changes, but that day it was window 39 where I surrendered my appointment confirmation and DS160 confirmation.

THE PROCESSING AREA is where all the waiting and processing takes place. There's also a security scanner and bag check up upon entrance. There are chairs to wait on and screens that flash queuing numbers. It gets full inside and when it does, the rest of the applicants are asked to use the waiting area outside Door 2 where I got to wait initially. It is also equipped with screens to monitor queuing number,albeit each time my number comes up, I have to go through Door 2 and do the whole nine yards with door security again.

After I have surrendered my Appointment Confirmation and DS160 Confirmation pages, I was asked to wait and told that my number would appear on the screen three or four times. There are multiple windows that do the same process so I had to monitor the screen to make sure I don't miss my turn and I know where I am going. There was a lot of waiting in between the calls, at one moment it took me two hours to wait from my last call to the next. I was quite envious of other applicants with their fiancées with them. I hoped we knew we could get in together and he could have been with me in the interview. I had to nurse my tension and put my thoughts together and kept myself calm.

FIRST CALL: 6134 - 47 I went to window 47 and I was asked for my name, date of birth and was asked for my fingerprints to be scanned.

SECOND CALL: 6134 - 58 At window 58 was the initial interview. I was asked for the following:

Passport

Visa Payment Slip

Certificate of Non Marriage

Certificate of Birth

NBI Clearance

I134

I volunteered the following documents:

Macau Police Clearance

My Fiancé's Supplementary/Supporting Financial Documents to I134

My Fiancé's father's i134, Income Tax Returns and W2s

And some verbal information regarding why I am providing supplementary documents.

I was asked a couple of simple questions like Where/how I met my Fiancé, where he is from, what he does for living. I answered them all casually but I made sure I was polite, smiley and positive. I was then told to wait for my final interview with US Consul.

While waiting, I could overhear questions and answers from windows between Consuls and applicants. Some of the interviews were smooth, some weren't. I noticed that the ones grilled aren't having hard time because of strict consuls but because of themselves, some lack of information and don't know what to answer, unorganized manners and other factors that definitely don't come from the consuls but applicants themselves. It's quite sad to think about all of it so I tried to focus

THIRD CALL : 6134 - 63 It was my final interview and was more than ready to answer all sort of questions. I put my brightest spirit on while keeping myself together, polite and positive. I greeted the Consul and asked how he's doing and vice versa, I expressed to him that I didn't know I could bring my Fiancé in who is outside waiting for me. He told me not to worry and that it won't take much longer.

He asked me to raise my right hand and to read the oath attached to the right side of the window, and so did I.

He only asked me a couple of questions,

"What's the name of you petitioner?"

"When is his birthday?"

"What does your fiance do for work?"

"When did he start working in Macau?"

That's it. And then he gave a pamphlet regarding my rights against domestic violence once I am in the US. He asked me to sit and wait for the last window to help me. I thanked him and wished him well, he did the same for me and told me a relieving word, in his most discreet manner, "Congratulations."

It all turned out to be anti-climactic for me because all I have gathered in my head during the past weeks were picked on for two minutes. It seemed as if is all the blood concentrating in my brain just gushed down my body and I had a sudden headache, probably because of the abrupt change in tension in my body!

I waited some more until I was called at the exit/clearing window. My name was called aloud and my number wasn't flashed at the screen no more. The man at the window was smiling at me, in a little smirky but nice way, kind of "you got it" look, which I find quite funny. He told me that I am all done and that I'll just have to wait for a message that would tell me to pick my Passport and packet up at the 2GO branch I picked during my appointment scheduling. He greeted me well and released me. 11:30AM - End of process.

I picked 2GO, Mall of Asia branch because I reckoned it's fastest since it's near the Embassy compared to having it delivered in my hometown which is 3 hours away. I thought it might take too long and I might not make it until the end of my leave which is on March 5th.

PASSPORT PICK UP: Yesterday, 27th of February, 5:30PM, 3 days from my interview, I received a text message from 2GO that my Passport is ready for pick up at MOA.

My fiancé and I are here in my hometown and resting and so we contacted 2GO to inform them that We will be traveling to Manila to pick my passport up on Sunday afternoon, March 2nd. By then we'll have a hotel to stay at in Manila to take care of CFO the next day, Monday, March 3rd. Hoping for this CFO to go well and be able to exit and go back to work in Macau on the 5th!

I believe all I have written out in detail won't really make much sense since those who will be reading it will experience the details themselves. But I understand the comforting feeling of reading the entire process that contains information that might enlighten a couple questions for other applicants! I get that it helps in desensitizing the anxiety of going through such intricate process because you try to imagine and make up the set up in your mind, thus gets you mentally ready.

We hope our write up helps others too.

Sincerely,

E & J

Edited February 28, 2014 by Colibri

[Pitaya 2,577]

~Moved from K-1 Process to K-1 Progress Forum~

[sirleo1 0]

I thought the passport is taken away during the medical?

[Colibri 0]

No, it's not taken during the medical. They return it to you and make sure you have for your interview. They take it in the US Embassy to process and affix your visa once you are approved.

[tEe328cEe 12]

i thought USC fiance could go with you in the interview???? they aren't allowed now? i'm confused...

[Colibri 0]

Tee328cee

If you read what I wrote,

"From our previous readings, we were under the impression that I can't bring any companions to the interview, not even my fiancé. So we parted at the tent."

" I was quite envious of other applicants with their fiancées with them.I hoped we knew we could get in together and he could have been with me in the interview. "

So YES, you can bring your USC fiancé in the vicinity. We were just 'under the impression' that we couldn't.

[Tintin and Mike 127]

USC are always allowed at USEM

[ppihtr123 68]

USC are NOT allowed upstairs at CFO as I was asked to wait downstairs. We are allowed in the ground floor waiting area of CFO.

Expect to spend most of the day there.

Edited February 28, 2014 by ppihtr123

[Tahoma 2,292]

Colibri...Congratz on your approval...and thank you for sharing your experience! I enjoyed reading it.

My compliments to you for assembling and submitting a solid I-134 packet...even though no U.S. income tax return was included.

[tEe328cEe 12]

Tee328cee

If you read what I wrote,

"From our previous readings, we were under the impression that I can't bring any companions to the interview, not even my fiancé. So we parted at the tent."

" I was quite envious of other applicants with their fiancées with them.I hoped we knew we could get in together and he could have been with me in the interview. "

So YES, you can bring your USC fiancé in the vicinity. We were just 'under the impression' that we couldn't.

owkie dowkie. thanks!

[jc1216 1]

Wow, good for you thats a very quick turn around for everyone! Im day 5 and my status still says READY. It has not been touched since his interview.