Consulate Review: London, United Kingdom
Review Topic: K1 Visa
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| Event |
Description |
| Review Date : |
March 15, 2007 |
| Embassy Review : |
My interview was scheduled for 8am (!) and I wanted to get there in plenty of time, because I was hoping that 8 o'clock would be the earliest interview 'slot' (looks like I was right), and that the sooner I got there, the less queueing would be involved both inside and outside the building. I left the house at 7am, was on a bus by 7:05, and getting off the bus (rather bleary-eyed - not much sleep last night!) on Park Lane at 7:18.... then went to get some cash out (all I had on me was the $100 visa fee and the money for the courier - I wanted snack-buying money for the long wait ahead!), and after a quick trip to Starbucks to get a latte & a croissant to eat in the queue, I got to the Embassy by about 7:30.
I followed some people round the edges of the security fences etc, but it turned out I was on the wrong side of the building (the Upper Brook Street side, closest to Oxford Street - although I'm sure it wouldn't have taken long for the queue to start stretching around there a bit later on) and the people I was following worked there & were being let in through the staff-only gate. A nice security guy told me to walk all the way around the building to the other side, asked what time my interview was, and said 'they'll probably let you in now'.
Got to the other side... a few people were beginning to queue, but really not that many. I drank most of my rapidly-cooling latte. Turned my mobile phone off (noting that it was 7:32 at this point!) A few people appeared behind me and asked if this was the visa section... a couple of minutes later I got to the front of the mini-queue where there was a friendly woman checking people's letters and asking to see passports & photos and sending them to join different queues - she just glanced at my appointment letter and said 'oh! immigration! join the queue on the far left!'
There wasn't a queue on the far left, just space for one (there's a few barriers to divide people into, I think, 3 queues) - so evidently I was the first 'immigrant' visa applicant to arrive! I went to go in the 'far left' bit I'd been told to, but the guy checking passports etc there made me go in the middle one. He was checking everyone's passports, and about a minute later he got to me, asked what kind of visa I was there for, and sent me into the left-hand one after all - that just meant I got to 'jump' past the handful of people waiting in the other queues and go straight to the hut where they make you hand over phones etc. I had to wait for about 3 people to go through, then it was my turn - I was asked if I had a belt on, or any bracelets etc (I didn't), my bag and big folder of stuff went through the airport-style x-ray thing, I walked through the metal detector with my Starbucks bag. They gave me my bag & folder back, and asked me to get my phone out and give it to them - then gave me a little tag to get it back later. Oh - they had a dispenser of clear plastic bags outside, and people kept taking them - I think we were all wondering if we'd have to put any liquids/gels/whatever in there like you have to do to fly right now... a woman in front of me had put all her coins in there. Maybe they're for emptying the contents of your pockets into before you go through the metal detector... either way, I took one, but didn't need it!
After I came out of the security check hut, a nice policeman with a very big gun showed me the right way to go - you have to walk all the way around the building, back the way you came on the outside, basically (and follow the signs that say 'visas')... then finally you actually enter the building! It can't have been any later than 7:45, probably even earlier than that - I really didn't have to wait any time at all in the queues and the security check was very quick too.
When I got into the building I was about to walk up the stairs to the left, following yet more signs for 'visas' - but the woman at the desk there called me back to ask what type of visa I was getting, and gave me my number - 001. Then I went up the stairs, through the heavy doors, and sat down. There's a big room, with screens (yup, like others have said, like the ones in Argos where they show which number is being seen at which window!) in the middle, lots of seats, and windows (1-11, I think) all down one side - then more windows in the room round the corner. At the end you walk in at is the desk where you have to go and pay the courier before you leave, and at the other end they sell crisps & chocolate & drinks. The windows mostly had their blinds down at this point, you could tell the consular staff were just starting work! The screens showed that nobody had been called to any windows yet - it also showed that there were 33 people waiting to be seen for non-immigrant visas, and jut one (me!) on the 'immigrant visa' list. I had enough time to finish the last couple of mouthfuls of my coffee, then got my croissant out. The robot-voice on the tannoy called what must have been the first of the non-immigrant visas to a window... I took a bite of croissant... the tannoy said 'would customer number 1 please go to window number 1'. That was me...
