|
|
| Juarez, Mexico |  Review on April 27, 2015: |
DavidAndPily
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
My fiancee (Pily) just got her K-1 visa approved! I want to say THANK YOU for all of the VJ posts about the process. We have lurked on this site for several years, and got tons of useful info about the process. Here's our review of our experience in Juarez, as it is a little different than some others we've seen on here.
My fiancee is from Morelia and I'm from Los Angeles. We couldn't find any good flights directly to Juarez from our cities, so we decided to meet in Guadalajara, spent a night, then fly to Juarez the next day.
Day 1 (April 23)
We woke up at 4am Guadalajara time (1hr ahead of Juarez), our flight left at 6:55 and we arrived in Juarez just after 8am local time. We were already awake for 5 hours without eating, so we decided to have some Subway in the airport before taking a taxi to our hotel. We were staying at Ibis, and we arrived at 9:30am. Apparently, Ibis is a very busy hotel (it is very close to the Consulate and two medical clinics), so they told us we couldn't get our room until our check in time at 3pm. So now we had 5 1/2 hours to kill.
Our plan was to wake up early for the medical interview the next day. We read many VJ reviews about people going for their medical at 6am and there being tons of people in line already, so we didn't think we could get anything accomplished arriving at 10am. Also, we found a review that said that you weren't supposed to eat anything before the medical. But we decided to try anyways, and we weren't disappointed.
If you exit Ibis hotel, you'll see the big Clinica Medica Internacional right in front of you, but to the right of that is the much smaller Servicios Medicos de la Frontera. We saw a few people in front of Clinica Medica, but no one at Servicios Medicos, so we headed for the ladder. And not only were they able to take Pily, they told her that the meal she had that morning wasn't a problem. There were only 4 or so other people in Pily's group, and they went really quick. One problem that we didn't read about on VJ was that they asked her the full address where we'll live in the US, which she didn't memorize yet. So she had to go out to the waiting area to find me and I filled it in for her. She then went though the medical as described on here: vision test, had some blood taken, x-ray, put on a robe, talked to a doctor, doctor then checked for tattoos, and that was that. I tried to get some sleep in the waiting area (after 3 hours that night), but Pily was out in 45 minutes, faster than we were expecting. They told her that she could come and pick up the results in the sealed black envelope by 1:30pm that same day, which is what she did.
Day 2 (April 24)
This was the day we wanted to do the medical, but since it was already done, we decided to sleep in. Didn't do much this day except go out for lunch and dinner.
Day 3 (April 25)
We scheduled our ASC (or CAS) appointment on a Saturday at 12 noon. We tried to find where the CAS building was on Google Maps, but we had no luck, so we decided to leave 1 hour early. Well... we didn't need to do that, it was easy to find, it is just on the other side of the consulate. We were there by 11:10, and the first ones there, but they wouldn't let anyone in until almost noon, so got some chips and yogurt at the Oxxo nextdoor and waited on the benches outside. We were expecting to be bothered by plenty of coyotes to "help" with our papers, but there were none (perhaps because it was a Saturday). There were, however, many other people who showed up before noon for CAS appointments. By the time they opened the doors there were maybe 30-50 people there, and they all formed a line. The appointment itself was very quick, it took only 6 minutes for Pily to come back out again (I know because I was playing a timed card game on my phone  ). They only took her picture and fingerprints. After she was done, we grabbed lunch at the Gorditas restaurant next door. Before we finished eating, the whole 50 person line was out of CAS, and they were closing shop and going home.
Day 4 (April 26)
Another free day. It was very windy the whole week, but this day it was also raining. We headed over to the mall across the street, watched a movie, and prepared for the big interview the next day.
Day 5 (April 27)
This morning, Pily's appointment was at 8:15am. We left the hotel at 7:45, got to the Sala de Espera just before 8. I waited at the back of the Sala while Pily checked in, and waited for her group to go to a different building. They left the Sala at about 8:45. Pily said that they went to another building, where they first checked her documents. The person asked her what my phone number was, which she didn't know (we always talk online). They read a phone number to her and asked if it was mine, and she recognized the first three digits (the area code), and said yes. She then waited a bit for her number to be called again. When it was, she was asked the following questions:
How did you meet your fiance?
How long have you known eachother?
Do you have any children together?
Do you have any tattoos?
Have you had any problems with police or with immigration?
Have you visited the United States in the past? How many times? Did you have a visa, or were you there illegally?
Pily isn't sure about this, but she believes that on the file that the person was reviewing, it was already stamped "Approved", and these questions were just a formality. But after she answered them anyways, the person said that the visa was approved!! Pily got a green sheet of paper saying how to track the passport being sent back to Morelia via DHL, and was done. She was back at Sala de Espera to come get me by 10:30am, faster than we thought. We then got some lunch and now we're back at Ibis writing this post .
A review of the restaurants that we've tried around here:
Ibis restaurant: 6/10. Lunch & Dinner food is not bad, but the service is slow. And late night snack menu is quite small with incorrect prices. Didn't try their breakfast.
Barrigas: 10/10. A bit more expensive than others in the area, but worth it.
Wendy's: 7/10.
Gorditas: 8/10.
La Fogoncito: 10/10. Best tacos in the area.
Denny's: 10/10.
Los Tomates: 7/10.
Cabo Grill: neither of us like seafood, so we didn't try this one.
Any suggestions for where we should have our "celebration" dinner tonight? haha
So if you're still reading, here's a quick summary:
1. Don't be afraid to go to the medical later in the day (between 9 and 11am). There will be less people there.
2. It's ok to eat before the medical.
3. If you stay at Ibis and arrive early, be prepared to wait in the lobby until 3pm.
4. Coyotes aren't as bad as we thought. There we none of them on Saturday, and a few of them on Monday. And most of them were from restaurants, which we already experienced in other places in Mexico (i.e. Quinta Avenida in Playa del Carmen).
5. Make sure fiancee knows full address and phone number of the petitioner.
6. If we had to do it all over again, we wouldn't need 5 days. It's quite possible to fly in to Juarez in the morning, then do the medical, the CAS and get the results from the medical, all in one day, then do the interview the next day. If that's too rushed, 3 days is plenty of time too.
7. THANK YOU VJ for helping make the process painless!!
| |
|
Consulate / USCIS Member Review #16709