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| Argentina |  Review on October 31, 2012: |
rzay
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
I submitted a K-1 application on behalf of my fiance back in March, but unfortunately it got routed to VSC where it sat until the end of September. Luckily, once we got the USCIS approval, everything went pretty fast, and we got an interview date from the embassy very quickly. We had packet III ready to send the moment we got the email from the embassy that they had received our application. Less than a week later, they sent us an email with an interview date, which was only a week and a half out.
Once we got the interview date, I decided to fly out to Buenos Aires to accompany my fiance to the interview. This isn't necessary, but I just felt better about it, thinking that just in case something were not to go as planned, I'd kick myself if I wasn't there.
We had our interview today, and it was pretty much exactly as described in other reviews. We arrived about 15-20 minutes ahead of schedule for our 9am appointment, went straight to window 1 where they took his name and handed us the green envelope. Then my fiance gave his fingerprints, and we entered the embassy. One of the guards was confused and tried to direct us into the tourist line, but we knew better and told him that wasn't right. He checked with someone else and then let us in to the embassy.
Once inside we took a seat along the wall and were called into room 5. A woman with a thick Russian accent told us that this was not the interview, and then asked us for our forms - the DS 230 and the DS 156, but not the others. She had a piece of paper listing everything that we had sent in advance, and noted that we had sent a lot of proof in advance and didn't need anymore. She also took a copy of the I-134, the form only, not any of the backup.
We then went to window 12 where we had to pay the fee. Although the form says $350, the fee was actually $240 - I'm not sure if the price went down recently. We were told we can pay in CASH ONLY (I'm noting this because I tried to find the answer in advance and couldn't) and in one currency or another, i.e. all dollars or all pesos. We paid in pesos.
Then we went back to our seats and waited for our names to be called. There seemed to be about 4 other K1 applicants waiting, and we were third to be called. Each interview seemed to take about 10 minutes, although ours seemed shorter, not sure if that was our imagination or if it was because we were together.
When we were called, we went back into room 5, where a very nice consular employee interviewed us. She asked if we wanted the interview in English or Spanish, and we said Spanish since my fiance doesn't really speak English (yet). Since I'm from New York, she asked if my family was OK, since hurricane Sandy just hit last night. Then she said something along the lines of, OK, tell me about how you met, the proposal, the ring, etc. My fiance started telling her about how we met and when/where he asked me to marry him. She typed some things in her computer, didn't really ask any follow up questions, and then said, "todo esta bien, la visa esta aprobada."
Then she handed us a piece of paper with instructions on how to select a DHL pickup location online. Basically, you go online, create an account, select a location, and then email the embassy a scanned copy of the page with your information and selected location. We did that earlier today.
We were at the embassy in total about 2 hours, mostly because of the long wait to get called for the interview. Everything else went very quickly.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #10767