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| New Delhi, India |  Review on November 23, 2011: |
Bec_Dipu
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
IF YOU ARE AN INTERRACIAL COUPLE, READ THIS REVIEW
I attended the interview with my fiance on August 3, 2011. Things to note about the embassy:
1) A beneficiary CAN NOT take any kind of electronics into the embassy. No camera, no cell phone. The security WILL NOT hold onto these items for you. You need to either leave them at home or bring someone with you who will wait outside for you. If the petitioner accompanies you, the security will hold the petitioner's phone which can then be retrieved after the interview.
2) Security will call up each interview group to line up outside the embassy based on appointment time. If they call the 10:00 appointments and yours is as 10:30, do not get in line. You will be wasting everyone's time and you will be forced to leave the line. Wait until your appointment time is called.
3) If you bring people with you who are not part of your petition, do not bring them in line with you. Once again, you are wasting everyone's time and they will be forced to leave the line. The line is only for the people who have the appointment.
If the petitioner of your case wishes to attend the interview, he or she will be allowed. If you contact the embassy or VFS to ask if the petitioner can come, you will probably be told no but once the petitioner is there, they will let him or her in. Make sure the petitioner has his or her passport too.
Vehicles are restricted near the embassy, so you will not see a line of cabs to take when you leave. Make sure you figure out your transportation situation ahead of time, especially if you will be without your cell phone.
When security finally calls your appointment time, a huge rush of people will run to the security line. Security will look at each person's passport and appointment letter. Half of the people will be kicked out of line because they are not interviewing or have a different appointment time. If the petitioner is present, he or she may be invited to skip the line. I chose to stay in the line with my fiance.
Once you go through security, you will enter the embassy "courtyard". Here you will be given a token or in our case, a post it because the token machine was broken. This will divide you into groups so that your case is called to the correct window. You will walk along the outside of the building to the back of the building. Once inside, you will work your way to the front of the building. Workers inside will direct you where to sit while you are waiting for your group to be called. I can't recall what the first set of windows was for, maybe just to check in.
After you finish the first set of windows, you will move towards the front of the building and wait for your individual case to be called. The seating in this part is very limited and I noticed that the American concepts of allowing the elderly to be seated first, followed by pregnant women and women with small children etc. do not apply here. Wear comfortable shoes. No one is going to give a seat up for you no matter how much you might need it.
Your case will be called and someone will go through your case to make sure everything is present. This person will collect your Passport Clearance Certificate, medical records, photos etc. and make you sign forms. You will be asked for the receipt for your payment. If you haven't paid yet, you will be sent to that window. The embassy website may not have the most current conversion rates. For our interview, we used the website rate of 48 INR for the bank draft, but it was only 47 INR when we got there. They accepted the draft and gave us change.
Once the worker verifies he or she has all of your information, he or she will give it to the CO and you will wait to be called to the COs window.
In our case, we were interviewed by the man referred to as the Chinese man on VJ although I would say he was probably Korean American. We could see that two letters were already printed and ready to hand to us, a mandatory AP letter and a 221(g). Abu was asked the following questions:
1) Who am I (addressed to Dipu about me)? Answer: I am the petitioner. At this point, the CO threw away the 221(g).
2) How did we meet? Answer: Met at work when his company was taking over work from mine for outsourcing.
3) Have you ever met her parents? Answer: No, but I met them over Skype a few times. I have met her grandparents in person last June, Father's Day weekend.
4) How many times have you been to America? Answer: Twice
The CO then said that the case is in adminstative processing. Then he asked if either of us had ever been married and we both said no.
Then the CO said go to the next window and the lady would explain AP to us. He kept Dipu's passport and returned all documents including evidence and original certificates. The CO kept the medical report but not the X-rays.
When we went to the next counter, the woman gave us a letter that had already been printed prior to our arrival at the CO's window that stated:
Please bear with us while your case undergoes mandatory administrative processing.
We have retained your passport to more quickly process your visa when the processing has been completed. When the processing is complete, we will send your passport and visa to you via VFS.
The woman did not give us any details as to why we are in AP or how long we could expect it to take. After receiving the letter, we exited back into the "courtyard" and then exited the building. I retrieved my cell phone from security so that we could call for our car. The entire process took less than three hours.
We received our visa on November 9, 2011. The letter that accompanied the visa said it was approved on October 21, 2011. We had a senator send a request for a status update which was sent to them on November 4. I believe that the request is what got them moving on actually placing the visa in the passport and sending it to Abu.
ATTENTION INTERRACIAL COUPLES
If you research on VJ, you will find that nearly all K1 interracial couples are denied in India, especially New Delhi. The only ones who seem to make it through with minimal issues are ones where the petitioner was present. I cannot stress enough how important this is. As I stated above, the CO threw away the 221(g) when he saw that I attended.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #8750