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| United Arab Emirates |  Review on June 24, 2021: |
FKEdwards
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
I am the petitioner, but I will relay my fiancée’s, the beneficiary, experience as she told it to me.
Her appointment was at 10:30 am but she had read online that it was best to arrive early, so she went at 8:30. She said that they immediately started processing her despite appointment being later.
At the time of her interview with the officer, he asked her did she want a private room because we are a same-sex couple. She said yes. She said that the officer went through all of her paperwork including the I-129, three times. He asked her for the I 134 and the supporting documents for that. However he did not ask for any evidence of our relationship. She said she was asked when we met, how we met we met, which was online so she was asked when did we meet in person. He also asked when was the last time we saw each other. After that he asked her whether I was still in Texas, to which she said no I was in Maryland, and he replied “oh yes because she works at (my place of work which is a large organization in the DC area).
He then said that she was 99% approved, however she would have to fill out another form which ended up being the DS- 5535. He said this is required of all K1s from Abu Dhabi. He told her he would email it now (which he took out his phone and did) and to fill out the form and return it with the case number written on top so that it would be sent to him directly. He said that he would have to send it to DC for processing, and that he would ask that they expedite the request. He said it should take about a week, and that they would contact her when the visa is approved with further instructions, but that she would not have to come back to the embassy. He did return her passport , which worried me, but we researched further and saw that they’ll ask her to mail it once approved.
My fiancée was of course very devastated by all of this (as was I) but he reassured her that it wouldn’t take too much longer and that she would be able to join me in the States in August as we had planned (he’d asked her when she planned to travel).
Overall she didn’t have anything bad to say about the experience and said the officer was very nice, but of course the day was tainted by us being put on administrative processing to complete this form that is a complete anomaly. Add to that, the form pretty much just included information that we already provided except rather than 10 years of employment and address history, they wanted 15, and the names and birthdays of all of her siblings.
We completed the form and submitted it the next day. The instructions on how to resubmit it were not clear, so we had to wait for a response to our email to the embassy to see whether we were to email the form or have it delivered. In the end, we learned that we were to email it.
Now we are just waiting for update and praying it’ll happen as quickly as the officer said. We had no idea this form even existed so we were blindsided and the very heartbroken. But we are regaining our spirits and know that things are working out.
7/30 - Updating to add that we are still in AP, so that one week timeline was definitely not the truth.
(updated on July 30, 2021)
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #29764