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| Houston TX |  Review on December 4, 2019: |
Alekezam
Rating:  | Review Topic: Adjustment of Status
Our interview was scheduled at 12:30 the day of. We decided to arrive about 20 min before our scheduled appointment time.
Office is on the north side of town not too far from IAH in an office/warehouse district. As they always are, USCIS office wasn't exactly in the nicest part of town if you know what I mean.
Parking was ample.
Step 1:
As you enter you have to go through a security check....greeting employees were all pretty friendly and helpful. As soon as you get past security you have to check in at the front desk where they ask for your interview letter to which they verify on a computer and then hand over a piece of paper with a number it to which we were instructed to go get a biometrics done at a table off to the side. Went over to get the biometrics done (this is for the applicant only) and then were instructed to go to the main waiting hall. Not sure why this happens again since a biometrics had already been completed but you don't gain anything by questioning so we just went with the flow. In the waiting hall you basically sit until they call the number that is on your white paper. A person over an intercom will announce either a number or a specific individual and where to go. From what I could tell it there was only 2 choices, either Door 1 (only one door so this is a no brainer) or one of about 20 windows that are located in the main hall. One thing of note is that they don't have a screen that shows numbers or names of people as they call them so you have to be sure to pay attention, otherwise, you might be out of luck. The officers seemed nice enough but they were all pretty stern and did not appear to be very tolerant of those who don't follow directions. We must have lucked out because by this point I noticed that the check in line had grown by at least 30 people....pretty insane.
Step 2:
After I'd say about a 20-25 minute wait our number got called. They don't call numbers in sequence so don't be surprised if say your number is K530 and they call up a bunch of numbers before or after yours like K510 or K580. There are also a lot of different types of cases so numbers can be different depending on type so the K could be a J or something else. We walked over to door 1 immediately after our number was called out and was greeted by the officer handling our case. She was cordial and polite but didn't really show a whole lot of emotion and was pretty stern despite my attempts at trying to drum up some harmless small talk. I did get her to chuckle and smile a few times which was what I was hoping to do. So first thing she does once she walks you to her office is close the door and ask that both me and my wife remain standing to do an oath. Took our oaths and then sat down. First question was how did I meet my wife. Gave her the story of how we met and then she proceeded to ask us for standard documentation (Passports, Birth Certificates, EAD card, and Social Security Card for my wife/applicant only). While she gathered all that up she threw a few more questions out like "Have either of you met each other's parents?" "How many brother's and sister's does your wife/husband have?"....and I'm pretty sure that was it. She seemed to be more concerned with paperwork than questions. Next thing she asked for was for our medical packet. Glad we did one because despite having all the original files in front of her from both the K1 process and the AOS submittal she did not check to see if one even existed. In my opinion, despite what everyone says about not having to take one as long as the last one was done within a year I'd go ahead and do it anyways to avoid any problems. Depending on where you go it's not going to cost much more than $300. If that's too much to spare then all I can say is wow.....She then asked us to produce evidence that proved that we were truly married so I gave her a copy of a bank statement that showed we had a joint savings and checking account, a joint tax return from 2018, a cable bill with both our names on it, auto insurance with both our names on it, and my health insurance that showed her as a dependent as well as pictures from this year. Neither of us care much about fancy weddings and ceremonies so all we did was a court marriage with one picture that had my parents and my brother in it and she thought that was cool. I told her that we'd rather spend our money on more practical things like traveling and she really liked all the pictures of our travels. Pretty easy. She didn't really even ask for anything else but I voluntarily gave her an updated I-864 with more recent pay stubs and a recent letter from my employer. She then went through a laundry list of standard questions revolving around some pretty ridiculous topics like drugs, rape, prostitution, espionage, terrorism, gangs......to which my wife obviously has never or would ever partake in. And then that was it. She printed out a document ticked something on it and handed it over to us and asked if we had any other questions. I asked what the timeline would be and she said she just needed to do one final checkup to make sure no documents are missing. If she needed any additional information I would be informed by mail, otherwise, she would approve. She said she had one more interview that day and then she would be reviewing the all the cases for the day. We both thanked her and off we were. I took a closer look at the document she handed us and noticed it said that a decision is unable to be made at this time with a Reason For Continuance section with three reasons. The first box was ticked that stated that our case was being held for review and that at this time they don't require any further documents but if so we would be informed by mail. At the end of the letter it said that 120 days maximum are required before we would hear of a final decision. I pretty much panicked at this point since I hadn't seen many people on here mentioning that letter so I started to research the topic and found that it is apparently pretty standard for them to hand those out now. I don't know why people don't mention it.
Step 3:
I had to go immediately to the airport to leave town for work and while sitting at the gate I was a bit anxious and checked my USCIS profile for any updates on both the old and new pages and I'd say literally in about 2 hrs after our interview the old site profile status switched to "New Card Being Produced"! So yeah, don't be alarmed by the sheet of paper they give you at the end as it's a standard form they give to everyone. I'd only worry if the other two boxes other than the first one is ticked.
Sorry for the long drawn out review but I wanted to make sure I detailed exactly how our experience went so others know what to expect.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #27630