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| San Antonio TX |  Review on June 7, 2017: |
Allie D
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Rating:  | Review Topic: Adjustment of Status
My impression is that this is a relaxed field office. 95% of the people coming in for immigration interviews and InfoPass appointments were casually dressed. Scruffy jeans. T-shirts. Some bra straps falling out. Bright diaper bags. No suits. My husband and I, in business casual and nice shoes (as suggested by lawyers' websites online), stuck out alongside a handful of others. Maybe we shouldn't have worn full sleeves in the brutal heat.
Our officer was young, spacey, and sweet. She didn't ask for identification and reviewed basic facts on the I-130 and I-185 with my husband and me individually. This took approximately five minutes. Afterwards, a handful of basic questions.
1. Where did you both meet?
2. When did you start dating?
3. Did you have a big wedding?
4. Have you met your in-laws?
That was it. She briefly went over the procedures for Removal of Conditions and Naturalization. ("I hope you stay married!")
Lastly, she asked if we had any documentation for a bona-fide marriage. I'd made a list of all the evidence we'd compiled and asked what she'd like. She took everything except photographs, IDs (we offered our driver's licenses as additional proof of residence), and joint donations to charity.
She said we'd hear a decision within 2-4 weeks if background checks cleared. We received the approval notices by e-mail 2-3 hours later.
My husband chided me for being an anxious, over-prepared control-freak during the last year: I brought two fat binders and a carefully compiled, laminated scrapbook. "We could have just gotten a lawyer and the prep would have taken 10 hours! You wasted a good chunk of your life! You shouldn't have read so many forums and gone over-the-top" In retrospect, when we saw a fancy lawyer for a pre-interview consultation a month ago, he was super chill too. He didn't feel the need to scrutinize most of our paperwork (standard stuff like taxes, lease, car insurance, utilities, employer-provided benefits). He said we had a 99% chance of getting approved.
Huh? We eloped. We're 23. My husband never met my parents. We got married right after my H-1B was rejected because we wanted to stay together. It's even hard to prove that we're not just friends helping each other out. When we submitted the original packet, our evidence was thin. Considering how quickly our case was approved, I doubt the officer even looked at the supporting evidence.
My husband and I agreed that we'd be tougher immigration officers. Scrutinize paperwork more closely just to see how the interviewees react. E.g. why get married right after the H-1B was rejected? Did you spend Christmas/Thanksgiving/any holidays with each other's families? Why are your tax returns filed as married but not jointly? Why haven't you commingled finances more extensively? Why isn't she on your credit cards or retirement benefits? Honest answers would suffice. As immigration officers, we'd just like to see how the interviewees responded.
As an immigration officer, I'd step up. It's too easy to game this process if you scrutinize someone at the level we'd been scrutinized, and our lawyer seemed to indicate that this level of "chillness" was common. Is this a San Antonio office thing?
Documents aren't hard to get. Examine and question your interviewees more thoroughly. I'm not impressed.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #21916