EB2 Consular Interview questions

[karan1981 3]

Hi,

We (my wife & me) have consular interview scheduled in New Delhi, India for next month. This is for EB2 category and is for immigrant visa.

Is anyone aware of the possible questions that may be asked in the interview.

Any inputs will be appreciated.

Regards,
Karan

[arnab221 29]

DO not wish to Hijack the thread but had the exact similar question as OP.

I have my consular interview scheduled on 30th Dec 2016 at Mumbai Consulate in EB2 category. I do not live in the US and donot work for the sponsoring employer either . I am based out of India for the past 6 years. (So no W2s) . I have W2's from prior to 2011 when I was in US. I have valid Income tax returns from 2011 to 2016 as per Indian Govt norms.

I was concerned , if the fact that I do not work in US currently on an H1B/L1 (unlike the overwhelming majority) and hence do not have W2 will be a concern ? Barring this I have all the documents that have been specified for the interview. These documents obviously been vetted by the NVC in the documentation phase and cleared before the interview was scheduled.

Also I do not and have never in the past worked for the Immigrant visa sponsor employer. The work that I do now for my employer is very every similar to the role I am being hired for.

Can someone provide their experience during the consular interview.

DO not wish to Hijack the thread but had the exact similar question as OP.

I have my consular interview scheduled on 30th Dec 2016 at Mumbai Consulate in EB2 category. I do not live in the US and donot work for the sponsoring employer either . I am based out of India for the past 6 years. (So no W2s) . I have W2's from prior to 2011 when I was in US. I have valid Income tax returns from 2011 to 2016 as per Indian Govt norms.

I was concerned , if the fact that I do not work in US currently on an H1B/L1 (unlike the overwhelming majority) and hence do not have W2 will be a concern ? Barring this I have all the documents that have been specified for the interview. These documents obviously been vetted by the NVC in the documentation phase and cleared before the interview was scheduled.

Also I do not and have never in the past worked for the Immigrant visa sponsor employer. The work that I do now for my employer is very every similar to the role I am being hired for.

Can someone provide their experience during the consular interview.

[karan1981 3]

Arnab,

Look like we have the same background. I have also been living in India for 5-6 yrs and now am scheduled for the interview next month. Let me know if you get to know any interview questions that might be asked.

Regards

[arnab221 29]

Karan ,

What date is your interview ? Looks like you would go before me. From what I have heard it should be relatively easy. Most appplicants typically come down from the US( H1B's mostly) and are asked questions on US stay and work details there. If one is working in India such questions would be moot anyways.

What have you heard from the ecosystem ?

Do you mind sharing your cell# with me. Lets keep in touch over phone and discuss.

- Arnab

[amsid_usa 13]

Here is something a wpnder

This is from a wonderful fellow vj member:

Questions asked:

What visa did you have while in US?

Did you first meet your husband in DC?

When did you first see each other?

Were you/he married before? Do you have any children? Does he have children?

How many times has your husband visited your home country?

Did you get married in DC? How many people attended? Did you also celebrate in Slovenia?

How did he come to the US - What was his immigration status? When did he become citizen?

What does he do? Who is the employer?

What did you study? Where? Where did you work?

Did you live anywhere else except Slovenia and the US?

Did you meet his parents?

Talked her into checking wedding photos.

What is your mom's name and where were you born.

Do you already have a job in DC? When are you planning to leave?

Everything was more like a conversation not interview.

When she finished with questions, she said all documents look OK, so does medical exam. I hoped to hear Congrats, you've been approved, but instead, she proceeded to explain that they will contact me in about 7 days (via email) to let me know when I can come pick up passport. She explained a couple more things regarding the (conditional) green card. So overall, it was a pleasant experience.

The status on CEAC website still says Ready, just like it did before the interview. Hopefully it changes to Issued soon and I can pick up passport with visa in it. It seems more difficult to wait now at the end of the process

[arnab221 29]

Thanks aghaaz0719, This seems like a marriage based interview. We are primarily interested in Employment based interviews only.

[bk123 9]

On 11/28/2016 at 8:01 AM, arnab221 said:

Thanks aghaaz0719, This seems like a marriage based interview. We are primarily interested in Employment based interviews only.

Hi Karan,

 

Any update? How did it go?

[karan1981 3]

Hi,

 

It all went well, and we were granted visa.

Following are some of the questions:

- Who is you employer?

- How long have you been working for?

- Would you go and work for same company?

- Why did your employer file your GC?

- Where are you living now?

- To my wife: Are you working, which company?

- How long have you been married?

