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| Guatemala |  Review on November 20, 2013: |
AcesUp111
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
We arrived 2 hours early for our interview. The scene in front of the embassy was chaotic. There are 2 lines the short one is for immigrant visas and the long one for all others. We had a little confusion, but soon found ourselves in the immigrant visa line. A few street vendors around trying to mislead you into buying stuff you don’t need. This confuses things because the embassy employees wear street clothes, watch who actually exits the embassy with radio and or computer in hand before Turing over any documents. They only let so many people in the embassy at a time, and give you entry cards. Try to be in the first group for shorter wait times.
The inside is chaotic and loud. Several windows call names, and this is white washed wit the sound of crying children. They call your fiancées name to the biometrics window to get finger printed and then tell you to wait. The finger prints are electronic and only take a few seconds. Try to get a seat close to the interview windows so you can hear your name being called. They called us up to another window were we were asked for our documents. Make sure you have the ds157 supplemental; the instructions say this is only for men, and we didn’t have it filled out. I asked if we could fill it out quickly, and the consular officer continued checking our documents while we did so. The officer seemed frustrated that we provide so much documentation but calmed down once everything was submitted. We thought this was the interview but we wrong and were told so sit and wait to be called up for out interview.
We waited about 2 hours and became nervous. So I the petitoner approached a window where we saw other K1 applicant interviewed ahead of us. We had missed our name being called because of a five year olds temper tantrum. 30 minutes later we were called to the interview window. We were sworn under oath. The officer asked me if we spoke English (in Spanish). I told him spoke both Spanish and English, but my fiancée speaks Spanish. He used this as a way to isolate our responses, he asked me in English how I met my fiancée, so I responded in English. He then asked her how we met in Spanish. He asked about her children. He asked for pictures of us, and we were a little nervous when he said, this is all you have. He asked about my job and affidavit of support. He asked her when we were going to get married. He looked at her medical report and asked if she was pregnant. I responded first and proudly. Yes it’s my son. He smiled and went on. He asked several times if we were married, been married or if I had petitioned a visa before or if she had entered the usa He said congratulations your visa is approved, and gave us a pape with a date to return to pickup her passport and visa. We were confused because the instructions say it would be Mailed cargo express. He said they no longer do that. We said thank you and walked to the door.
Just as we were exiting he said please come back to the window, we returned. He pulled out the conformation page for her DS160 form. He said he was having some problem with the system and that he would need to review this before the visa could be processed. He told me in English not to worry, the online ds160 online is a new form and they have only seen a few and took our visa pickup letter. 30 minutes later he called us back up and asked my fiancée about her native second language, asked if I was going to try to learn it, laughed and handed our pickup letter back. We said thanks and left. We were out of there by noon.
We saw about half of the k1 visas in front of us denied, but did our best to listen to every interview. Most were because incomplete employment verification, criminal records, divorce decrees etc. If you have your story and papers straight before walking in you should have no problem.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #13286