Interview Today, July 18, in Memphis - GC Approved!!

[elgringo 0]

So we had our interview today in Memphis, TN.

Its a 3.5 hr drive down there, so we left at 8 AM to get there by our appt time of 2 PM (and give us plenty of time to eat, etc.)

We got to the parking lot of the building at about 1:30 PM, and went inside and passed through security. The guards told us to go through the first door and then go into the only open door on the right. It was super easy to find. (The building is very small, much smaller than what I was expecting, but anyways....)

I went in and put our appt letter in the slot in the wall. It said something like "Put your appt letter in this slot and then wait for your name to be called." So I put it in there and we sat down.

Our appt time was scheduled for 2 PM, but at about 1:40 (after only 5 minutes or so of waiting) a rather sour-looking white-haired man that was about 55 years old or so opened the door and called my wife's name. So we went into the back with him and followed him to his office. He told us to go in but to remain standing. He then shut the door and made us raise our right hands and go through the whole "nothing-but-the-truth" bit.

Then the telephone on his desk rang. He excused himself and talked on the phone for a moment. He sounded like he was in kind of a hurry and said something like, "Yea I'll be there in a couple minutes. Yea, I'm almost finished here." etc etc.... Which I thought was a good sign, because if he was in a hurry then maybe he wouldnt ask too many questions and he would just approve us and let us go, which turned out to be the case.

Then we sat down and he introduced himself (his name was Victor Morris.) The first thing he asked for was our IDs, so we both gave him our passports. Then he asked us how we met, and we briefly explained that we met while we were both studying at the same school in Mexico. Then I guess he noticed that my wife came in on a tourist visa and he asked us our intention was to get married when she came in on that visa last October. I told him "Of course not. " And that was the end of that subject.

Then he asked my wife what our current address was and she told him, and then he asked her if it was a house and she said yes. Then he asked me if we had any photos or documentation that proved that we had an ongoing relationship, so my wife got out the 2 photo albums we brought while I looked through our paperwork. He looked at the photos from when my wife had visited the States for the past 2 years and made a few remarks about them. For example, he saw the photos from when we went to St. Louis and he asked us if we went up in the Arch and we told him yes and he said that he didnt like it because it was scary and the elevators were tiny, etc. We basically just made some small talk about the photos for 2 min or so.

Then when he was done looking at the 2 albums (he said that was "more than enough" photos ) I passed him the documentation he wanted, which basically only consisted of 3 things. (I'm still in college and dont have a "real job" yet so we dont own our own house or have health insurance or anything like that yet.) I gave him a bank statement from our bank that had the account thats in both of our names on it. It has her maiden name on it, but I just explained to him that our bank wouldnt let us put her married name on there until she had her driver's license, and we couldnt get the driver's license until she had her GC, etc, and he said that was fine. Then I showed him a copy of our car title thats in both of our names and the insurance for the car thats in both of our names, and he looked at all of that.

Then he said that everything was fine, and the the green card that she would receive in the mail in 1-2 weeks would only be for 2 years, and that we might have to come back in 2 years for another interview to get the 10 year one. I was like "Wait, so that means she's approved then?" And he said, "Yea." So I asked him if her name check had already went through and he said yea. I told him that was good because I had read online (here on VJ of course ) where some people get stuck in the name check for a long time, and he said that that does happen sometimes and people can get stuck for "years" but that that hadnt happened with my wife because her name check had already went through. Yay!

Sooooo then I asked him if we could get a stamp in her passport and he said no, but that she should have her actual GC in her hands within 2 weeks.

The weird thing was, I thought I had read on here before where people say that they take your I-94 and your EAD, but he only took my wife's I-94. He let us keep the EAD and told us to just throw it away or whatever when we get the GC, which I thought was strange, but I guess that dont take the EAD then?

So anyways, thats my story of our interview from Memphis today. I hope it helps some of you guys out. It was a looooootttt of driving for a 10 min interview. Like I said, the interview was supposed to be at 2, but we started at 1:45 and were out of there by 1:55.

It was a very painless process I must say. We got all worked up over nothing.

Cant wait for the GC to arrive in the mail now!!!

Thx VJ!

Edited July 18, 2007 by elgringo

[Silke 1]

Congratulations!! Thanks for taking the time to write about your interview experience.

[elgringo 0]

Congratulations!! Thanks for taking the time to write about your interview experience.

No problem. I pretty much self-taught myself through this whole process with the help of VJ, so I figured the least I could do was write up my experience to try and help others here.

Seems like it sometimes comes down to luck with the interviews though. I was really hoping to get a woman interviewer, because I thought that a man would ask more questions or something, but the guy we got turned out to actually be pretty nice, even though in the beginning I was a little scared since he appeared to be in a bad mood or something at first when he called our names.... But he wasnt bad at all.

[Jasman0717 9]

Nice post, thanks for sharing and congratulations

[bailey28 0]

So we had our interview today in Memphis, TN.

