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| Dominican Republic |  Review on March 29, 2009: |
XoO
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Out appointment was at 6:00am. We arrived at the consulate at 5:50am and the line for immigrant visas (“residencia”) was already very long. As soon as you step into the line people start selling their services to you (taking photographs, filling in forms, etc). One of those guys was telling us that the photographs needed to be stapled to the forms. Please don’t listen to them; if you do you will void your photos and the consular officers will not accept them.
At around 6:10am the line started moving. Have your interview letter in hand when you start approaching the entrance because it will be taken from you before you enter the facilities. We made it in at 7am. The inside is roomy, there are plenty of places to sit down, there are ceiling fans all over the place, and there is even a small cafeteria in there. Bathrooms were relatively clean also. You can bring in food, just no liquids of any kind. My name was called at 8:30am to hand in all the forms, birth certificate, photographs, “cedula”, and the police certificate. I was not asked for the I-134 form (Affidavit of Support) and was told it was not even needed. I suspect that only applied to our case since I learned, that same day, that a friend had her visa denied due to an insufficient Affidavit of Support. At that time we were given a small piece of paper, sort-of like a ticket, with a number. That was going to be our number for the fingerprints and the interview. There are several monitors in the waiting room area that indicate the number being called. Don’t fret; the numbers are not called in order. Our number was called at 9:15am for the fingerprints (window #13) and at 10:00am for the interview with the consulate officer.
An old lady (likely in her 60’s) interviewed us. She first verified our names (mine’s and my fiancé’s) and then she swore us in. She asked me to sign form DS-156K. She then asked my fiancé how long he had lived in the mainland United States. She asked me if I spoke English and I told her that I understood it. She then asked me to step back a little bit while she spoke with my fiancé, but I was able to listen to the conversation nevertheless. She told him that she was going to find out how much he knew about me. So the questions were (all in English): How did you meet her? How many times have you visited her? When (exact dates) was the last time you visited her and for how long did you stayed? When was the visit before the last one and for how long? Where does she work? Where does she study? When did she finish her studies? Where did she study? Where does she live? What do you do for a living? What brought you to the Dominican Republic? Then she called me in and asked my fiancé to step back. She asked me the same questions (now in Spanish) about the visits and these others too: how many brothers or sisters does he have? How old are they? What does he do for a living? When do you plan to get married? Where? Where do you plan to live? Are you a 7-th day adventist (SDA)? Is your fiancé a SDA too? Is your family SDA as well? Is your fiancé’s family SDA? That was the last of the questions, and her face expression changed. She nicely told us that the visa had been approved and that she wished all the best to us, and that I would receive my passport back in two weeks (but I received it after just two working days). We had brought plenty of proof of our relationship (letters, documents, photos, etc) and none of it was needed. She didn’t ask for a thing (but that only applied to our interview since we saw many others who had to show their stuff). My advice on this one: please carefully read all instructions and follow them to the letter. We saw many people being turned away for just not following the instructions (filling forms incorrectly, bringing the wrong forms, etc). So after all, our experience at the consulate was much better than what I expected  
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #4157