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| Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |  Review on May 17, 2010: |
Marina-Del
Rating:  | Review Topic: Direct Consular Filing
This is really long, so to sum it up if you don't want to read it all:
Interview was long, but no problems really. The consul asked us two questions: had my husband ever been to the US? Since the answer was no, how come he speaks English so well. It took 5 minutes. Then he told us we were missing a part of the I-864. They kept the passport, we paid courier fee. We mailed docs a couple weeks later, visa was issued the next day!
Now to a more detailed version....I loved reading the details before our interview so I've included them here, but I know it's long!
We got to the consulate at 7:00 and there were 5 couples in front of us. There were about 10-12 couples in total the day we were there. Every single one was with their significant other (and all were already wearing wedding rings) minus one boy that looked about 18, he was with his father, but he was also wearing a wedding ring. They did let the father enter the consulate, but not the interview room.
We entered the consulate at about 7:30 after being given numbers. Then we went up to the immigrant room. We were given the sheet to put our docs in order, then talked to a man through the glass window and he looked over our docs just making sure they were all there and in order. He handed back to me both my and my mothers (our co sponsor) 2007 taxes. Then gave us a little green paper to go down stairs and pay the $400 fee. They DID accept international credit cards and after waiting in line about 15 minutes to pay, we were able to pay. Then we went up stairs to wait some more. After waiting about 1 hour or so we were called to do his finger prints. By this time they were already calling in people to do interviews with the consul. It was like this: they called a number, they went in for about 20 minutes, they came out, then no one was called for about 15-20 minutes (presumably so the consul could get himself familiar with the next petition) and then some one else was called in. After the fingerprints we waited until 12:15!! There were only us and two other couples still waiting by the time we were called in. I read a review on here that many DCFers had to wait longer at the consulate and that definitely seemed to be the case, because of the 3 couples still waiting, two of us were DCF and the third I don't know -although I think it wasn't DCF because the American didn't understand a word of Portuguese. There was also one couple that went in before us that only spoke Portuguese together. I think the Brazilian wife didn't speak English at all, and they were approved, so no worries if that's your case! (although I guess you won't be reading this is that's the case... ).
Anyway, Finally it was our turn! We went in and the consul was really nice with us. He asked us (in English) if we wanted the interview conducted in English or Portuguese and I said that English was fine. He asked us to raise our right hands and swear that it was all true, and took Del's fingerprints again on one hand (left I think). He asked Del if he'd ever been to the US, Del said no, never. Then he asked if he'd ever tried to get a visa to go to the US, and Del said, no again. He then wanted to know how Del spoke English so well if he'd never been to the US and he said that he'd lived in London. Then he asked for how long and Del said 3 years. Then he asked if that is where we met and I said yes, that we'd worked in the same place. And he said, okay, great. "Everything looks fine except one little problem", and then my heart stopped...haha.
So here's was the problem: our I-864. It's really complicated! Basically my mom is our co-sponsor. She has (including Del) a family of 5. To sponsor a family of 5 you need an income of $32K. My mom had an employment letter stating she makes $39K, but on her W2 it says in box 1 that she made $31K. This is because her company deducts health insurance, retirement plan, and parking BEFORE stating the figure on her W2. So while in actuality she makes $39K, her official govt doc only says $31K, understand? Complicated I know! Well, I didn't know about these differences before the consul pointed them out. I wish that my mom had coached me on the discrepancies in her documents, but she didn't because she didn't think it would be an issue so I was totally unprepared as to what to tell the consul!! He said we needed to get my dad to do an I-864A to supplement my moms income! It didn't matter that I make enough here in Brazil to sponsor us myself because I don't have W2's to prove that is how much I make, only letters from my employers here. The consul was really nice though and honestly seemed really annoyed that he had to deny us the visa that day simply because my mom was missing $700!! So anyway, I rushed to tell my mom what we were missing. She got the missing docs and mailed them fast tract to us in Brazil. I mailed the docs to Rio on May 10th. Rio received the docs on May 11th. The visa was issued on May 12th! Even though they told me they'd send me emails when the visa was issued, they did not! I checked TNT every night to see if the visa was coming and it always said "not found" when I typed in the number. Today (May 17th) the visa arrived in the mail! So it was a pleasant surprise! We had no idea it was even on the way!
I gave a 4 instead of a 5 simply because they were not communicative about the issuance of the visa!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #6080