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| Guatemala |  Review on July 14, 2011: |
Diana and Chris
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
One thing you should know: If you expect privacy.. don\'t, you wont have any.
I arrived at 7:30 for an 8:00 a.m. interview. Went to the 7ma ave. street and directly to the immigrant line. Waited out there until 8 am, standing in line, doesn`t matter at what time you have your interview, the earlier the better. A man around his 50\\\'s gave us our numbers to go in and a paper you must fill out with your name, phone number, email.Take a pen, I borrowed the one I took around 5 times. The paper is for the consular person. After that they made me pass through security. It`s best to not bring anything you wont use, and there is no cellphones allowed, at all. You go up the stairs and into the embassy.
It was nothing like I expected it to be, seems like you are going into a Guatemalan Muni. A bunch of chairs stacked together in the middle and people speaking on mics checking papers and they respond on this phone. A lot like they show them on the TV for prisoners. Haha. I was number 8 for the residency window. They are 3 windows that call out for residencies. Got called after about 40 minutes more or less (I didn\\\'t take a watch, and there are NO clocks in the area.) I was called to the window, the lady asked me to take all of my forms and papers from the list on packet 4 to give it to her. I think she was the nicest one, since I could hear the rest of the windows because of the mics I noticed other consular ladies asking questions about the relationship, but this one did not. She just saw my papers, laughed sometimes with me, and was having a big time chit chat with her consular buddies. (They even made me laugh once with their jokes). She was just typing away in her computer. After about 5 minutes she asked me if I had ever lived in the States, to what I answered \\\"No\\\". She said I could sit and that I would be called to take my fingerprints. About 15 minutes later I was called to one of the windows of a consular that was taking tourist visa applications. Got me kinda nervous to be called randomly to that window, but he was the one that took my fingerprints. Another huge wait came after that, around 40 minutes, more or less (Take a watch haha) And this somewhat young lady (late 20\\\'s early 30\\\'s) got into one of the residencies windows and started calling people one by one for their interview.(there is no separate office, you have your interview with a person asking you things on a mic and speaker.) She spoke perfect Spanish, looked latin and seemed very serious when interviewing the ones before. I am guessing she was guatemalan.She was polite, but with a straight face. 3 people came before me.I was called, and she was even smiling to me! She spoke to me in a \\\"tu\\\" way. I had a 3 inch binder with me and she didn`t even care for it. She asked me -My Fiance\\\'s name. -How we met. -When we met. -When we started dating. -If I had a tourist visa. -If I had ever been to the States. -How many times he had been here. -When we were getting married. -What was his work. I offered her to see my pictures and she hesitated, (Seemed like she didn\\\'t need to see them) but smiled while she was looking at them. .Then she approached the window like trying to be quiet so non of the 50 people behind me could hear and said: \\\"Did you meet on a dating site, or somewhere else? And I started laughing and said: \\\"It was this silly avatar pg 13 game... he started talking to me.. and here we are\\\" She seemed pleased with the fact that we met on a place that wasn`t a dating site, she commented on the fact that maybe Chris and I really liked computers, I commented about me being a computer teacher and she said: Oh you`ll get a job real quick in the States.. After that she started saying that everything seemed to be fine, that I was approved and to pick up my visa monday at 3:30. And said: \\\"With the rest of your lots of proof, you can maybe do a scrapbook... \\\" and started laughing. Then she gave me my code to pick up my visa and said anybody could pick it up for me as long as they had the code. I then said: \\\"Lady, you have made me VERY happy today...\\\" and she just laughed.
The pick up: My interview was on a Thursday and my visa pick up was the following Monday at 3:30 (super fast compared to other embassies). You will see people making a line (it doesn\'t matter if you\'re first or last, because once inside you\'re called by name, not number of arrival) At 3:30 they start letting you go inside, you present the police man the code given to you when approved, there is a 1 person per code policy, so don\'t expect your fiance, hubby or mom to go in with you. Hehe. once inside you sit down and they call you by your name. They give you your package, passport, and an instruction sheet (They ask you not to leave without reading it completely). It was really easy, but check all your info is correct. The lady sitting beside me was picking up a CR1 visa and it showed her as \"Single\"... for a spouse visa??? :S I told her to ask and they told her to go back the following day because they had to correct it.
(updated on July 24, 2011)
(updated on July 24, 2011)
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #7925