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| Buffalo NY |  Review on December 8, 2015: |
DeKi
Rating:  | Review Topic: Adjustment of Status
Based on this first experience (AoS interview), the Buffalo office is very organized and well-run office. We arrived about ten minutes before the 10:45am appointment time, passed through security (very polite) in five minutes after waiting behind three other people, sat down and were called five minutes later.
The interviewing officer, Mark Desmond, was polite and neither friendly nor unfriendly, just professional. After swearing us in, he asked me (the non-USC beneficiary) for my passport. Looking at it, he asked me to pronounce my first name and to confirm the "big date"happened when our documents said it did, then when my most recent entry into the US was and what my mother's and father's first names are. The second series of questions to me were the Yes/No ones. During all of this, he also was marking the same info on the applications forms we had already submitted via mail.
Then he turned to my USC husband and asked him how and when we met ("about three years ago" was a sufficient answer; did not ask about specific day or first date or anything like that), where the wedding took place and how many people were at the wedding.
Then the IO asked what financial and photo evidence we have of our relationship and I gave him copies of all our financial (checking and saving bank statements, several investment account beneficiary info pages where both our names are listed and health insurance shared accounts -- some of these we had mailed already at the time of filing and others we had acquired more recently so they were new) co-mingling and a stack of photos from the two years before we got married, from various travels, as well as at various family holidays. He collected the paperwork and started flipping through the photos. He took one picture out and asked my husband where that was and, upon hearing the response, said "looks like a nice vacation" to which my husband agreed.  The IO asked if he can keep all the materials I gave him, which was fine since we had brought copies.
No more questions were asked or documents requested (as you can imagine, we had brought lots more, including our official wedding album and a scrap+photo book my mother-in-law had made for me from the months of our engagement and various preparations for the wedding). The IO said "According to all our checks, this is clearly a bona fide marriage and you are approved. You will get the card in the mail in 3-4 weeks. You can work, you can travel as you wish. Do you have any questions?" I asked specifically about traveling abroad what I need to do (carry both my passport and my new permanent resident card) and that was that.
It definitely took me longer to write the summary here than the interview itself took (probably about five-seven minutes). We were out of the building and on our way to celebratory lunch in less than 20 minutes total. I received the text and email updates on both the I-485 and I-130 at 5pm and 5:25pm respectively the same day.
If you are in a real relationship and have done your homework the AoS interview is a breeze.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #18521