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|  Review on September 30, 2012: |
Juntos Esperamos
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
I called NVC on Aug. 10 to see if they had any idea for an interview date, to which they replied, "There are no more dates for September, so it will most likely be in October." On Aug. 14 at 2am, as I was headed to the airport for a visit in Cuba with my husband, I received an email stating our interview would be Sept. 14. Too late to change my plans. So, I made 2 flights in a month's time because I wanted to be there for the interview.
Our appointment was scheduled for 8am. The letter said to arrive at the building for the 8am time. Nothing more regarding arrival time or location. However, through this site and some other people I know who have gone through the interview process, we knew we had to be there earlier and at a different location. The day before we took a walk to the U.S. Interests Section to look around. My husband asked the Cuban officials guarding the building if we could cross the street and speak to them. When we asked them about arrival time, etc, they said to be there no later than 6:30am and to meet in the little park down the street.
We arrived at 6am, in the dark, and there were already people there waiting. Fyi...there are a few benches but prepare to stand for a while. At 6:40am, 2 officials walked down to the park and called us all together. They explained what would take place that day and then called out the applicants' names and took their carnets and assigned them a number. My husband handed them my passport and they told him I could enter the embassy right away or at anytime if I wanted, which I didn't. We were then asked to line up in the order of our numbers. However, we went back to our spots in the park for a bit and didn't line up until we saw officials coming down the street with clipboards around 7:45am. At that time, they checked out names/numbers and then began to walk down the street to the embassy. We had to pass through a checkpoint where the carnets were returned. They checked my passport again here. Next we walked up to a guard standing outside the fence and he checked off our names again. We then went into a small security booth where they had us take off phones, belts, anything metal, and searched our belongings very thoroughly. We then walked through a metal detector. My husband's belt was returned along with our backpack full of our documents, etc. They gave us a ticket to bring back to pick up our cell phones. We were then sent to one of two small cement, bunker-type buildings to start the first phase of the interview.
In this building, were a row of chairs to wait in until the woman moved us along. There were about 5 windows (security glass, with a speaker and a small area to pass documents through). Once at the window, my husband was asked for his medical exam document, criminal record, and birth certificate. He reminded them they already had the last 2 documents and they found them. They asked a couple simple questions about the documents and gave him a small red ticket with a number on it. We were then told to take a seat again untl the number was called. Once the number was called, he went up to another window and was fingerprinted. When finished, we were sent outside to stand by another door and told someone would be out to get us.
Another security guard came out and escorted us in. The whole security process was repeated again...belts, metal objects, search the backpack (she looked through all of our sections in our document folder), and through another metal detector. Once we were both passed through, the guard escorted us into the interview waiting room. In this room, the guard announced "matrimonio," which told them I was allowed to stay. This room was full of wood chairs lined up in rows. All around the room were walk-up interview windows that were numbered and a couple that were offices. The applicants were called by random number because we were given random numbers in the previous bunker building. So, we never knew when it would be our turn. The interview windows were like the windows in the other building except there was a small glass type enclosure around it, but the waiting people could hear everything asked. A little strange. We ended up being next to last to be interviewed.
My husband was called into the number that was an office with 2 chairs. He handed the woman my passport and told her I was there waiting. I heard her tell him thank you but she didn't want to speak to me. She proceeded to ask him (in Spanish) an extensive amount of questions about our relationship, how we met, how many times I'd been there, what he knew about my family, how we communicate (phone, email, internet) and then she looked at our phone records and email records, our cards from family and friends, and looked at nearly all 100+photos, asking questions about people in the photos and where we were at the time they were taken. She asked him his plans for the future as well. Then she asked him to bring me in.
The agent asked me basically all the same questions, but in English. She then had him raise his hand and take an oath that what he had said was true. She then handed him a white ticket and said, "You should hear from us in about 2 weeks. I don't make these decisions." We about died! So I asked her what she meant, that we thought the decisions on visas were always made that day. She then said, "Oh my, I didn't mean that. I'm talking about the papers he filled out with information for his family members, the parolees. Decisions about them, whether they could ever apply for the future, is what is decided upon by the others." She still didn't say anything about his visa. I then had to ask if he was approved and she said, "Oh yes. He should return on the 24th with that white ticket after 1pm and he can pick up his passport with the visa in it and his documents." OMG...how nervewracking! Of course, my husband asked me for the next 24 hours if he was really approved because he didn't ever hear her say Yes.
He did return on the 24th and the visa was ready and waiting along with his document pack to bring with him to the U.S. POE. And now the wait for Cuba to release him....Hopefully one more month and we are together.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #10526