The croissant went back in its bag, I went to window number 1... the (chinese?) lady behind there was very nice and chatty - unfortunately it was really hard to hear her behind the window, and I felt bad because she was chatting away (about the fact that her daughter wants to work where I work, mostly.... hey, tell her she can have my job, I won't be keeping it for much longer!  ) but I couldn't catch most of it at all, so was mostly just nodding and smiling with only the vaguest gist of what she was saying - lucky I wasn't actually being asked any questions at this point! Anyway, the first thing she did (after taking my passport) was gave me back my x-ray ('you can take it in your suitcase, then you can hang it on the wall or throw it in the bin, whatever you want!'), flicked through my forms (I could see our whole I-129F package there, with a big red 'APPROVED' stamp on it - and I now know what an ACCO fastener is!), said 'oh, you work at (my work)!', chatted for a bit... she wandered off a couple of times, I think as everyone was just starting work for the day they were a bit disoriented - other members of consular staff kept calling her to their windows and she went off to help or whatever... then she came back, (grumbled a bit that 'nobody's here yet!'), came out to where I was standing, and cleaned the screen on the fingerprint machine thing. Went back in, took my fingerprints... asked me when I was planning to travel to the US (I said 'hopefully by mid-April, she wrote 'APRIL' on one of my forms). She took my passport photos and stuck them onto the DS-156s, and asked for my birth certificate (and copy), police certificate (and copy), and the affidavit of support. I gave her the I-134, and was about to get out all the evidence of support we had - but she just said 'have you got a letter from his work there or something?', so I just gave her the work letter - she said 'that's fine' and gave me back the originals of everything (except the I-134 - obviously she kept the notarised copy of that), then got me to sign both the DS-156s.
That was it - she didn't ask to see anything else at all (oh - she asked if I'd been married before - I haven't), just told me to go and pay the visa fee at window 12 and come back to her afterwards. She gave me the pink form for the courier, and told me to fill that in while I was waiting, and a yellow form for paying the visa fee.
Went round the corner to window 12, the cashier's window... there was nobody there yet! Another guy arrived to pay his visa fee (some kind of work visa) and we were waiting a couple of minutes before the cashier appeared. I handed over my $100 and got a receipt... went back to window 1, where someone else was now being seen. Sat down and waited maybe 5 minutes, then she sent that guy on his way to pay his fee, and called me back - I gave her the receipts and she told me to sit back down and wait to be called for the second bit of interview...
I was expecting the wait to be a bit longer this time, and was still feeling really nervous, even though there was clearly nothing to be nervous about! I had about 3 sips of water and took my croissant out again (even though I was too nervous to want to eat by this point), had a few bites.... then 'ticket 1 please come to window number 15' (this was actually someone calling my number over the tannoy, rather than an automated robot-voice). Croissant went back in its bag... I went round the corner with all my stuff, to window 15. Was seen by an American guy, quite young and very pleasant & friendly. He made me hold up my right hand and swear to tell the truth, then asked me the following very tricky questions:
- Are you marrying a United States citizen?
- What is his name?
- How did you meet?
- When did you first meet in person?
- You've seen each other since then, right?
And that was it, followed by yet more enthusiasm about my place of work that I can't wait to leave! He didn't ask to see any of the stuff I had in my file - I'd half-expected him to want to see more of the evidence of support (bank letter, paystubs, etc etc etc), but no... and didn't ask for any proof of ongoing relationship or anything. I'm glad I had it all with me, though.
Then... 'you've been accepted for the visa...', he explained about it being a single-entry visa and that we need to get married within 90 days, adjust status etc, and not to 'go on honeymoon to Mexico or anywhere until you've adjusted status or got advance parole'... and that really was it - he told me to go and pay the courier and I should get my passport back, complete with visa, in a couple of days.
SO easy! Even by the standards of what I've read on here, that was a breeze from start to finish. It took maybe 10 minutes to get to the front of the courier queue and pay, then I went outside, back around the building, collected my phone, and was heading back towards Park Lane in the sunshine... switched my phone back on and it was 9:13am. |
| Rating : |
Very Good |
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ver 5.0