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| France |  Review on September 12, 2012: |
KatPebbles
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
Hi all
here's a piece of our experience ;-)
we arrived at the US embassy around 12.15PM however they didn't let us in until 12.45PM. The guards were all pretty friendly but then most of them were portuguese :-D. No surprise there!
We got the number A111 and were the first couple to go in.
They started a little later than 1PM. We were first called to window 2 to give in our Interview letter and the passport. Then we waited until a little after 2PM and were called to window 11 to exchange any documents we wanted, give the chronopost envelope and the medical results. The woman at the window was pretty cheerful and spoke brazilian to me even though I said english would be fine. Hint on the chronopost envelope: does not fit with the padding so remove it prior to go to the window and you can also fill in your address and name so it saves some time. Besides if you write the info at home you will be sure you haven't made any mistakes. There with all the stress one never knows.
I also did the fingerprints and gave her some new photographs in the US format.
Anyway, that was done so we went back to our seats. It took sometime till they called us for the interview but not more than half an hour after we left window 11.
we were called to window 10 and a fairly young woman was at that window. I guess she must be the vice consul or something like that?! She had our huge file and first thing she requested was for me to confirm my fingerprints... I guess she was confirming that I was me :-)
She seemed very nice and friendly at first... to start, we had a little mishap with the wall phone because I picked it up to talk to her but she did not want me to use it. She said we would talk through the glass, so Jeff could hear the questions and my answers (even though he was not supposed to say one single word!)... Fair enough, I thought and thoughtful!
Then she went into robot mode and start asking all the questions:
What does your husband do? what are his ties to the US? What are his plans when you both enter the US?
then se tried to trick me a little by asking some stuff from the I864 such as what was the company mentioned there, and what is Jeff's title. How much does Jeff make per year... etc etc
I was pretty well prepared for these questions. We knew that our only Achilles's heel was the fact that we live together abroad hence our salaries do not count as income for the I864. So we used only assets and even though we were quite comfortably above the requirement it was still worrying.
So all the questions were related to the I864 except for one picture she showed me and asked for me to identify each person (vey easy since it were my parents, Jeff and I). And that was pretty much it. Quite fast I might add, perhaps 10 min?!
The only annoying thing was the fact that sometimes her microphone would cut off so I could't hear her very well, and of course I had my face almost glued to the window so I wouldn't have to shout my answers at her.
Then she closed the file, turned off her robotic mode, and with a huge smile on her face said "Congratulations! You are Approved! I cannot see anything wrong with your application!"
we celebrated a little in front of the window, then realized how silly we were being and behaved again. We said thank you and walked away. Not even five seconds later she called me back because she forgot to give me the second part of the DS230 to sign... I'm glad she did remember at some point!! If she wouldn't I would probably have to go back to do it.
And by 3PM, more or less, we where out of the embassy with a mix of shocked and happy smiles all over our faces. :-D
We were only able to track our chronopost yesterday, 7 days after the interview. I think this resulted from the fact that last thursday was a holiday and most people took both Thursday and Friday off.
I am now waiting for it to be delivered... hopefully sooner than later in the morning.
Best of luck to all of you!
Regards
(updated on November 7, 2012)
(updated on November 7, 2012)
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #10380