L1, L2 Visa

Hi All,

I've been reading this forum from 10 days before my actual date of interview. I should say that this forum is really helpful and all questions asked in the consulate can be found here.

My interview appointment was at the Chennai consulate on Feb 7th at 10am. I went to the security gate at 9:15am, but was asked to come back at 9:45am. I went there again at 9:40am and they let me in this time. There were a couple of security checks and then I was in the hall.

There are many counters in this first hall where they check your documents and take fingerprint scan of all ten fingers. I stood in counter number 4, where the lady checked all my documents, took fingerprint scans, and rearranged my documents, wrote something on them and gave it back to me. She asked me to go stand in the cash counter queue(counter 6). I stood at the cash counter queue where my L1 blanket DD of 20000/- Rs was collected by the person there and he stapled the receipt of it on my DS 156 form and gave it back to me.

Here is where I found a difference. I saw almost all people who posted here before me say that their documents were all taken in the first counter, and then they were asked to go to the second building(visa interview hall) where they had to wait for 30-60 mins after which their names were called and documents were given back to them, and then they had to stand in the visa interview queue.

I did not face this. I stood in the first queue where all documents were checked and returned back to me. Next was cash counter where only my DD was taken. I was then asked to straight go to the visa interview hall along with all my documents which were with me. So this was very fast for me.

I then went to the 2nd building with all my documents. The VFS person there saw my visa type and asked me to straight join the main queue for visa interview. I joined the queue, and after 10 minutes when we all neared the end of the queue, the queues were split and people were asked to join the smaller queues in front of each visa officer. so I also joined one of the queues in front of an officer. There were five people before me in this queue. I noticed that the officer in whose queue I was standing hardly aksed any questions. The persons who were standing before me for B1 visas were not asked any questions. Their interviews were over in less than a minute. This made me happy, and also because this officer was sounding really nice :) So in about 5 mins time, it was my turn to go to the visa officer for interview.

I go to the visa officer -
Me: Good morning (with a smile) and passed my docs to him
VO: Smiles and says good morning

He sees me documents for like 10-15 seconds
VO: Who is your client?
Me: I replied with my client's name

VO: How long are you in this company?
Me: 2 years

Vo: How long are you with this client?
Me: 2 years

Then he typed something in his computer, and wrote the visa validity dates on my I-797 forms, and says -

VO: Ok sir, you are all set. Your visa will reach you in a week's time. Have these two sets of I-797 forms with you and show them while you enter U.S.

Me: Smiled and said "Thank you! Have a great day!"
VO: You too

That was it! I could not believe my L1-Blanket interview would be so easy :) I was asked more questions during my B1 interview last year. This really was very easy and lasted less than a minutes. I was out of the visa building by 10:45am (took me just one hour for the whole process)

All I would like to say is, try to stay calm though I know there will some tension. But you can answer only when you are calm. The visa officers see how confident you reply and if you are replying to the point. They can make out if you lie.

So please tell the truth, stay calm, greet them with a smile and don't talk too much, just reply in short sentences to what they ask. If you do this, your interview will be over in less than few minutes. Only when you get tensed or tell them more than what is required, they will ask you more questions.

Contact me at [email protected] if you need more details about anything related to this.