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|  Review on October 31, 2009: |
Leo&Farah
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Interview:
I arrived at 9am to hand in the documents to the pre-screener (I-134, birth certificate, passport, police certificate, medical results, proof of relationship). A few small questions were asked regarding the relationship, not a big deal really. It went really well. Casual, with no hostility.
One thing to note is the counter could not fit my standard photo album so I had to take out all pictures one by one at the embassy for the pre-screener.
Make sure to get a visa number for immigrants and not non-immigrants as the K1 is processed as an immigrant visa here. So it will be a B number, not an A number. The security guard gets confused between the two. I had to tell him I wanted a B number.
I paid the USD131 fee which was RM498, did not get a receipt immediately and was told to come back at 1:30 pm.
I arrived at 1pm and there were about 5 other people there for immigrant visas. Spent one hour and 15 minutes panicking and thinking I was going to die of a heart attack before the first immigrant visa number was called at 2:15pm, which was me.
The interviewer was a very nice, sweet, funny and young Chinese American guy. He made a few jokes and said I looked cute as a kid on my old passport.
There was absolutely no intimidation or hostility during the interview. It lasted all of 5 minutes. First he took my fingerprints and then made me swear to tell the truth and after that returned all my proof of relationship documents to me, original photos, my birth cert, original W2s and my old passport. I think he had pretty much made up his mind about approving before the actual interview based on the amount of evidence I provided (Roughly 5kgs worth of paper for the 5 years we've been together) since the questions he asked were very basic.
- How did you meet?
- When did you start dating?
- When did you start talking?
- Is this your engagement ring receipt or wedding ring receipt?
- You don't have an engagement ring? (didn't matter that I didn't have one)
- Have you been anywhere else outside of Malaysia?
As an afterthought, he asked standard questions:
- What's your fiance's name?
- Whats your fiance's dad's name?
- Where does your fiance live?
I think at this point, it was just a formality since it was pretty obvious I knew my fiance well.
He mistook my fiance for studying at the college and asked something about him studying. I got confused and he explained he saw a college on the I-134. I corrected him saying my fiance works there and gave the full title and expounded on what he actually does. I'm not sure if he made a mistake or if he was testing me to see if I knew but it was handled after the initial confusion.
After that, he started to tell me to sit down then went "-oh, congratulations, your visa has been approved" as an afterthought, which makes me think the whole approval was already taken for granted since he missed that step.
I am 99% sure the sheer amount of relationship evidence I submitted at the pre-screening made his mind up and the rest was a formality. When I got my pictures back, he had flipped through half of it as the order was messed up but did not look at the other half. So they check the evidence before the actual interview since he did not look at a single thing during, except to double check the answers to the name and address on his file.
I was really happy talking about Leo and me, so it showed in the interview I suppose.
Those that are worrying about the interview, there is no intimidation at all. It's a very casual conversation but be prepared for concise answers since he is highly trained and often does not let you finish what you are saying. So less beating around the bush and more straight talk. Don't be robotic though, be yourself and be confident about your relationship. And smile, because you're happy at the thought of being with your loved one pretty soon. So show it! I blabbed a lot and did not get to finish most of what I was saying but I was smiling and grinning throughout the whole thing, even though the prior wait almost killed me from mere suspense. The CO is wonderful, friendly and approachable.
Note: It rained cats and dogs after the interview, so bring an umbrella. I got soaked. But who cares, I was happy and dancing on cloud nine. I didn't mind a little rain, well a lot of rain actually.
They gave me a blue card to pick up my passport and envelope from Wisma MCA the next day at 3-4pm and that went by without a hitch!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #5169