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| San Francisco CA |  Review on September 22, 2016: |
eraoul
Rating:  | Review Topic: Adjustment of Status
My wife came to the US on a K-1 visa 10 months ago and we were married soon after her arrival, and started the adjustment of status process, submitting it 9 months ago. The interview was at 9:25am this morning. We arrived at 8:55am at office at 630 Sansome St, and quickly got into the building through the "Visitors" line and through security. Some people were required to take off their shoes to go through the metal detector but we didn't have to. They asked if we had sharp objects in our backpack -- we only had the paperwork, and there was no problem. They let us take our cell phones with us, so we didn't have any trouble with that. We took the elevator to the 2nd floor.
We checked in, and just had to show the appointment letter and our IDs. Then we waited for a while until interview time. The waiting area was nice; I expected it to be like the DMV but was pleasantly surprised.
At the start we had to sign a "waiver" to do the interview without our attorney present (we had an attorney help fill out the AOS paperwork, although it seemed like overkill; would have been fine without the help.) Then he had us stand up, raise our right hands, and say "I swear" to tell the truth, etc.
The interview went well -- our interviewer was quite friendly and made us feel at-ease about the process. He went through the AOS application and asked my wife a lot of basic questions (such as our birthdays), verifying that she knew the answers to the questions on the application, apparently. This included all the questions such as "have you led a genocide" and "have you tortured people for political gain" and "are you planning to overthrow the U.S. government" etc etc.
Then he asked me how we met, and I told the story of how we met, how I asked her out (and how she said "no"the first time!) etc. Then he asked about our visits to see each other and I listed the various trips back and forth between the U.S. and Brazil (it helped a lot that I had reviewed these with my wife recently since it was hard for me to remember the approximate dates/lengths/etc of all our trips, since we had done quite a few trips while we were dating long-distance).
Next he asked for documents that included both of our names such as joint bank accounts, etc, as well as photos. He said that the photos we had submitted with the K-1 visa application weren't available to him, so it was good that we had make prints of a whole lot of new photos from the past year. For documents, I showed several items listing my wife as the primary beneficiary (life insurance, 401k, heath insurance that covers her, etc), a joint bank account, a postcard from a friend addressed to both of us, our rental insurance policy listing both our names, and a copy of our apartment lease (that we had updated recently to add her name to it officially). The officer was happy with this set of documents and photos.
As soon as he finished collecting the documents and photos he said "Everything looks fine to approve your application" but he said he had to run a final background check, and said the green card should be approved the same day once that was complete.
Indeed, later in the day we checked the USCIS website using the receipt number from the appointment letter, and it showed "Approved"! Next we are supposed to receive the "approval" letter in the mail, and in 2-4 weeks the green card should arrive.
All in all, it was quicker than expected and much less stressful. We had a pretty simple immigration case, however, and our relationship didn't have any "red flags", etc. etc. My wife "complained" that it felt "anticlimactic" at the end, since it was such an easy interview after a lot of time stressing out about it! And of course it doesn't feel quite complete yet since we don't have the physical green card yet (she also didn't get the passport green-card-stamp we had heard rumors of). But we aren't really complaining that it was "too easy"; happy that it went smoothly!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #20472