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| Frankfurt, Germany |  Review on November 3, 2018: |
NJ515
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
The interview process was very professional.
Our appointment was at 8AM, so we travelled to Frankfurt the day prior and stayed at the Best Western Hotel Friedberger Warte that is nearby. I suggest you stay there if you have an early appointment as it is just a short 5 minute walk from the hotel front door to the consulate entrance.
When you arrive at the consulate, there are two lines queued up outside. The line to the left is for Non Immigrant Visas, and the line to the right is for other visas and US Citizen services. As I accompanied my fiancee and am a US Citizen, we went into the empty line to the right and were processed next, which skipped about 30 people standing in line.
After the confirm your appointment you process through security, which is pretty straightforward. You remove all metal items and place them into a clear plastic bag, proceed through a metal detector while your possessions go through an X-Ray machine, and then proceed onward into the consulate building. There are signs instructing you to not have any electronics at all, which we knew in advance and this is why we felt the security check was so easy for us. Just leave the phone back at the hotel.
Once inside the consulate building, a woman at a counter looked at our paperwork for about 10 seconds, gave us a ticket number, and directed us to the cashier window on the other side of the room. The cashier confirmed that we had already paid and told us to have a seat and wait for our ticket number to be called.
There are about 25 windows or so, and after only 5-10 minutes, our number was called. A German woman went over the K-1 process, and showed us the box that would arrive via the post once approved. She gave my fiancee information about domestic violence, took her fingerprints, and confirmed that all of our paperwork was good to go. She then told us to have a seat to wait for the interview with the consular officer.
After about another 10 minutes our number was called again at another window, and that's where we had our interview. The consular officer was very polite and professional. She asked questions about our relationship, and about our plans once we entered the US.
Now to the unfortunate part. My fiancee is a Syrian national, so she is subject to visa restrictions due to the Trump travel ban. We were "refused" the visa under 212(f), and told that we would be considered for a waiver. This is the normal flow of things currently for people who qualify for a waiver. The consular officer told us that within a day we would receive a questionnaire from the consulate requesting additional information for the waiver. We did receive the email the next morning and it asks for things such as employment history, 15 year travel history, email addresses used, social media accounts, and information about relatives. We anticipated this requirement so we had the information prepared beforehand, and were able to respond swiftly. We now wait in the unknown "Administrative Processing" queue that is estimated to last between 4-12+ months to determine if a waiver can be granted.
However, we were very pleased overall with the experience at the Frankfurt consulate, and I hope that this info helps you out in the future.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #24968