- Any photographs?

- Where was your marriage, how many people attended the marriage.

- How old is your kid?

 

 Thats it, pretty straight forward.

 

Best of luck to others.

 

Regards

 

[geemummy 3]

On Friday, November 25, 2016 at 5:39 PM, arnab221 said:

Karan ,

What date is your interview ? Looks like you would go before me. From what I have heard it should be relatively easy. Most appplicants typically come down from the US( H1B's mostly) and are asked questions on US stay and work details there. If one is working in India such questions would be moot anyways.

What have you heard from the ecosystem ?

Do you mind sharing your cell# with me. Lets keep in touch over phone and discuss.

- Arnab

Hello Arnab,

How did your interview go? Pls could you share the questions you were asked? Thanks

[arnab221 29]

On 1/23/2017 at 2:13 PM, geemummy said:

Hello Arnab,

How did your interview go? Pls could you share the questions you were asked? Thanks

Hi , 

 

We were approved , below is my experience for EB consular processing. 

 

We were up and early at the Mumbai Consulate General Bandra Kurla Complex(BKC) on a balmy 30th December 2016. Ushered in quickly through to the immigrant visa section.The number of people were much less than I had expected. The Non-immigrant sections was flooding in with hundreds of people even as the immigrant section was seeing only around 20 people at most and almost all appeared family immigrants. I saw newly married wives convincing the consular officers in what appeared like a newly put on American accent on how much they knew their husband and how much they loved them. ?  ?  ?  Then there were also many elderly couples and large families who were looking to immigrate. 

We were issued tokens by the greeters and our first stop was an Indian consular officer who brought our NVC file out of the cabinet.He returned some unnecessary filed paperwork(remember Name spelling and Priority date change paperwork??) from my file back to us. He asked us for my originals and quickly returned them after verification. He then tore open the teal colored medical envelope/s, looked at reports and placed them in the file.The X-ray CD's were not required and hence I left them at home.Consulates do not allow CD's anyways. He retained the original police clearance , and the original copy of the new one month validity employment letter and put it in the file and asked us to go back to the waiting area.We waited and watched as all members of some families were grilled one by one for over 25+ minutes by consular officers in the adjacent windows. 

Around 15 minutes later our number flashed in the interview booth and the interviewer was a beautiful young American lady. She quickly looked at my file first and asked the below questions.

1. Who is calling you ? 
2. What do you do now and where ? 
3. Tell me about your previous US trips ?
4. Where do you intend to land in the US ? 

My interview was done in 4-5 minutes of which most of it was her looking through the file and typing. She also mechanically validated the dates of the employment letter(1 month) and police clearance (1 year) and circled them off in ink. 

She closed my file and then opened my wife's file. My wife too had US travels from her organization which were independent of mine. She was asked the below questions.

1. How did you meet your husband ? 
2. When did you get married ? 
3. How many people came to your marriage ?
4. What do you do in India ?
5. What business did you have when you traveled to US ? 

She was looking at the monitor and was mechanically entering stuff while asking questions. She then looked at me and gave me a small piece of paper asking me to sign it . It stated in a few lines of text that I promised to work for the employer who sponsored my visa. She then said "Sir, your visas are approved, have a nice day" while giving me the below paper. Process took 10 minutes at most. Very light questioning when compared to grilling that family and marriage immigrants were receiving.   

 

 

[geemummy 3]

1 hour ago, arnab221 said:

Hi , 

 

We were appro. ved , below is my experience for EB consular processing. 

 

We were up and early at the Mumbai Consulate General Bandra Kurla Complex(BKC) on a balmy 30th December 2016. Ushered in quickly through to the immigrant visa section.The number of people were much less than I had expected. The Non-immigrant sections was flooding in with hundreds of people even as the immigrant section was seeing only around 20 people at most and almost all appeared family immigrants. I saw newly married wives convincing the consular officers in what appeared like a newly put on American accent on how much they knew their husband and how much they loved them. ?  ?  ?  Then there were also many elderly couples and large families who were looking to immigrate. 

We were issued tokens by the greeters and our first stop was an Indian consular officer who brought our NVC file out of the cabinet.He returned some unnecessary filed paperwork(remember Name spelling and Priority date change paperwork??) from my file back to us. He asked us for my originals and quickly returned them after verification. He then tore open the teal colored medical envelope/s, looked at reports and placed them in the file.The X-ray CD's were not required and hence I left them at home.Consulates do not allow CD's anyways. He retained the original police clearance , and the original copy of the new one month validity employment letter and put it in the file and asked us to go back to the waiting area.We waited and watched as all members of some families were grilled one by one for over 25+ minutes by consular officers in the adjacent windows. 