Its a 3.5 hr drive down there, so we left at 8 AM to get there by our appt time of 2 PM (and give us plenty of time to eat, etc.)

We got to the parking lot of the building at about 1:30 PM, and went inside and passed through security. The guards told us to go through the first door and then go into the only open door on the right. It was super easy to find. (The building is very small, much smaller than what I was expecting, but anyways....)

I went in and put our appt letter in the slot in the wall. It said something like "Put your appt letter in this slot and then wait for your name to be called." So I put it in there and we sat down.

Our appt time was scheduled for 2 PM, but at about 1:40 (after only 5 minutes or so of waiting) a rather sour-looking white-haired man that was about 55 years old or so opened the door and called my wife's name. So we went into the back with him and followed him to his office. He told us to go in but to remain standing. He then shut the door and made us raise our right hands and go through the whole "nothing-but-the-truth" bit.

Then the telephone on his desk rang. He excused himself and talked on the phone for a moment. He sounded like he was in kind of a hurry and said something like, "Yea I'll be there in a couple minutes. Yea, I'm almost finished here." etc etc.... Which I thought was a good sign, because if he was in a hurry then maybe he wouldnt ask too many questions and he would just approve us and let us go, which turned out to be the case.

Then we sat down and he introduced himself (his name was Victor Morris.) The first thing he asked for was our IDs, so we both gave him our passports. Then he asked us how we met, and we briefly explained that we met while we were both studying at the same school in Mexico. Then I guess he noticed that my wife came in on a tourist visa and he asked us our intention was to get married when she came in on that visa last October. I told him "Of course not. " And that was the end of that subject.

Then he asked my wife what our current address was and she told him, and then he asked her if it was a house and she said yes. Then he asked me if we had any photos or documentation that proved that we had an ongoing relationship, so my wife got out the 2 photo albums we brought while I looked through our paperwork. He looked at the photos from when my wife had visited the States for the past 2 years and made a few remarks about them. For example, he saw the photos from when we went to St. Louis and he asked us if we went up in the Arch and we told him yes and he said that he didnt like it because it was scary and the elevators were tiny, etc. We basically just made some small talk about the photos for 2 min or so.

Then when he was done looking at the 2 albums (he said that was "more than enough" photos ) I passed him the documentation he wanted, which basically only consisted of 3 things. (I'm still in college and dont have a "real job" yet so we dont own our own house or have health insurance or anything like that yet.) I gave him a bank statement from our bank that had the account thats in both of our names on it. It has her maiden name on it, but I just explained to him that our bank wouldnt let us put her married name on there until she had her driver's license, and we couldnt get the driver's license until she had her GC, etc, and he said that was fine. Then I showed him a copy of our car title thats in both of our names and the insurance for the car thats in both of our names, and he looked at all of that.

Then he said that everything was fine, and the the green card that she would receive in the mail in 1-2 weeks would only be for 2 years, and that we might have to come back in 2 years for another interview to get the 10 year one. I was like "Wait, so that means she's approved then?" And he said, "Yea." So I asked him if her name check had already went through and he said yea. I told him that was good because I had read online (here on VJ of course ) where some people get stuck in the name check for a long time, and he said that that does happen sometimes and people can get stuck for "years" but that that hadnt happened with my wife because her name check had already went through. Yay!

Sooooo then I asked him if we could get a stamp in her passport and he said no, but that she should have her actual GC in her hands within 2 weeks.

The weird thing was, I thought I had read on here before where people say that they take your I-94 and your EAD, but he only took my wife's I-94. He let us keep the EAD and told us to just throw it away or whatever when we get the GC, which I thought was strange, but I guess that dont take the EAD then?

So anyways, thats my story of our interview from Memphis today. I hope it helps some of you guys out. It was a looooootttt of driving for a 10 min interview. Like I said, the interview was supposed to be at 2, but we started at 1:45 and were out of there by 1:55.

It was a very painless process I must say. We got all worked up over nothing.

Cant wait for the GC to arrive in the mail now!!!

Thx VJ!

congrats

[RonMay 1]

CONGRATS!!!

[~*Maria*~ 1]

Congrats!

[Muuuuah 0]

Congratulations

[~krakatoa~ 27]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I can only wish that our AO would be easy on us.

Congrats!

[TracyTN 237]

Thanks for the good detail. If we end up with an interview, we'll be Memphis bound, so its nice to hear that it seems pretty painless.

[Leney 0]

I never get sick of hearing these wonderful stories congrats!

[SirLancelot 1]

Congrats and thanks for the detailed write-up.

Best wishes going forward in life!

[Kym 0]

It was good reading your post! I love reading when things go smoooooooooooothly!

Congratulations to you both!

[RosaMystica7 0]

Thanks for sharing, and congrats!

[cshell 0]

Congrats!! Glad that it was so easy. Since there has been so much discussion recently on the boards here about the Tb skin test - Did your wife have her skin Tb test done? Did they ask about it? Any info on the subject would be helpful - thanks

cshell