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| Dominican Republic |  Review on January 1, 2012: |
JoshNKaren
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
One note before talking about the interview.
The website and instructions both say:
As soon as you have obtained the documents that are applicable in your case, take this sheet to any Banco Popular branch in the Dominican Republic to pay the non-fundable visa application fee of the equivalent of US$140.00 in Dominican pesos and an additional non-refundable fee of US$15.00 (the equivalent in Dominican pesos) plus applicable taxes per applicant. This fee is for the official verification of your records. All applicants must pay the equivalent of US$140.00 fee, but only applicants who will be age 18 or older on the day of their interview need to pay the equivalent US$15.00 fee. Make sure to take the Banco Popular receipt to the Consular Section on the day of your interview.
Note that it says both the $140 fee and the $15 need to be paid at a Banco Popular. We had to go to 3 different banks for them to allow us to pay the $15 one. All the others said we didn't need it because it was a non-immigrant visa. They are WRONG. Technically, it is a non-immigrant visa but the consulate treats it just like an immigrant visa. You do need to pay that $15 fee. Finally, we found a bank that would call to confirm that we were indeed correct. They then allowed us to pay it. I'm glad we insisted on it because they asked for it at the consulate.
Now to the interview. We got there about 6:15am. They told us the interview was at 6:45a. I didn't have a watch so the wait times I'll describe are just guesses. I do know what time we left though.
We waited in line for quite a while and when we got to the door they asked my fiancee for her appointment papers and they gave us a number. We entered and waited about 20 minutes. Then they called us to pay our application fees. We talked to the lady for a moment and she sent us to pay the fee and asked that we return to her and give her the receipt. We did that and sat down again.
After about 2 hours, we were called again. This time it was to take my fiancee's finger prints. After we did that we sat down again.
After about an hour, we were called for the interview. It was an American man. He almost seemed like he had already made his decision before he seen us. He seemed very relaxed. He asked my fiancee where we met and where I worked. He then asked me if I had any photos. I showed him some and he asked me who a couple people were and their names (they were her parents). He then asked her what her parents did for a living. Then he asked when our wedding was going to be. I told him that we didn't have a date because in my state you have a have a state ID to get a marriage certificate. You can't get that until you have a SS#. He then explained the process of what to do after the visa was granted. And followed that up with telling us the visa was approved and to go pay domex downstairs. That was it.
I think it was due to how orderly I had made the petition for the first part of the process. I had everything they required and I bundled it together with the paper fasteners and large paper clips. Each section of the petition was fastened with it's own fasteners on the top of the page. I then grouped the sections together with the large black paper clips using the instructions as a guide to divide everything up.
We left the embassy at about 11:30a. It was a long wait, but well worth it. The interview was about 4 or 5 minutes long.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #8949