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| Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |  Review on February 12, 2013: |
spouse_visa
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
After reading many interviews on the Rio Consulate, I was very aware of the process, and had plenty of faith that it was going to be straight forward.
Indeed, it was just like that, with A COUPLE OF THINGS that I wish I had read before, because I spent a couple extra hours there, that I would not have ;-)
First of all, I flew down to Brazil, to go to the interview, even though I knew it was not needed. However, I wanted to be there with my wife.
Since she leaves in Sao Paulo, we went to Rio on the weekend, and stayed on a friend's house, which was about 45 minutes from the consulate. I read about the hotel next door, but our friend refused to let us stay on the hotel.
On the morning of her interview, we took a cab, and got to the consulate about 6:30 AM ( interview time was 7:15 AM ). We went to get some coffee, instead of going to the queue, since I read on the forum that you did not have to get there early.
WELL, that cost me 3 hours waiting later. So, if you are going to the consulate, GO TO THE QUEUE as soon as you get there, because, even though there is a separate line for the folks for immigration issues only, however, THERE IS A LINE, and since there were about 9 or 10 folks there, they were attended in front of us. The irony of it is that we got there early enough to get on the line early, but I told her not to worry, since we would go in front of everyone that is looking for visas.
So, that is lesson # 1. Get there early. The first person attended, got out at 9 AM. We left at 12:30 PM.
The second lesson was, do not bring a cell or bags. Since we were at our friends house, we left everything at her house, and afterwards, did not have our cell, and we FORGOT her number ;-) So, we had to get to facebook, and see if somebody was online ;-) and got the number later ;-) Anyways, there are folks outside that you can leave you cell with, for 5reais ;-) And bags for 10 reais ;-)
The process was straight forward. We got there, filled up a paper with some info, and waited. We were called, and they verified our documentation ( btw, I did not have to take much, since all of it was done through the process ). She took her medical report, and photos, and her ears were not appearing, so we got a scare, but they approved her pixs ;-) She had the finger prints taken, and then, we waited for the actual interview, which was done on the very next door.
We were called for the interview, and she raised her hand, and did swear that she would say the thruth, and all that.
The questions were
Were did you meet?
and then he asked me were I lived!! So, he know I was there to support her, so, the guy turned to her and said, you are approved ;-) With a very funny portuguese accent ;-)
I went out, and paid for the FEDEX fee, and she will get the passport and visa in 10 days or so.
Oh, we also got the paper saying that we would have to pay for that new fee, $ 165.00 dolars , GREAT :-)
Well, we left, very happy, met our friend at Rio, and celebrated on Urca, at the feet of the Sugar Loaf mountain ;-)
Later, I jumped on a plane to Sao Paulo, and later that night, back to Boston, and 5 days later, I went from 90 oF, to shoveling 3 feet of snow ;-)
We are very happy, it was a long process, and we are very happy.
I want to thank everyone here, that answered all of our questions, and I wish everyone good luck in the future.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #11461