Horrible Interview....but APPROVED!!!!

[Hotter Otter 1,211]

Congratulations!

[Eric & Idalia 56]

To funny!. You are a good writer. I was reading your post and actually feeling as you mentioned you were.

Congratulations!

[bublik 26]

Congratulations!

I am actually not surprised. I know, we all have bad experience with consulate officers, but believe it or not, they all get extensive and on-going psych training and are good in reading people. Sometimes the circumstances are out of their control (say, they have a directive to deny tourist visas to certain categories like young unmarried women), so they appear mean and not giving a damn.

However, they are trained to watch for fraud, too well rehearsed answers, people's demeanor. They do understand that some people get very nervous in situations like the interview, and this is not the reason to deny.

Your post was funny. You can't rehearse that. Trust me, she was not paying so much attention to that silly things you both uttered, but she watched your reactions, your body language- and she saw two very stressed people with a real relationship (with solid documented proof). She probably felt a lot of sympathy for you:)

[mounir412 101]

Congratulations!!!

[yanno 3]

So funny. Congratulations. Well deserved!!

[charmed2006 31]

Congrats

[HeandI 48]

congrats

[hanniel 41]

Ok I am just getting back from the Interview and it was so bad it was comical....but have hope, even a bad one can result in approval. LOL So here it goes:

We are driving down to the office and I am a bit worried because I want to be there early for the appointment. My wife tells me why are you nervous, I am not nervous, our marriage is real, relax. I am like whatever, we just need to get downtown so we can get parking and walk to the office. We get there and I send my wife through security, so be prepared for that. I got to skip it due to my work. We get to the office about 15 minutes early no problems. Around 2:20 they call us into the back. I try to engage in small talk with the interviewer, but she was a little standoffish. Hmm...not good. We get to her desk and it is a little awkward. We get sworn in and then she starts verifying the information on the application. At this point my wife started getting nervous and forgot all of her English! LOL So she asks her about the address and my wife had mumble mouth, it took for times to get some semblance of the address out. Then she got nervous about her birthday. I am thinking oh boy, this is NOT going well at all. Then we get to her kids birthday, and I made a mistake on the form and put the wrong year. A comedy of errors was ensuing. Then we get to the really tricky stuff My wife has been married twice and has two kids by two different men who she was never married to. So the interviewer was trying to pin down dates of divorce and when relationships were established. This was the most important part of the interview as I looked at the paper and it said, multiple marriages, so I knew exactly what she was going for. So to make this really bad, my wife could not remember when she got divorced, she knew the year, but not the month. At this point I had given up all hope. Then she asked about the kids father and more confusion happened. At one point she said "I can't keep track of all these men", under he breathe. I was a little irked about that and filled it in my mental Rolodex if things didn't go well. Then the wife couldn't remember the last name of her oldest kids father. I was about done at this point. No hope, denial in the future and mega lawyers fees were in my thoughts. So then she asked me a few simple questions no big deal. Then she asked about when I met her family. I could not remember which trip to DR in which I met her family! Now I am screwing up. LOL So we get passed that and I give her tons of information to show the co mingled assets. We had to do some extra paperwork for my job, so I gave her that. We gave her about 15 pictures that we had taken since she had been here as well as an article in a magazine about some volunteer work we have done. So I am waiting for the bad news and she tells us, I am approving your application. I am completly floored. We had a horrible interview and my wife forgot her english and we got approved! I was extactic. I clarified that it was approved or if we needed additional steps and she said its approved and has to be processed. I was like cool We left and my wife is complaining because the lady told her 90 days. I told her that they say 90 days to give themselves time just in case something happens. We walked 10 minutes to the car, then I forgot to get validation so I had to walk back and get the machine to punch it. When I got back to the card my wife said she got a message, she shows it to me and it says.........

New Card Is Being Produced

why was the interview conducted in English? Were you not given a choice to have her native language be spoken at the interview?

[marriedguy 34]

And why you had to attend interview ? if it was for your wife ?

