Interview Review - Rio

[yasffc 0]

INTERVIEW:

 

My interview was scheduled for 7:30. I got there at 6:15 and was the second person in line. There are two lines, one is huge and is for the tourist visa. Across that one, there's the immigrant visa line which is much shorter. We were let in at 7AM and taken up some stairs. In that room, a lady gave us a paper instructing us to organize the documents in a certain way and also a contact sheet that we had to fill out with our case number, Brazilian address, US address, and applicant and petitioner email. Some people already had that paper filled out, but I hadn't seen it anywhere prior to my interview so if you don't have it it's not a problem at all. One thing that was interesting is that the lady told me the picture was optional, even though it did not say that on the website.

 

After organizing my documents in the specific order they wanted, I went back to the same lady and she made sure everything was in order. Then, she told me to sit in the front row chair and wait to be called. Maybe 15 minutes later I was called by an agent behind those windows, she checked my documents again and asked a few very basic questions (my full name, if I ever lived somewhere before, etc.). She returned some documents to me and placed the other ones inside a folder and gave it back to me and told me to sit back down and wait to be called for the interview (everyone in the room can hear your conversation with the interviewers since it's so close to the chairs and they don't have doors).

 

Maybe 15 minutes later, an American agent called me up to another window for the interview. The interview itself was pretty straightforward, you take an oath and they ask a few questions. For me, they asked how I met my husband, how long I was there for (I was living there for 4 years before I returned to finish the process), and some questions regarding a problem I had with my advance parole. The whole interview was maybe 10 minutes long and, even though the interviewer was clearly American ( he had a thick accent), he decided to do the whole thing was in Portuguese, even though I'm fluent. He told me I was approved and that my passport would be delivered to me in the way I selected online. And that was it! I was out of there by 8:00AM so the process was super fast and efficient.  Everyone was super nice and entire thing was done in Portuguese.

 

A couple of comments: 1. I think it's definitely worth it to get there ahead of time. They did not call people based on their interview time, it was first come first serve and I was in and out in one hour. 2. TRIPLE CHECK your documents. People were being turned away for not having the original documents and also the appropriate police certificates. I'd be happy to answer any questions and good luck!!