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Vancouver, Canada | Review on July 20, 2007: | Keisha
Rating: | Review Topic: K1 Visa
I had my interview 12 July 2007.
The interview itself took me longer than I expected. It lasted about 30 minutes, and I was asked a lot of questions - about how we met, when, and then what, when we decided to get married, what do we like about each other, what I did when I lived in my country, my education, details of my job in my home country, why I came to Canada, when, where my son is, with whom, what I do in Canada, when I applied for my permanent residence in Canada, about my previous 2 marriages years ago, why I am sure that this one will be better, why we decided to be in US and not Canada, if I met his parents, when, if J had siblings, if I met his brother, if I ever was refused entry to the US, what J does professionally, how often we visit each other, how we decided to get married if we don't know each other well enough (we know each other for about 3 years and met about every second month last year and we lived together for 2 weeks, then for 1 month, when I was visiting the US) . The officer asked me to show him pictures of us together, and was asking about other people on the pictures. I am glad I had pictures together with J's parents and a picture of him and my son together.
Didn't ask to see any emails or letters or phone bills or plane tickets or boarding passes or hotel receipts, which I had tons of. Didn't ask for a fresh letter of Intent or NOA2 copy, or any J's documents except for documents to do with finances. They took everything I had about finances though, I-134, 167, letter from employer, letter from the bank, tax returns for 3 previous years, recent paystubs.
I don't know why my interview was so long, but maybe because I am not a Canadian citizen and not even a Canadian permanent resident, I've been in Canada on a work permit for 3 years and I was refused a tourist visa like 4 times before they finaly gave it to me (refused all 4 times because of insufficient ties to home country), and I was divorced before, and my son is in Russia right now, and I changed my last name twice. Though I never overstayed anything anywhere, or broke any laws, or anything like that.
I was well prepared with all copies and translations except for one thing: my son's father's notarised consent that he didn't mind my son moving to the US. I didn't have it as they didn't have it on the checklist, and my son is not even in Canada now, and we will not be applying for his visa in Canada, but in my home country -right away. So I thought I would need everything regarding him later.
At the end of the interview the officer finally said it was alright, and they gave me 221g saying "insufficient information" and scary "additional administrative processing" and the list of documents to bring, which consisted only of the consent and the passport, and the letter was dated incorrectly, like a month ago. They also gave me my passport back.
I got my visa a couple days later after I brought the required document.
Overall, there was nothing really scary even though I didn't like some of the questions I was asked. The guy, who collected my documents prior to the interview, was extremely helpful, explained everything to me, answered all my questions, gave me his name and direct phone number, and was very nice.
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