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| Mumbai, India |  Review on February 23, 2018: |
Bombayy
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
Overall, a good experience at the Mumbai consulate for my husband's IR-1 interview, but I knew once we got the interview date, it was unlikely we'd have any hiccups, since we have been married for a while now and I had already moved to the United States and made well over the minimum amount of money needed to sponsor my husband.
We found out about my husband's Feb. 23 interview date only the day before, but we were already planning to leave for an international trip in the evening of Feb. 23. We didn't want to reschedule the interview, because there were no open slots available on the U.S. appointment website for the next three months, so we just hoped that the consular officer could either get the visa ready the same day or allow my husband to drop off his passport on Monday after we returned from our trip.
Our appointment time was at 7:30 a.m., and we got there about 10 minutes before that, having been delayed by my husband's forgetting to print out the appointment letter. Be sure to show up with a printout, as we had to show it at least once after entering the building, and they take away your electronics once you get into the consulate.
Ignore the single, very long line outside the consulate that leads to the left door of the main entrance; that's for non-immigrant visas. We asked a guard for guidance on which line to take, and he pointed us to a man wearing a light purple oxford shirt (all the local male consular staff were wearing this type of shirt), who walked with us to the main entrance and waved us toward the much shorter two lines by the right door. After lining up, we showed our passports and the appointment letter and went inside to security. We left our phones and electronics in the car so it was just a matter of putting my bag in the X-ray machine and walking through a metal detector and undergoing a patdown search by a female officer for me, male officer for my husband.
Once inside the complex, we walked by a big outdoors waiting area and went into another building where they process both non-immigrant and immigrant visas. After entering the building, there was a cordon that forced people to move to the right, but that's where the non-immigrant visa processing room is. We told the attendant at the entrance that we were there for an immigrant visa, and she lifted the cordon so we could go to the room for immigrant visas.
There, we were directed to counter No. 1 to get a token. The clerk asked my husband if he had done his biometrics, and my husband said he had given biometrics earlier for a tourist visa. The clerk said my husband had to do it again so he told my husband to sit nearby and he'd get called later, which the clerk did after about five minutes. The clerk gave a token with a number on it, and so we waited for the number to be called. Pretty much right away, the number came up, and my husband went to a window to do the pre-interview screening, during which the clerk went through the checklist of documents. He returned my paystubs and company letter about my salary since my husband had a copy of my W-2 and 2017 tax return, and he also returned the originals of his birth and marriage certificates, keeping the copies. He asked if my husband had copies of his police clearance certificates, which he didn't but he told the clerk to go ahead and take the originals.
He also asked if my husband had cash or a credit card to pay the consular fee, which he did (no need for a demand draft, which was a relief because we didn't have time to get to the bank). After making sure my husband had all the necessary documents, the clerk gave him a sheet with information about his rights and warning of domestic abuse and asked him to go back and wait. The entire process took less than 10 minutes.
About 15 minutes later, the same clerk called my husband and asked him pay the consular fee at a window in the other room. Once he did, he took the receipt back to the clerk, then was asked to provide his fingerprints on a machine. Then he was told to wait for the interview. By that time it was probably around 8:10 a.m., but I didn't have a watch and there are no clocks in the room.
This wait was the longest part of the process. There aren't any concessions inside besides a drinking fountain, although my husband said he saw someone selling drinks in the walkway in between the security building and the visa processing building. The bathrooms are clean, and they're inside the building so you don't need to go through security to use them or return.
The left bank of windows were for pre-interview screening, and the right bank of windows were for the interviews, so we moved over as far as we could to the right. We overheard a few interviews, and it seemed that the longer the interview, the less likely the chances of success. One woman who was applying for a fiancee visa was asked more and more questions as it became increasingly clear she didn't seem to know her fiance all that well, like his children's names and ages. She left with a request for additional information. Others were given their visas after only five minutes, and that's what happened to my husband after he was called for his interview. After taking an oath that he was telling the truth and providing his fingerprints again, he was asked:
*When were you married?
*What countries did you and your wife live in before India?
*Where is your wife living now? How long have you been apart?
*How did your wife come to the United States initially? (I'm a naturalized citizen.)
*What does your wife do in the United States?
That was it, and the green card was approved. He asked whether he could drop off the passport next week after we got back from our international trip, and the consular officer said it was possible. She wrote up a 221-g letter requesting his passport and told him to just drop the letter and passport off at a center near the consulate that handles the biometrics, and it should be ready in 3-5 days.
By the time we got out of the consulate, it was 9:30 a.m. So glad that this process is almost all over.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #23306