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| Singapore |  Review on November 20, 2018: |
Duane & Haney
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Here is Haney's review of her embassy visit on November 20th, 2018:
My appointment was at 1:30PM, but I arrived about 40 minutes early just to be safe. I ended up having to wait outside, the guard wouldn't let me in, even after I showed him my appointment letter. It was warm, but I suppose that's better than being late. There was no line, just a family waiting for a non-immigrant visa, so we waited together.
At 1:20PM the guard called us both to him for the usual security checks. I had my bag with the documents for the interview, and otherwise my phone and headset. The phone and headset were collected, and I was given a token for later. There was a short X-ray machine, similar to the airport. They found an electronic bank token in my bag, which they also collected for later. I had to pass through a metal detector, and that was it.
As instructed, I went down the hall to the left. When I arrived, the room was as many have described, with teller windows, and seats marked for immigrant visas or non-immigrant visas. There were machines to take a number, but there was a woman sitting at the entrance of the room who asked for my appointment letter, and told me to take a seat until I was called. I did not take a number. She told me to prepare all the documents that had been mentioned in the checklist in packet 3. She didn't give me anything, and since I was the only one there, I suppose it was obvious who I was for when they called me up.
I waited for about 45 minutes until the first person called me to window 7, a middle-aged Singaporean. He asked me the following questions, and collected the listed documents:
1. What is your legal status in Singapore?
2. Does your fiancé have children?
3. Is he single?
4. Do you have children?
5. Are you single?
1. Birth Certificate (original and copy)
2. Divorce Certificate (fiancé) and translations (original and copy)
3. Police Certificate- Singapore (original copy)
4. Police Certificate- Philippines (original copy)
5. Registry of No Marriage in Singapore (original and copy)
6. CENOMAR (he said they’ve received it)
7. 2 US-sized passport photographs
8. I-134
9. tax returns
After I submitted all the documents, I sat down for another 10 minutes until my name was called at window 8. This was the consul and he performed my final interview. He was middle-aged and caucasian, and was very nice. I don't know if the fact that this was the Thanksgiving holiday week in the USA meant that the woman mentioned in other reviews was not present, or maybe explained the lack of people there, but either way I was glad he was my interviewer.
He asked me the following questions:
1. How did you meet?
2. When did you meet in person?
3. When was the second time you saw him?
4. When did you meet again?
5. For how long?
6. Did you meet after that?
7. How do you communicate?
8. How often?
9. How did he propose to you?
10. What was the engagement like?
11. When are you going to get married?
12. What are your wedding plans?
13. How many times did your fiancé get married?
14. What does your fiancé do for a living?
15. Explained the IMBRA leaflet
BTW, before the questions I also had to be fingerprinted and take an oath.
The interview took about 10 minutes, after which the consul returned all the original documents that he did not require (my fiancé's divorce certificate) and told me that I was approved and would receive my visa in a week.
He also gave me a form sheet in case I had not yet signed up for the Aramex delivery online, which I already had, so I didn't need it.
The whole process took 1 hour and 20 minutes. The consul did not ask to see any pictures or collect any evidence of communication, although my fiancé had prepared about 50 pages with boarding passes, visa stamps, vacation pictures, WhatsApp examples and Skype logs.
I was fortunate because I scheduled my medical exam before I received the packet 3, which meant that I had 3 weeks between the exam and the interview in the embassy to contact Fullerton to make sure the exam report was on time. This ended up being important, because it took them around 14 days to deliver it, not the 6-10 days they tell you.
The CENOMAR (Filipinas only) only took about 3-5 days from the moment of ordering, so was not a problem. I opened a FedEx account with my own credit card, so I did not have the issues other have spoke of trying to use their fiancé's credit card.
Otherwise, the new requirement for the Singaporean Record of No Marriage caught us by surprise, but I was able to take care of this in less than a week. In fact, the first time they provided the record based on passport number, not my name, so I had to ask for a second record search using my name (per embassy instructions) and had to pay twice.
I wish you all the luck in the world. As you can see, my experience was relatively painless, except for the waiting. Hope that yours is equally unproblematic!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #25073