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| Argentina |  Review on July 30, 2010: |
Ashley y Diego
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
We had interview at 2:00 on Tuesday afternoon. We had visited the embassy before and not had too much trouble with parking, but this time there were a lot of people at La Rural, right next to the embassy, so the car and pedestrian traffic in the whole area was just crazy!! We still arrived 15 minutes early, the guard had us check in with window #1 in the booth outside and we went right in. There's no need to wait in any lines where the tourist visa applicants are, although by this time of day there wasn't a huge crowd for that either (mostly in the morning). No problem at all with both fiances going through for interview. [NOTE: if you don't have an interview appt, USC will be able to enter embassy to ask questions/etc, but fiance will not be able to go in.]
After going through airport-type security (no electronics- leave your phone in the car!) we walked through an outdoor corridor to the consulate office. When you first enter, you check in at a desk and will receive a number (two identical pieces of paper with a number to be called up to a window to talk to someone). Then you enter the room. There are windows all along the back wall. The immigrant visa window, #5, is all the way to the left, and unlike those for the tourist visa interviews which are open, it is a little room with a door so you can sit and talk to the interviewer with more privacy. The first time you are called it will be by the number you received at the door. The employee will take one of the papers with the number and you will keep one with you (souvenir!). The first thing to do is give them all the paperwork they ask you to bring [please search for my post regarding what they will ask you for]. You'll hand each item to them through a slot at the bottom of the window. In our case, they took all the paperwork, told us to go back out to wait, called us back to clarify if we needed to pay more fees (it had changed from $131 to $350 while we were waiting so we had to pay the difference), then sent us to the cashier's window (#12) to pay it and keep waiting. After the first time, we were called to the window by name rather than number. We waited.. and waited. All the tourist visa interviews had finished and by 4:00 it was just us and one other lady in the room. She told us her immigrant visa appointment was at 1:00, she was finally called to interview at 4 and we followed at 4:30. It went pretty quickly once we were there. Beneficiary was asked to raise right hand and repeat a promise that everything is true and blah blah, then took digital fingerprints. First she asked us when we planned to get married, then about how we met and when we met each of our families. Then, after it was pretty clear there were no questions about it being a valid relationship, she said "all your documents are in order, so you'll be getting the visa". We were smiling and all excited.. but then came the bad news: it will take them 2 weeks to put the stamp on beneficiary's passport, seal our papers in an envelope and put it in the mail. Since we had said we plan to get married in about 2 weeks, she said she would try to rush it through, but no guarantees.  .
She gave us back the original documents we had submitted for their review, and we went out with a ticket from her to give to DHL (outside on the corridor) to pay for the mailing of the passport back to us. It was 55 pesos and they said they would deliver it the day after the embassy gives it to them.
We left so happy to finally have the visa approved, but sad we still cannot make flight reservations and get back to the US quickly! Speed is just not a characteristic of this embassy.
Please search for my post detailing what documents exactly must be submitted and how to do everything right the first time so you won't get RFEs because you didn't send them what they didn't ask for  .
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #6422