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| Frankfurt, Germany |  Review on September 14, 2018: |
jesserz
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
Had an appointment at 08:15, so arrived at 08:00. It was very easy to get there on the u-bahn. We went to the interview together (the USC is allowed to attend).
There was some confusion over which line to wait in, but, as of August 2018, the right line is for immigrant cases.
We received a number and went to the security room where we were scanned. Don't bring your phones with you or anything. They give you a clear bag to hold your papers and wallets.
We leave the security room and then go in to another building where the woman at the front desk looked at our number and told us to go to the cashier's window.
The cashier would be "back in 5 minutes" according to the sign. He took the intending immigrant's passport and some the passport-sized photos (there was a photobooth inside the building in case the photographs were forgotten). He told us we had already paid and then asked us to sit down and wait for our number to be called.
The number was called and showed up on the monitors above the windows and we went to a very friendly woman who asked us to present her with the originals of all the documents we had submitted on the CEAC website. This took about 45 minutes as each document was handed one-by-one under
the window. She told us we needed to get our translations certified, but that we could go along with the interview anyway. She also showed us what the box will look like in which they will return the passport in the mail. She was very kind and easy to communicate with. After we had handed her all of the documents, we were asked to sit down again and wait once more for our number to be called.
The next time we were called, there was a man at the window and he introduced himself as the officer in charge of the interview. He was friendly, but also professional. He was, once again, behind glass, so it felt really disconnected but that's neither here nor there. After asking the intending immigrant to swear that all information is correct, he asked some basic questions:
-How long have you been married?
-How did you meet?
-When was the last time you saw each other? (we live together and it was odd that he didn't know that)
-What do you do for work?
Because the intending immigrant is from Russia, and works with computers, there were then a lot of questions about what kind of computer work he does, if he does security protocols, if he knows how to bypass security protocols, which language he uses while programming... and the interview really became more about whether or not he was a "Russian hacker" rather than about our relationship as a married couple.
All in all, the interview was about 4 minutes long. He then handed us a white piece of paper, which I believe was a 221g, asking for us to send in certified translations.
The USC then asked, candidly, "But, once we send those...do we get the visa? Did we 'pass?'"
To which, he responded, "I intend to issue the visa if everything checks out."
Which it did and we received the visa a few weeks later.
From start to finish, the whole process was about two hours and most of that was spent waiting and laughing about the same 3-minute "look how pretty America is" video they endlessly looped on the tvs about various states with natural wonders. We were both happy that we were both there for the interview.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #24637