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| Ukraine |  Review on August 21, 2013: |
vbtwo
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Had interview scheduled for 8:30 am. I came together with my fiancee. We arrived at the embassy at 8:05 am. A nice gentleman checked our passports and scanned the visa appointment confirmation, and told us to wait in line to go in.
The line moved pretty quickly, about 10 minutes later we went in to security. Pretty much standard stuff, take everything out of pockets, put in small boxes, go through metal detector. Then another person uses a hand-held metal detector that's more sensitive to scan your whole body (it detected my watch for example that the regular metal detector didn't). They will take away anything that they don't want to let in (like your cell phone, also took away my Pebble watch) and store it for you until you exit. I don't know if they'll store anything large, but for small things they do store it.
Then you go on in to the main building. The person right at the entrance gives you a number and tells you to go sit and wait for your number to be called. The waiting room for K1/immigration visas is right there, and tourist visas have to go on a bit further.
Our number was called pretty much right away and you go to a window to turn in all your documents. They took the forms and photos, checked to make sure that they are filled out correctly, and ask you to correct anything that they find. They took the medical results, the original birth certificate, the financial support info, and finally the proof of relationship. They also took fiancee's fingerprints and then told us to go sit down again and wait to be called for the interview. He also gave a brochure in Ukrainian about domestic abuse and told fiancee to read it before interview.
This is where the major problem is. They only had one consul doing interviews, so he was only able to process around 3 people per hour. The interviews themselves took 5 minutes and then there was a wait of about 10-15 minutes before the next person was called (so that the consul can finish up paperwork for previous person and then take a look at the documents for the next person). There were about 10 people or so ahead of us, so we had to sit and wait more than 3 hours. There is absolutely nothing to do there while waiting, so it seems to drag forever. They do have a machine selling snacks and soft drinks, and they also have a machine selling coffee. The consul calls up by name, not by number. The numbers that you were given before are not indicative of the order that you will be called up to the consul, as we were called before another pair who had a number one earlier than ours.
Finally we were called up, he asked me in English if I was the petitioner and told me take a seat while he talked to fiancee. I sat at the seat closest to the window, so I was still able to hear the conversation. He conducted interview with her in Russian as she doesn't know English that well. He swore my fiancee in, took another set of fingerprints (only 1 hand), had her sign the 156-K form. Then asked a few basic questions (how did you meet? how many times did we meet in person? did she meet my parents? how did I know Russian? where I work?). He then told me to come up, and in English asked me a few questions (when did I immigrate to the US? how often and in what way to we communicate currently?). Then told us congratulations, you are approved, and gave back all the originals (birth certificate and evidence). He did not even look at or ask questions about any of the evidence in front of us, maybe he looked at it before he called us up.
In total the conversation with him took no more than 5 minutes and went very easy. The only bad experience is the long wait.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #12593