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| France |  Review on May 5, 2011: |
brian-and-aurore
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
I spent a night in Paris as I had my medical the morning before, with Dr Slattery, whom I recommend.
I had my interview planned at 1pm and arrived around 12:40 but waited for 5 minutes before going in. I remembered from an old J-1 visa appointment that I had tried to be early but the police were not happy and had asked me to go back to the other side of the street so this time I asked the guy and he said it's fine. Then the security officer who checked my passport asked me why I was here and started joking. His colleagues took my cellphone and my hand sanitizer and I had to surrender a bottle of water and an apple.
A lady was seated at some sort of odd entrance desk and was distributing tickets with your calling number. I was the second person with an A-starting number (the immigrant ones) so I was quickly called to the 1st booth. A French woman (but as I started in English she followed, I could only tell by her accent) tore apart the top piece of my calling number sheet to staple it to my passport and asked to see the appointment letter. A few minutes later I was called to another booth and although I started in English, another French woman carried on in French, so I followed. She gave back to me all the pictures we sent with the original petition (yay !) and I thanked her. She asked basic questions to verify addresses and occupations. She asked to see all the required doc and specifically the IRS tax transcript that my Fiancé had given me. She played around with my 6 different pictures since I had mixed them up my mistake and finally found two matching pictures. She took my fingerprints and had me write my fiancé's name on the DS-156K, watching me. Then she had me sign both DS-156 but she never asked me to sign the attached sheets that go with the DS-157, probably because the DS-157 does not require signature (I only thought about that once I was out so I couldn't ask!). She also briefly explained the AOS process and told me to not loose my chest x-ray nor the copy of my vaccination record, and she also told me that I will need a translated birth certificate and that city halls should be able to provide what is called "un certificat de naissance multilingue" which is free and that I should push them to give me one. She told me that during AOS I can't leave the US (which I knew) but said that it could take up to 3 years. Then she added the fact that we could have adjusted my status on my J-1 (I knooooow, thank you for making me feel bad after a 9-month wait, grrr), to which I didn't answer but we weren't ready to get married at that moment. She said that all papers well filled out correctly and that I should go back on a seat and wait for the Consul to call me on booth 10 (nicer when you only have one screen to watch !). I asked whether she needed anything else, to which she answered no, that was the Consul's part.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #7553