AOS Interview - what does "Fluent in English" mean exactly?

[N-o-l-a 7,167]

I agree with the translator if you already think you might be a position that you'll be needing to explain questions to her.

 

As to fluency - I think of my husband, who speaks just as a native would in speed, grammar use, and language choice.  There is pretty much no standard use word you could throw at him that he wouldn't know and never has difficulty understanding English.  He just still has an accent.   

 

His English level was what I would call advanced at his first interview and that was fine.  I would have worried if it was conversational.

[mallafri76 1,012]

Fluent means being able to maintain a conversation. If you're having to repeat and explain things to your wife when you're having a normal conversation at home, it's probably wise to schedule an interpreter for the interview as the added pressure and nervousness will probably make English even harder for her. 

[Bryan and An 23]

1 minute ago, mallafri76 said:

Fluent means being able to maintain a conversation. If you're having to repeat and explain things to your wife when you're having a normal conversation at home, it's probably wise to schedule an interpreter for the interview as the added pressure and nervousness will probably make English even harder for her. 

You (and others) are probably right, and hiring an interpreter is most likely the way we'll go just to err on the side of caution, but I'm wondering if I overstated (or over-implied) what I said about having to repeat and explain things to her. This happens maybe 2-3 times per day, when we're together all day. She has had no problem with the practice questions I have thrown at her. Still, not what I would call "fluent" per se, and for my peace of mind I'll probably hire someone (and just deal with her later when we didn't need it and thus "wasted money") 

[useful89 692]

3 hours ago, Bryan and An said:

Wow - was your interview in St. Louis? That's where ours is. Was their anything about your situation that would cause them to doubt the validity, or is that pretty standard? I've read some say that the interview was a piece of cake, and others say it was very difficult. Guess a lot of it depends on the interviewer?

 

Side note, I honestly don't even know how we would find an interpreter. We don't know anybody personally who could do it - none of her Vietnamese friends here speak English as well as she does. I've tried Google but can't come up with anything for Vietnamese-English interpreter in the St. Louis area. I'm sure we could find a professional one in Chicago, but I imagine it would cost a fortune in travel expenses to fly them here to do it. 

Do any of her Vietnamese friends have adult-aged children fluent in both?

[Sukie 1,459]

5 hours ago, Bryan and An said:

Wow - was your interview in St. Louis? That's where ours is. Was their anything about your situation that would cause them to doubt the validity, or is that pretty standard? I've read some say that the interview was a piece of cake, and others say it was very difficult. Guess a lot of it depends on the interviewer?

 

Side note, I honestly don't even know how we would find an interpreter. We don't know anybody personally who could do it - none of her Vietnamese friends here speak English as well as she does. I've tried Google but can't come up with anything for Vietnamese-English interpreter in the St. Louis area. I'm sure we could find a professional one in Chicago, but I imagine it would cost a fortune in travel expenses to fly them here to do it. 

If you are in St. Louis, call the Head of the Language Department at Washington University, or any other colleges or universities in your area.  Or check either at your local police station or the biggest hospital in town and ask them what THEY would do if they needed someone to interpret.

 

Do try to convince your spouse that an interpreter would be a lovely piece of insurance.  This is one place where you really do NOT want to mess up.  Frugal or not, insurance costs money, and this is a good time to have it!

 

Best of luck!

 

Sukie in NY

[Will_and_Tu 46]

How did this play out?

[Bryan and An 23]

On 10/4/2017 at 7:45 AM, Will_and_Tu said:

How did this play out?

Hi, sorry I haven't been keeping up with the board as much lately

 

We contacted the agency that someone suggested...Indy Translations I think it was. Their website bragged about quotes in "2-3 hours," but it took days and days and multiple contacts to hear anything from them. Finally, despite supposedly having a branch in St. Louis, they said they were unable to find a Vietnamese-English interpreter for that day. All the while, An had been insisting that we didn't need one, and that it wouldn't be any problem. I finally agreed with her, figuring that she was probably right, and even if there was an issue, we would at least get another interview as opposed to an outright rejection or anything. 

 

The day of the interview, we arrived a little bit early, stuck our interview letter in this slot where they told us to, and sat down to wait. Someone called us back literally the minute of our appointment time. I had assumed we would be at one of the interview windows, of which they had several (like our visa interview in Vietnam), but he called us down a hall and into his office. The interview was way more casual and laid back than I could have imagined. He saw that we had several manila envelopes labeled "Copy of entire I-485 packet," "Original copies of all documents," "Additional copies of all documents," "Evidence of relationship," and a few others. He said all he really needed to see was the one labeled "evidence of relationship." I showed him what we had: Joint bank account, joint savings account, An as the beneficiary on my retirement plan, An on my employer-issued health insurance, her state ID which shows our address, and a number of medical bills and other things that had been mailed to her at our address. He asked us to put the stuff he could keep in one stack and the stuff we needed to keep back in the envelope. We also showed him our wedding album, photos from when me, my parents, and my brother went to Vietnam for an engagement party and to bring An here, and other random photos of her 5 months in America. He only asked her a few questions: her address, I don't even remember what else. Very little. How did we meet...when did we first meet in person...what made us decide to take the leap and get married. He did have to repeat himself a couple of times so that she fully understood, but he was very patient and seemed not to be in a hurry at all. 

