Consulate Review: France
Review Topic: K1 Visa
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| Event |
Description |
| Review Date : |
March 30, 2012 |
| Embassy Review : |
My K-1 visa appointment was on March 29th at 1PM. As advised by Laure&Colin who had her appointment for a CR-1 visa 2 days before, I arrived at the embassy about 20 to 25 min before.
First step before entering the consulate/embassy was to show the appointment letter+passport to the guards outside. They also asked me to turn off my cell phone. Then I entered in the security room were an officer asked me to empty my pocket and remove my belt, while he checked my bag carefully, removing all the documents in my folder to check if there was a \"CD\" (disk) inside… He kept my phone, a mirror, and my antibacterial tube in a plastic bag and handed me a coupon to take it back later (I wore it around my neck).
I entered the embassy, took a ticket choosing \"immigrant-visa\" (that\'s what you need to select for a K-1, even if it\'s technically not an immigrant visa). My number was A103. Looks like this afternoon, the numbers started at A102 because there was only one person before me (and all booths were still closed but one still had the number A101).
I waited until 1PM when a nice woman started to call one by one each person at booth 5, to check the appointment letter and ticket. I returned to sit and wait a little while. Then I was called again, still at booth 5, where she asked for all my documents one by one (the ones on the list that you receive in packet 4). I bought a Chronopost envelope of 1kg (documents only, so with no bubble bag inside), which seems to be the good one for a K-1 visa (even if they say 1 or 2kg in the P4). I previously wrote my address in the envelope (don\'t forget your phone number) and the woman was happy with it. She also asked me the affidavit of support form \"and the documents associated\". I felt like I could choose which documents to give her, so I only gave her my fiance\'s last tax return (she didn\'t want the W-2 form), his last pay check and his letter of employment. I advise to have more documents with you just in case (like the last 3 pay checks, the last 3 tax returns… ). After she asked me all the documents, she asked if I had other documents that I wanted to submit (I guess she saw my BIG folder!). I realized she didn\'t asked me for the JAPD certificate, so I handed it to her. I haven\'t bring a photocopy so she did one quickly and gave me back my original. After that, she took my fingerprints (it didn\'t work very well, but that seemed ok). She gave me back a whole bunch of documents we previously submitted with our I-129F petition package (emails, old letter of intent…), and told me to go sit again and that I will be asked at booth 11 for the interview.
I waited again and got asked at booth 11 where a Consular Officer lady reviewed all my file in front of me. She looked at our pictures, wrote some things on some forms and finally talked to me. I took the oath and signed the 2 DS-156 forms. She then asked me questions, starting by \"Tell me about your fiance\" (vast question!). I didn\'t know much by where to begin, so I said his name, his date of birth, his job… I don\'t know which answer she expected.  She asked me how did we met, so I replied \"we met during a party in a bar in NYC\", she asked me \"tell me about your first meeting, how was it ?\". Again vast question! She asked \"How and where your fiance proposed to you?\", so I said he proposed to me last August in Columbia University in NYC. She said \"that was not in Paris ??\", I replied \"no!! that was in New York!\". She checked our file, at the page where my fiance explained our story (I-129F package). Then I don\'t remember exactly, but I said that\'s the University where my fiance was a student when we met. She thought I did my internship (J-1 visa) there, so she asked me where did I do my internship, I replied UC Davis (she checked my visa on my passport). She asked what did I do, why did I did it there, what was my major so I replied. All in all, she was very nice. There was some moments where she was typing on her computer so I waited… She finally closed my file and told me I will receive my visa in 7 to 10 days, and then said \"congratulations!\" with a smile. I smiled, thanked her, and left. 
During my wait, I talked with a girl that was there also for a fiance visa (ticket A105 girl, if you see this, hi!), and I saw another fiance visa girl that I quickly met at Dr Slattery office.
I have to say I was very worried, I felt my ears burning red, but everybody was nice and that was pretty smooth/quick. I left the embassy at about 2:30PM (there is no clock there and they take your cell phone, so it\'s difficult to know the duration of everything). The only thing that was a little bothering is that it is sometimes difficult to understand the officer through the window (they have a microphone, and there\'s some background noise).
Very good experience!
(updated on March 30, 2012) |
| Rating : |
Very Good |
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