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| Guangzhou, China |  Review on December 20, 2017: |
Leili
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
My fiancée (Li) flew into Guangzhou the day before her medical exam. The exam costed 1000 RMB, and it was scheduled at 7:15 a.m. on a Thursday. Li arrived at the exam exactly on time, and then she was given a waiting ticket that indicated that she was 13th in line that morning. Her exam was completed, and she was out of the building in about 2 hours. Li said it was very simple and easy, including a check of general health/vision/hearing, a blood draw, and they gave her a list of inoculations to get after arriving in the US. Her consulate interview was six days later, and she spent those extra days visiting friends and family in the GZ/HK area. Because this all took place during December, Li was happy to escape winter’s grasp on her home in Wuhan for a week in the warm south. Li returned to GZ the night prior to her Consulate interview, and she stayed in a hotel that she said was a 5-minute walk from the Consulate. Her interview was at 8:15 a.m. the following morning, a Wednesday. She arrived in the consulate line a few minutes early, and she was let into the building right on schedule. In her appointment notification letter, Li had been instructed not to bring any electronic device (including phone) to the consulate building. She took all the required printed materials for the interview, including a printed stack of our emails and our WeChat call log. She submitted paperwork at two windows before waiting in que for the actual interview. Li had a concern about being required to interview in English, because she sometimes had trouble bringing the correct English words and phrases into her mind. The consulate officer who interviewed Li gave her the option of languages, and she choose to use English with Chinese reserved for the tough spots. Li had chosen not to practice in advance answering any of the mock interview questions that can be found online. In the months preceding, she mostly expressed relaxed confidence that she could satisfactorily answer any interview question with simple honestly. However, Li’s nerves did set in during the final two weeks leading up to her interview. During that time, she read a couple scary online reviews of other applicants’ K1 visa interviews in which the visas had been denied for reasons unknown to the applicants. These accounts shocked Li, and she really started worrying about the disgrace she would experience if her visa was denied after such a huge investment of emotion, time and money. The only line of sharp questioning that Li and I anticipated was about the proximity of my divorce date to our first meeting date (they were 35 days apart). The reason for that short time was a good one, but it was too complicated even for me to easily explain. I did my best to concisely clarify the issue for Li, and for the consulate officer, within my letter of intent to marry, but I doubted the consulate officer would take time to read that, and in fact he did not read it. Out of all the materials that Li brought to the interview, the officer only asked to see our WeChat call log, and then he only glanced at that. In the end, Li breezed through the interview and was approved for her visa in about ten minutes. The questions that she was asked were “How did you meet your fiancé?†[Li’s answer: “eharmony.comâ€] and “How will you and your fiancé communicate?†[Li: “We already communicate ok but I will take ESL classes.â€]. After the interview, Li walked back to her hotel and called me at 9:45 a.m. The consulate told her to expect a 1-week wait before her visa would be delivered to her home. Li planned to celebrate her success by staying another week in the warmth of the area.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #23000