AOS sucess in Detroit

chiggins · March 24, 2006

Well yesterday my wife and I had our AOS interview in Detroit - and I have to admit it was the most anti-climactic experience of my life.

Our appointment was scheduled for 2pm, and we arrived around 1.30 to find the parking lot completely full, so we got suckered into paying $5 to park in a rather shady parking lot across the street. We went through security and put my interview letter in the tray and waited. About 2 hours later, the standing room only waiting room had fizzled down to maybe a dozen people, so we were getting a little worried that they had forgotten us. My name finally got called by who possibly could be the friendliest officer we've ever come across. He walked us to his cubicle, swore us in and asked us to have a seat. He then confirmed that it was me, and asked for my passport. He confirmed my date of birth, my address and where I was from. He then took the I-94 out of my passport, and asked what my last POE was. I'm guessing their records showed it as Minneapolis from my K-1, but he knew I had used AP since then, and asked if he could have a copy of the AP document, which I gave him.

He then said that myt vaccination records were not with the application and asked if I had the supplement, which I did. He commented that he was glad I had it, as he didn't want to hold the case up any longer. He then asked my wife for her ID, and complimented her on the good picture. He went on to ask me the standard "are you a terrorist" questions from the I-485 application, and then asked to see a few documents that showed that we lived together. I pulled out our 2005 joint taxes, and 2 bank statements. That was all he wanted. No pictures, nothing. He also asked for my co-sponsors 2004 taxes, and 2005 if we had them (which we didn't, but we had W-2s which seemed to satisfy him). Our new affidavits, which we went to so much trouble to get, were never asked for lol.

And that was pretty much it! He said he is approving the case. He never asked any questions about how we met or anything. There was a little small-talk in there regarding what kind of career I was looking to get into and what-not, but it seemed like he was aware that they had screwed up the application previously, and seemed genuinly interested in working it out for us. He then explained the process of lifting conditions and applying for citizenship, and asked us to sign a form saying that he had explained it, and gave us a copy. Then he stamped my passport (to my surprise) and said the green card should arrive in a few weeks!

And that was it! Almost 2 years of stress and worry for 10 minutes of chit-chat! Maybe now we can move out of a basement and get on with our lives!

A big thank you to all of you on this forum that have helped me with this over the last few years, and good luck to all of you still on your "visa journey"!

Edited March 24, 2006 by chiggins