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|  Review on November 20, 2010: |
Indy90
Rating:  | Review Topic: General Review
We arrived at the consulate at 6:45AM, a little later than I would have liked. We were divided into two lines-one for people applying for a tourist visa and another for people applying for residency. We were probably among the last 15 people to get in line. A representative from the consulate, who seemed to have an Italian accent when speaking Spanish, came around and checked to see if everyone had brought their appointment letter and required photos. Unfortunately, we had brought passport style photos when they really needed them to be square 5cm by 5cm, so we had to get out of line and walk across the street so that my wife could get her picture retaken, which cost $10.
After getting back in line, it seemed that they let the people in the tourist line pass through security much faster than the people in the residency line. When it was our turn to pass through security, they made my wife throw away (or get back in line) a small teddy bear that I had given her when we were dating, which we had brought as evidence because it came with a card. They also made us get rid of the plastic bag that we were using to carry all of our papers and evidence.
After passing through security, we were led to a small room and made to wait for about a half hour before the consul came and had everybody swear to tell the truth. He was extremely hilarious and gave about a 10 minute speech telling us what to do and what not to do. He informed us that the majority of people would get approved that day but if we did not, we just needed to fix whatever the problem that the interviewer found. He seemed to have an accent from Colombia when speaking Spanish; I did not hear him speak English.
After waiting again for quite a while, a security guard came and asked for a couple of volunteers who had been waiting for a long time, so we volunteered. We were led downstairs and ten minutes later my wife was called to present any needed papers and evidence to a lady from Ecuador. I thought that we had every single document, but I saw a sign that said that we needed the DS 230, which happened to be the only document that we did not have. Thankfully, the consulate had everything that I had previously submitted, so there was no problem. We were asked for letters and pictures, but when my wife handed over our pictures, the lady from Ecuador informed my wife that that was enough and she did not need anything else (phone records, my passport, letters, receipts, etc.)
Five minutes later we were called to another window and my wife was interviewed. The lady interviewing my wife spoke rather poor Spanish and if I had not been there, I think that there would have been some serious miscommunication. We were asked about 5 questions: if my parents had been at the wedding, where we went for our honey moon, when and where we met, and asked to show our rings. Then suddenly, we were told that we had been approved, which was almost a shock for us due to the swiftness. We left around 10:45AM and went to DHL, where we learned that you have to pay in cash, not credit card.
I think that taking a honeymoon and having wedding rings is vital. She didn’t really seem to mind that my parents did not come to our wedding because I told her that we are going to have another ceremony in the US. The other area that caused some problems was the fact that there were some Jewish symbols in our Christian wedding. For some reason, she assumed that I was Jewish and marrying a Christian (although why should it matter?), so I had to explain to her that they were just symbols and nothing else. She did not seem to understand my wife when my wife explained it in Spanish.
My general feeling is that things have changed at the consulate, especially because of the speech that the consulate gave us. I did, however, find the consulate to be a very poorly designed building. It appears to be a maze of corridors with very cramped, almost dirty, rooms. When they interview you, there are dozens of people just a few feet away. I was quite disappointed with the fact that we had to throw away the teddy bear and also the Spanish ability of the person that interviewed my wife…if I had not been there, it would have been difficult for them to communicate. Also, there was a woman that called people to the different interview windows whose Spanish pronunciation was embarrassingly bad; she especially butchered people’s names, making it almost hard to know who had been called at times. Be sure not to bring a large folder with the evidence, or it WILL NOT fit under the window when you hand it over. We brought 6-7 small folders for this reason.
Unlike everyone else, my wife and I did not find the consulate to be very cold. In fact, we quickly took off the light jackets that we brought. I was extremely surprised that they did not want to see most of the evidence that we had brought, but I imagine the fact that I was there and that we had met several years ago helped. They seemed to be in a rush to get through everyone (we were told that in all there were over 400 people there to apply for a variety of visas). I don’t think that arriving early necessarily means that you will get interviewed first. We were interviewed before probably 2/3rds of the people, even though we were almost the last people to go through security. They also frequently asked for volunteers to move around to different waiting rooms because of lack of space, which may or may not have speeded up the process. When I have gone to the US consulate in Quito, I have found the new building to be much better designed and the Spanish ability of the consulate workers to be much better as well.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #6895