 

At the end, he gave us a letter explaining the "outcome"...basically, it said that they had everything they needed, but if they should discover that they needed anything else, they would send us a notice. He said he had to review the evidence, and that we could expect a decision within 90 days...normally it's 30 days, but something about the fiscal year, delays, yada yada yada. I was feeling pretty discouraged about waiting that long for a decision, but then at the end, he said, "but in this case, I wouldn't be surprised if you get your result by the end of the day." I was thinking, oh...that's good...I think? Then he asked what our plans were for the day, and we said we were hoping to go out for dinner with my parents if we got good news, and he said, "Well I would say that you have every reason to celebrate." We thanked him and left. All in all, I think we were there for maybe 40 or 45 minutes...it was extremely relaxed and low-pressure the whole time. He would be typing periodically as we were answering questions or showing evidence. 

 

An was pretty disappointed when we left, because she just couldn't understand why we hadn't been approved even though our case was so strong. I told her maybe that's just how they do things - they don't make a decision right away, but want to double check the evidence and everything after we leave. I assured her that every indication he gave was that we would be approved. 

 

When we got home, I checked the case number online, and it said "New card is being produced"! I called An in to see...and she looked at it for a minute before astutely pointing out that I had accidentally entered the EAD case number (which we had been waiting nearly 120 days for, but had stopped caring once we got the interview date). So that was kind of cool anyway...then, as we kept periodically checking (about every 5 minutes, actually), we saw "New card is being produced," and we double checked about 10 times to make sure we had actually entered the AOS number. At that point, we were both relieved and ecstatic. 

 

Due to the EAD being approved an hour before the AOS was approved, she received both cards in the mail...on the same day. This turned out to be very useful, because when we took the green card to the SS office to change her name (this was another issue that we had made a post about...her first and middle names being switched when she came to America, due to the order being reversed on all Vietnam documents), they said they could do it, but would need a second form of ID showing the new name order. We whipped out the EAD, she checked her computer to see if that would work as a second document, and said, "Bingo! That will do it." Once she got her new SS card in the mail just a few days later, we took that, her green card, her expired state ID (which had expired the date her I-94 expired), and a power bill with her name on it to the DMV and renewed her state ID. She also took the written test and received her driving  permit. Now, with a little more practice, she'll be taking her driver's license test very soon! 

 

One last footnote...and maybe this thread isn't the best place to put all of these different things, but oh well...another concern we had (and had made yet another post about) was that when she got her vaccinations in Vietnam, she didn't get Tdap because it was marked as "Not Routinely Available." This surprised me, given that so many immigrants must go through HCMC where she got the shots. Anyway, her DS-3025 was marked "Complete - blanket waiver requested," but I still worried because I know Tdap is a required vaccination...I figured just because it wasn't available in Vietnam wouldn't mean she could get by with not getting it once she got here. Getting it is no problem, it's free with our insurance (and she has gotten it), but I worried about having to deal with a civil surgeon and whatever they would try to tell me she needed to do and what that would all cost. We considered whether we should take care of all of that before we even applied for the green card, and when we asked in our post, most people said that since it's required, you're probably not going to get by without an RFE...but a couple of people said it couldn't hurt to go ahead and send it in and just deal with an RFE if it came, and that's what we decided to do. An RFE never came. I have read about RFEs even at the interview, and sometimes for this very thing - in fact, a review of the exact same office (St. Louis) said they were given one at the interview because of not having the Tdap vaccine. So I brought extra copies of her DS-3025, along with the paperwork from her TDAP vaccine, to the interview, in case I had to try to convince the officer to just accept that as evidence or to start calling civil surgeons from the parking lot immediately after the interview to get an I-693 transcribed right away. Thankfully, none of that was necessary. 

 

Anyway, all in all a wonderful experience, and thankfully no more stressing out about anything immigration-related for more than a year now. Sorry for such a long post Thanks for asking about us! 

 

Bryan

[Will_and_Tu 46]

On 10/14/2017 at 12:10 AM, Bryan and An said:

 

One last footnote...and maybe this thread isn't the best place to put all of these different things, but oh well...another concern we had (and had made yet another post about) was that when she got her vaccinations in Vietnam, she didn't get Tdap because it was marked as "Not Routinely Available." This surprised me, given that so many immigrants must go through HCMC where she got the shots. Anyway, her DS-3025 was marked "Complete - blanket waiver requested," but I still worried because I know Tdap is a required vaccination...I figured just because it wasn't available in Vietnam wouldn't mean she could get by with not getting it once she got here. Getting it is no problem, it's free with our insurance (and she has gotten it), but I worried about having to deal with a civil surgeon and whatever they would try to tell me she needed to do and what that would all cost. We considered whether we should take care of all of that before we even applied for the green card, and when we asked in our post, most people said that since it's required, you're probably not going to get by without an RFE...but a couple of people said it couldn't hurt to go ahead and send it in and just deal with an RFE if it came, and that's what we decided to do. An RFE never came. I have read about RFEs even at the interview, and sometimes for this very thing - in fact, a review of the exact same office (St. Louis) said they were given one at the interview because of not having the Tdap vaccine. So I brought extra copies of her DS-3025, along with the paperwork from her TDAP vaccine, to the interview, in case I had to try to convince the officer to just accept that as evidence or to start calling civil surgeons from the parking lot immediately after the interview to get an I-693 transcribed right away. Thankfully, none of that was necessary.

 

 

Good news all around. And the Tdap being marked as "Not Routinely Available" and the quandary of whether to risk the RFE or not is 100% exactly the same situation we were in. We made the same choice as you, and had the same outcome. I think the fact that the document is marked as "Complete" was the only thing the reviewing officer paid attention to.