Around 15 minutes later our number flashed in the interview booth and the interviewer was a beautiful young American lady. She quickly looked at my file first and asked the below questions.

1. Who is calling you ? 
2. What do you do now and where ? 
3. Tell me about your previous US trips ?
4. Where do you intend to land in the US ? 

My interview was done in 4-5 minutes of which most of it was her looking through the file and typing. She also mechanically validated the dates of the employment letter(1 month) and police clearance (1 year) and circled them off in ink. 

She closed my file and then opened my wife's file. My wife too had US travels from her organization which were independent of mine. She was asked the below questions.

1. How did you meet your husband ? 
2. When did you get married ? 
3. How many people came to your marriage ?
4. What do you do in India ?
5. What business did you have when you traveled to US ? 

She was looking at the monitor and was mechanically entering stuff while asking questions. She then looked at me and gave me a small piece of paper asking me to sign it . It stated in a few lines of text that I promised to work for the employer who sponsored my visa. She then said "Sir, your visas are approved, have a nice day" while giving me the below paper. Process took 10 minutes at most. Very light questioning when compared to grilling that family and marriage immigrants were receiving.   

 

 

Lol ...

Thank you so much....very insightful, detailed and delightful to read..

Thank you once again.

[bk123 9]

On 2/6/2017 at 5:33 PM, arnab221 said:

Hi , 

 

We were approved , below is my experience for EB consular processing. 

 

We were up and early at the Mumbai Consulate General Bandra Kurla Complex(BKC) on a balmy 30th December 2016. Ushered in quickly through to the immigrant visa section.The number of people were much less than I had expected. The Non-immigrant sections was flooding in with hundreds of people even as the immigrant section was seeing only around 20 people at most and almost all appeared family immigrants. I saw newly married wives convincing the consular officers in what appeared like a newly put on American accent on how much they knew their husband and how much they loved them. ?  ?  ?  Then there were also many elderly couples and large families who were looking to immigrate. 

We were issued tokens by the greeters and our first stop was an Indian consular officer who brought our NVC file out of the cabinet.He returned some unnecessary filed paperwork(remember Name spelling and Priority date change paperwork??) from my file back to us. He asked us for my originals and quickly returned them after verification. He then tore open the teal colored medical envelope/s, looked at reports and placed them in the file.The X-ray CD's were not required and hence I left them at home.Consulates do not allow CD's anyways. He retained the original police clearance , and the original copy of the new one month validity employment letter and put it in the file and asked us to go back to the waiting area.We waited and watched as all members of some families were grilled one by one for over 25+ minutes by consular officers in the adjacent windows. 

Around 15 minutes later our number flashed in the interview booth and the interviewer was a beautiful young American lady. She quickly looked at my file first and asked the below questions.

1. Who is calling you ? 
2. What do you do now and where ? 
3. Tell me about your previous US trips ?
4. Where do you intend to land in the US ? 

My interview was done in 4-5 minutes of which most of it was her looking through the file and typing. She also mechanically validated the dates of the employment letter(1 month) and police clearance (1 year) and circled them off in ink. 

She closed my file and then opened my wife's file. My wife too had US travels from her organization which were independent of mine. She was asked the below questions.

1. How did you meet your husband ? 
2. When did you get married ? 
3. How many people came to your marriage ?
4. What do you do in India ?
5. What business did you have when you traveled to US ? 

She was looking at the monitor and was mechanically entering stuff while asking questions. She then looked at me and gave me a small piece of paper asking me to sign it . It stated in a few lines of text that I promised to work for the employer who sponsored my visa. She then said "Sir, your visas are approved, have a nice day" while giving me the below paper. Process took 10 minutes at most. Very light questioning when compared to grilling that family and marriage immigrants were receiving.   

 

 

 

On 1/12/2017 at 7:13 AM, karan1981 said:

Hi,

 

It all went well, and we were granted visa.

Following are some of the questions:

- Who is you employer?

- How long have you been working for?

- Would you go and work for same company?

- Why did your employer file your GC?

- Where are you living now?

- To my wife: Are you working, which company?

- How long have you been married?

- Any photographs?

- Where was your marriage, how many people attended the marriage.

- How old is your kid?

 

 Thats it, pretty straight forward.

 

Best of luck to others.

 

Regards

 

Thanks Karan, but I find it strange that they asked for marriage photographs in an employment based interview..!! Did you guys marriage photos along?