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| Montreal, Canada |  Review on April 30, 2024: |
inbriars
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Please note: our situation has no children, no prior marriages, and no criminal records involved.
My appointment was on a Tuesday (April 2024) for 0900 and we got there at 0840 (fiance came with me). I was asked to wait outside. It feels like you're walking into an RBC but the door to the consulate is to your immediate left.
I was brought into the first set of doors at 0855 - she asked for my appointment time, name, and passport. She used my passport to confirm my name on her list. She gave it back to me, told my fiance he cannot come in and should come back in a couple hours, and I headed through the US Consulate doors.
Security:
The security room is small and immediate upon entry. I was asked for my passport and told to turn off my phone. They placed a sticker on the back of my passport with my name and interview date details, along with a barcode. I took off my jacket and placed my items in the security bin, then I walked through the scanner. He told me to grab my phone and put it in a locker. Previous reviews are correct, the lockers are extremely small, large enough to fit a phone and a small wallet. He gave me a number and told me that’s what they’ll use to call me up and then told me to proceed upstairs. The US Consulate is on the first floor but it is marked by the elevator.
Waiting Room:
When you get off the elevator, to your immediate right is the TV mounted on the wall that displays the ticket numbers. The waiting room is also to your right (it is all one big room divided up, you can’t get lost). I sat down and saw on the TV where they were in queue and my number was going to be one of the next ones (it wasn’t in exact order, ie. 1510, 1512). The room is fairly quiet. The TV will ding for the next number and will tell you which window to go to. I saw there were 12 windows - 1-5 along the hallway to the left and 6-12 lining the waiting room. It appears 1-5 are for the interviews and 6-12 are for document collection, but I do not know if this is factual. My number appeared quickly after sitting down, within 5 minutes I would say.
Window 1: Documents, done at 0920
The first person was a kind lady, she asked me for my documents. She asked for:
-Payment receipt
-My passport and a copy of it
-My birth certificate and a copy of it
-Police certificate (I offered the copy as well and she took it)
-I-134
-Evidence of I-134 (I gave her these in this order: letter of employment, military orders, 2023 W2, 2023 1040, 2023 IRS Transcript. I asked if she needed more because I also brought pay stubs and bank statements but she said she had more than enough)
-2 passport photos
For the financial total, she looked at the 2023 IRS Transcript. She asked me for my fiance’s phone number and address. I don’t think this was a trick question or anything because she was actively entering it into the database. The address they had was different from where my fiance is because he is in the military, so we used a stationary address in between orders. She asked if I had anything written for the new address and I provided the letter of intent. She used it to input the address correctly and gave it back to me. She had me take my fingerprints. I highly recommend putting on some lotion beforehand so your fingerprints show up more prominently on the display. I had to rub my forehead because they were too faint. She then told me to sit down and wait a while for the interview.
Window 2: Interview, done at 0945
I was fortunate and did not wait long for the interview, around 5-10 minutes. This part is a blur, as it is for most, so I will include what I remember but it won’t be complete. We had a casual conversation where he asked me random questions.
The random questions he asked me, that I remember are:
-How did you first meet?
-When did you first meet?
-What was your first virtual date?
-What was your first in person date?
-How often would you see each other?
-What was your longest trip in the US?
He proceeded to read through my file. He looked at the I-134 and 2023 1040. He then went through the original I-129F application and read the original letter we submitted along with all the photographs/explanations to them. He smiled to himself and said there was too much love. Before he got to the actual interview questions requiring an oath, he asked me for my fingerprints on my right hand. He then had me hold up my hand and swear an oath that everything was true. He prefaced that some of these may be awkward to answer.
The interview questions he asked me, that I remember are:
-Is this your first marriage?
-Is this his first marriage?
-Do you have any children?
-Does he have any children?
-Do either of you have children outside the relationship?
-Have you ever traveled anywhere outside Canada and the US in the last 5 years?
-When was the last time you were in trouble with law enforcement? (I said a speeding ticket when I was 17 and he said oh, that doesn’t count)
-When was the last time you saw him?
He was nice overall. He said he was waiting for some documents and would hopefully be able to approve it later that day. He handed me a sheet with instructions on how to track your visa. This made me super confused and stressed because I had all the documents and then some and I knew the medical was submitted on time. I didn’t know what documents he was waiting for and I should have asked in hindsight. Perhaps this is my fault because I came in with the expectation to receive a verbal approval and also overheard one during my own interview. I asked him, “Is it approved?” and he said, “Yes, go celebrate!” to which I replied my thanks and promptly left. All is good now, I’ve come to realize perhaps he led with this because a verbal approval can be overturned after the interview. Maybe this is new guidance or something for them. I monitored my case through CEAC for the next couple days and the updates were as follows:
-Tuesday - from Ready to Application Received
-Wednesday - to Approved
-Thursday - to Issued
-Monday - Visa delivered (note: if you get it sent directly to your house you will need to sign for it)
Fun fact I wish I knew - I thought the passport photos were for documents and did assume the visa would be a stamp in my passport. It is not, it is a thick sticker-like document that looks like a passport bio page… with the passport photo you provided at the interview. Just so you know, because I definitely would have made different choices hahaha.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #33151