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| Taipei, Taiwan |  Review on April 30, 2022: |
EatBulaga
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
This interview review is based on what my fiancée told me since I was in the US at the time, and AIT-Taipei only allows the K1 visa applicant listed on the UStravelDocs Interview confirmation page to enter. Some of the details are blurry because she was emotionally overwhelmed with stress and happiness coming out of the interview.
Our interview appointment time was in the afternoon, and my fiancée was in and out of the consulate after a little over 1-hour. She submitted different forms to different stations of interviewers--maybe 3 to 5 different total interviewers. The forms are ordered in the list provided on the Interview confirmation page from UStravelDocs, and they did not even ask for the follow-up picture evidence. Since we have been in a long-term relationship for over 5-years and we were last physically together about a year before the interview with the last year being a long-distance relationship, each of the interviewers asked the same question along the line of "are you sure you have been together this long?" almost in disbelief why we weren't married earlier. Having to answer the same question over and over again was emotionally stressful for my fiancée.
She said that there were like 15-20 questions overall, most of which we practiced already like "how did we meet?", "when was the last time we saw each other?", "what do I do for a living?", "what does she do for a living?", and more. She was fortunate to have brought her Taiwan ID since some interviewers were surprised that a Philippines national was working in Taiwan and planning to marry a US citizen. Some interviewers kept asking her to pull down her facemask to verify her photos and IDs are her. All of these took a big emotional toll on her. After the last interviewer told her she was approved, they told her that they will send her visa in about 5 business days. Outside of the consulate, we video chatted and she was crying for about an hour overwhelmed with emotional release and happiness.
Looking back we think (and we may be wrong) that the consulate only got a copy of the I-129F form without all the supporting documents like the picture evidence, IMBRA waiver/disclaimer, etc. so the interviewers may not have all of our proof of long-term relationship. NVC did email us a pdf version of our marked up I-129F when they notified us that they sent the case to the consulate. Regardless, this has been a long and stressful process for us.
The only advice that we have for others facing K1 interviews is to build a bona fide relationship and at the interview, be sincere and truthful about your genuine relationship. If you have any doubts, discuss with a lawyer or other K1 experts. Don't bring the doubts with you to the interview or try to hide anything because the emotional stress from the wait may reveal suspicions to the interviewers. The consulate interviewers' job is just trying to verify your relationship in-person.
The only reason that I'm not rating a perfect 5 is that this was a fairly stressful process for both my fiancée and me. Maybe it's just the whole post-pandemic K1 process with the delayed backlogs that have been stressful? I do think the consulate can provide more interview dates to pick from. The K1 interview schedule available to us at the time was early April and then late April. Since I could not get her the paperwork in time for the early April date, we chose the late April date with the longer wait, which contributed to the stress. Overall, AIT-Taipei was very professional and more efficient compared to the other consulates with much longer wait times.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #31005