Congrats

Ok I am just getting back from the Interview and it was so bad it was comical....but have hope, even a bad one can result in approval. LOL So here it goes:

We are driving down to the office and I am a bit worried because I want to be there early for the appointment. My wife tells me why are you nervous, I am not nervous, our marriage is real, relax. I am like whatever, we just need to get downtown so we can get parking and walk to the office. We get there and I send my wife through security, so be prepared for that. I got to skip it due to my work. We get to the office about 15 minutes early no problems. Around 2:20 they call us into the back. I try to engage in small talk with the interviewer, but she was a little standoffish. Hmm...not good. We get to her desk and it is a little awkward. We get sworn in and then she starts verifying the information on the application. At this point my wife started getting nervous and forgot all of her English! LOL So she asks her about the address and my wife had mumble mouth, it took for times to get some semblance of the address out. Then she got nervous about her birthday. I am thinking oh boy, this is NOT going well at all. Then we get to her kids birthday, and I made a mistake on the form and put the wrong year. A comedy of errors was ensuing. Then we get to the really tricky stuff My wife has been married twice and has two kids by two different men who she was never married to. So the interviewer was trying to pin down dates of divorce and when relationships were established. This was the most important part of the interview as I looked at the paper and it said, multiple marriages, so I knew exactly what she was going for. So to make this really bad, my wife could not remember when she got divorced, she knew the year, but not the month. At this point I had given up all hope. Then she asked about the kids father and more confusion happened. At one point she said "I can't keep track of all these men", under he breathe. I was a little irked about that and filled it in my mental Rolodex if things didn't go well. Then the wife couldn't remember the last name of her oldest kids father. I was about done at this point. No hope, denial in the future and mega lawyers fees were in my thoughts. So then she asked me a few simple questions no big deal. Then she asked about when I met her family. I could not remember which trip to DR in which I met her family! Now I am screwing up. LOL So we get passed that and I give her tons of information to show the co mingled assets. We had to do some extra paperwork for my job, so I gave her that. We gave her about 15 pictures that we had taken since she had been here as well as an article in a magazine about some volunteer work we have done. So I am waiting for the bad news and she tells us, I am approving your application. I am completly floored. We had a horrible interview and my wife forgot her english and we got approved! I was extactic. I clarified that it was approved or if we needed additional steps and she said its approved and has to be processed. I was like cool We left and my wife is complaining because the lady told her 90 days. I told her that they say 90 days to give themselves time just in case something happens. We walked 10 minutes to the car, then I forgot to get validation so I had to walk back and get the machine to punch it. When I got back to the card my wife said she got a message, she shows it to me and it says.........

New Card Is Being Produced

[zz top 14]

What a story! Congrats!

[M&R<3 10]

Congratulations to the two brave soldiers who won the ultimate battle today.

[divalocs 8]

Congratulations!!!

[cheesecake_A+J 7]

"Then she asked about when I met her family. I could not remember which trip to DR in which I met her family! Now I am screwing up. LOL"

~Haha! Congratulations! Funny story. You two were very natural. Officers have probably seen lots of funny stories of nervous people being interviewed.

[Craigmcd24 0]

Glad it worked out and you got approved!! I think it's natural for anyone to be nervous at these interviews, I am so nervous about mine and it's months away.

[Khev 5]

why was the interview conducted in English? Were you not given a choice to have her native language be spoken at the interview?

Well I had "thought" her English was good enough, however, when she got nervous she forgot it all. Otherwise we were supposed to bring our own translator with us, which would have cost us money. I was being cheap. LOL The interviewer did us a solid and spoke to her in Spanish when she didn't have to. She could have kicked us back for that. As far as why I was there it specifically said in the paperwork that if the the LPR is based off family (K1 Visa) then the spouse has to be there. That is why I was at her interview.

Overall I feel really good about the process. I used Visa Journey to do all of the paperwork to get her the K2 Visa and now her Green Card. Without this resource I am not sure I would have been able to successfully navigate this whole process. Saved myself a TON of money in lawyer fees that really are not necessary

My advice, follow the guides to the letter. Check and Double check. No RFE's. Copy everything you will need it. Don't be to scared about the process and yes the waiting SUCKS! That's probably the hardest part of the process. Go to the interview and relax. They are not trying to sharpshoot you. All of the questions that were asked were normal, nothing sneaky. Yes we screwed up some things, but it obviously was ok. Go be yourselves in there. Each couple has their own quirks. We didn't practice when we went in there.