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|  Review on February 12, 2011: |
Sufrank
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
We arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Rio at 6:00am. We asked a guard (Daniel) for directions and as it happened, he was stationed at the entrance for immigrant visas. He was cordial and talkative, and stayed with and talked to us for 45 minutes, until his shift ended.
Nobody else arrived until about 6:30am. There's a lanchonete directly across the street where you can grab a snack if need be. Since there were two of us, we took turns. The lanchonete opens about 6:30am, by the way.
The tourist visa line grows pretty rapidly. Guards begin to multiply and set up signs around 6:30am to 6:45am, but largely ignore you. Around 7:00am-ish 4-5 guards in red vests come out and begin checking documents in the tourist visa line. Immigrant visas: wait! The tourist visa line began moving and entering before ours - which was frustrating given we'd been there longer and we were, naturally, stressed.
7:20-7:30am a single guide came out and checked our immigrant visa letter and our photos. The immigrant visa guide was polite, helpful, and her attitude helped dissipate a lot of pent up stress - when people's photos were unacceptable or they didn't have them, she knew exactly where to send them. When they were missing documents, she helped. We were fine but we had to wait another five minutes, then we were ushered in.
You go around the concrete barrier, in the little one-person-wide entrance, inside the single, heavy door. You pass about 50 chairs full of people waiting for tourist visas in a big room, and enter a small hallway which opens into a couple more rooms. On the left there's a stairway - you head up, and into a smaller, more intimate and comfortable area for the immigrant visa crowd. The guide follows you and sits at a desk behind you.
Once everybody is inside she briefs you on what to expect and begins handing outa document explaining what you need to do. In short, you need to arrange the documents the embassy does not have (and which you should have brought) in a specific order. You fill out a quick document for the beneficiary, then take everything to the guide for verification. You can go to her for help at any time.
Everybody felt rushed, but I think everybody settled down a bit when the guide simply mentioned that my wife and I, first in line, would be first in the interview rooms. The "hurry up and go first!" tension left the air immediately and people relaxed. Everybody had about 30 minutes to arrange their documents (takes 5 minutes) and then wait.
After that you're called into one of three rooms (1, 2, or 4). You hand the case workers the documents you brought (don't bring big photo albums or anything, you can't slide them through the glass, so it's a waste) and she exams them along with your entire, huge, case-file. It takes about 10 minutes for her to silently review your case - it mostly appears that she's making sure there are no outstanding issues, as she doesn't inspect anything in detail.
We got to see our case worker walk off, barefooted, to VERY quickly sing happy birthday to somoene  She laughed with us about it, then went back to silently reviewing our file. Some people were with the case worker for 30+ minutes, although I don't know why.
After that is the worst part...you go back outside to wait for your actual interview (room 3, no window to the outside). Our paperwork review was finished a little after 8:00am, but we didn't get called to the actual interview until 9:50am. It was a long, long wait, and there were still people going through paperwork reviews.
When you're first checked by the guide outside you're given a number ticket. The case worker for the paperwork review takes the top half, to put you in line as it were. Then, the digital signal above everybody in the middle of the room will call you by number. Although the guide warns everybody that while *everybody* will be called, it is not necessarily in order. However, she did advise us that we would be first, no matter what (strange?).
At 9:50am we were called in. The consular officer made us raise our right hands. My wife raised her left, I teased her, we all laughed, she she corrected herself, and we were sworn in. Then he took some digital fingerprints. My wife kept putting the wrong hands, or fingers instead of thumbs - I kept teasing her and laughing and I think it broke the ice and relieved a lot of tension.
He asked these questions:
1. Were we already married?
2. When did we get married?
3. Where did we get married?
4. What was my profession? How long had I been away?
5. Was I going back to the same profession, the same city?
- He was super interested in my job (I'm a video game tester) and he asked how
I got into it and a little bit more about it. It also gave me a chance to
talk about how we were looking for jobs in cities which would have stuff for
both of us.
6. What was my wife's profession?
7. Asked if she already had a job lined up, or something to that effect
I think that's about it. It was very light and conversational and took a whole 6-7 minutes, definitely less than 10.
At the end he closed our case file and said 'well, it looks like everything's in order here - your visa has been approved and...' I kinda stopped paying attention for a second as we smiled at each other.
We asked him a bunch of questions about the time it'd take to produce the visa, mail it out, and so on. He was super polite, understood we had flights marked, and so on. Per his information:
UP TO 4 days to produce the visa.
Mailing it depends on your distance from Rio and the Sedex service you purchase.
Our interview was done Wednesday morning around 10:00am, and paid for Sedex 24-48 hours, and we received the visa Saturday morning - we're about 4 hours away from Rio.
He left the interview room and we took a moment to hug and kiss and bounce up and down. Then we grabbed our stuff and left smiling. EVERYBODY in the waiting room could immediately tell - I think seeing the interview being so short and a couple coming out so happy further broke the spell of stress/tension it seemed people were feeling. A couple people congratulated us on our way out, and we took off. We set up our Sedex mailing, stepped outside, and got a cab.
Perfect!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #7158