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| Caracas, Venezuela |  Review on March 9, 2016: |
Dani&Juli_VE
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
I decided to fly from the US to Venezuela to accompany my wife for her Immigrant Visa IR-1/CR-1.
We had the interview set up at 9AM, but we showed up at the embassy around 7:30AM. Although we were there for an Immigrant visa I was told I had to make a line with everybody else outside of the embassy territory for a general security speech.
That first line had around 60 people. We waited like 20 minutes, the line didnt move at all but suddenly they allowed that whole group to walk closer at the parking lot to gather up and listen to a security officer give us some general guidelines on what not to bring inside of the embassy. I raised my hand and asked "We're here for immigrant visa" and that's when I figured out we were the only ones with such a case. He just told me to stay with my group and I will be separated later after security screening.
So, after that speech, they directed the whole group to a second line, this was for a pre-security screening. This line already had some people on it, I would guess we had around 100 people ahead of us. However it was fairly quick, it took like half an hour for our turn. The security officers asked us if we didnt have any of the prohibited items. They checked our transparent envelope. Nothing crazy, just a light screening. I told him we were for immigrant visa, and he told us, alright go and make a line which in this case was different from the non-immigrants.
That third line was for the final security screening, which had a one of those security scanning machines similar to the ones used at the airport. The line only had like 10 people, so it went quick, only about 8 minutes waiting. After this we were officialy inside the embassy! They told me to grab a number, sit and wait. We waited like one minute and our number showed up.
This was like a pre-interview. The lady only asked very few questions:
1. Are you the US Citizen? They asked me. Me: Yes.
2. What do you do for a living? Me: Visual Effects Artist.
3. Did you already file your taxes? Me: Yes, last week.
4. They asked her: What do you do for a living? Wife: I'm a Psychologist.
5. What was the longest you have stayed in the US? Wife: Last year, about 6 months.
The lady quickly asked: "But no more than 6 months right?" And we both answered almost at the same time: No, it was less than 6 months.
She only asked us to give her our police records and her passport style photos. Then she actually returned a lot of documents we sent months ago to USCIS and NVC and she was like: "we dont need this anymore". I was suprised to find the old passport style photos we sent to USCIS in the very first I-130 envelope. OK, so she instructed us to sit and wait again, "we will be called by out name". There was like 3 people ahead of us. We waited like 45 minutes, bored, and then they called us.
At this 2nd interview the lady just said: "OK, your visa is approved" and handed us some papers with instructions. Told us we have to chose a pick up location at some website in less than 24 hours otherwise they will "destroy all documents" which I found crazy, but alright... she told us it will take about 10 days. In the instruction papers she wrote her A (Alien) number, which we need to pay the Immigrant Fee at point of entry.
And that was it. We were out of the embassy at around 11:30am just in time for lunch! So we just went out and had a celebration lunch!!! Yay!!
That same day we entered the website, selected a pickup location (Zoom) in Caracas and next week they sent a text message to my wife that her passport and package was ready for pickup.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #19079