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| Costa Rica |  Review on November 3, 2011: |
CRgringo
Rating:  | Review Topic: General Review
The "Good" - Shirley's visa was approved!
The "Bad" - The interview was originally scheduled for Tuesday, Oct 27 at noon, so I booked a flight down to San Jose on Sunday, Oct 25, with plans of bring Shirley back with me (I didn't book a round trip, since we weren't sure how long the visa would take after approval). When I got home from work the previous Friday (Oct 23), I had a voicemail from the consulate advising that they had rescheduled the interview for Wednesday, Nov 5. What?!?! Of course, the consulate was already closed for the week, so I had no idea why or what this meant. I flew down on Sunday and called the consulate first thing Monday morning. They advised that the consular had to go out of town unexpectedly, which cause a bottleneck at the consulate and they were pushing out all appointments. After explaining that I had flown down for the interview and had to return home before Nov 5th, they agreed to schedule us for Friday, Oct 30. (phew! at least I could attend the interview!).
The "Interview" - the process was the same as all the other reviews (arrived at embassy, they instructed us to pull a "G" ticket/number and have a seat in the covered patio area. Then they called all the "G" ticket holders and led us inside. We were called to the window and the attendent (a nice young girl) went through our Packet 3 documents. A couple words of caution here:
1) Photos - when you go get your ID photos taken, you need seven (7) altogether. Three (3) for examinations, etc. and four (4) to take to the interview (which all have to be identical). We had the correct number, but several other people didn't (they do have a photo kiosk there in case you didn't have enough or the quality of those you brought weren't acceptable.
2) Single Certificate - in Costa Rica you must obtain a current Single Certificate from the Civil Registry, which basically states you are free to marry. This is different from, and in addition to you, the Divorce Decree (if you were previously married). We had the divorce papers but not the single certificate (which I assumed would be the same thing). The couple next to us were in the same boat. Fortunately, they said we could bring it after-the-fact. Also, the wording on the instruction sheet is confusing on this matter (at least the English translation is); it states: "If you have never been married, need to obtain a single certficate from the "Registro Civil"
What documents/stuff did they require/take?
- DS-230 (signed, one copy, part one only)
- DS-156 (signed, two copies)
- DS-156K (unsigned, one copy)
- passport(s)
- 4 photos
- medical exams (you don't need your x-rays)
- Birth certficate
- Divorce decree (or death certificate)
- Single certificate
- Police/criminal records
- I-134 Evidence of Support (signed, one copy)
- 2010 Federal tax return and W2's (they only took the first two pages of tax returns)
- Letter from Bank (listing accounts, average balance, date opened)
- Bank statements (they took last two months)
- Letter from Employer
- Pay Stubs (they took the last two)
- Evidence of Relationship (she only took a couple photos because she said there was no more room in the file; everything else was returned)
After the doc review, we were instructed to pay the $350 at the cashier window and bring back the receipt for the file.
We were called for the interview in about 15 minutes. The young american guy who interviewed us was a fill-in and I don't believe he'd done an interview before. The first question he asked was did Shirley speak English and when she said 'no mucho' he seemed a little confused and then turned to me and started asking the questions. The first was "do you have photos of your relationship?" I asked if he wanted more that the document girl took, and after looking through the file, he said "no, these are fine". The he asked, when did you first meet? and when did you get engaged? (I had to ask Shirley, haha!). Then he turned to Shirley and asked her (in broken spanish) how many times I'd visited her in CR (8 times in 18 months, btw). Then he had her sign a statement that basically said if the marriage didn't happen, her visa would be revoked and that she would immediately return to CR.
After that, the guy simply says, "Well, you're approved, you can pick up your visa next week", we said thanks and started to walk away, when the girl from the document window came over and told the guy "Wait, she still needs to bring back the single certficate and you have to finger print her". He processed her electronic fingerprints and that was it. We stopped at the Civil Registry on the way home and got the single certificate.
I had to fly home on Saturday, so Shirley went back to the embassy on Monday to drop off here single certificate and pick up the visa. She was told that they were still extremely backed up and it could be another week for the visa to be processed. They called her today (7 days from interview, that the visa could be picked up after 3pm).
She's flying here tomorrow!!!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #8640