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So we had our interview in Seattle today and we were approved on the spot.
1. We reached the seattle office 45 minutes before the interview [ Parking for the USCIS office in Tukwila is $8 Cash, so don't forget that]
2. We walked into the office 30 minutes before the interview and checked in on the first floor
3. We walked up to the second floor and sat on the left hand side (we should have sat on the right hand side since that's were the officials come out and call the names but luckily we heard her clearly)
The interview took about 45 minutes with the first 15 minutes being spent in:
1. Taking the photo
2. Fingerprints (index fingers only)
3. Making us take the oath and checking our id's - Keep your passport, drivers license, EAD (for the beneficiary) ready and for the petitioner, ensure they have their drivers license or passport ready
3. Going through all the questions on the I-485 (the officer also peppered us with questions form the I-130 such as each other's birthdays, parents names, each others full names, where each other was born and so on) while going through the questions in the I-485.
4. The next 30 minutes was spent mainly asking us about the following
--- How we met
--- How long did we know each other before we started dating and how we kept in touch
--- When did we decide to make it official
--- How we got engaged (this she asked my wife to tell the story and asked me questions as my wife was telling the story)
--- What we did for our marriage
--- Asking about common interests
--- Random stuff like "do you have any pet peeves about each other"
Then she asked us if we had any additional documentation to add to what was already submitted in the initial application. I handed her our very extensive Table of contents (which can be found here: https://www.immihelp.com/forum/showt...972#post593972) which she absolutely loved and asked if she could keep it since said it was incredibly well organized. From the list of evidence she asked for
1. Common bank statements (interestingly she only wanted the latest statement and not the statements for the last 6months since she said she didn't want to overwhelm the file and wanted to keep the case file no thicker than 6 inches)
2. Copy of the Lease agreement for the apartment we stayed in before we bought a house
3. Copy of the title deed of the house
4. Insurance documents - she was a little surprised that we didn't have each other on each other's health insurance but we explained that we both had health insurance from our respective companies (which was fully paid for by the company) and if we needed to add each other to the company insurance, we need to pay fairly high premiums which didn't make sense. She agreed that made sense and she liked the other insurance documents we had presented.
5. Copy of our Power of attorney documents
6. Copy of the 2017 tax filing (she just wanted the first 2 pages to show that we filed jointly)
After that we spent some time looking through all the photographs we had got (about 40 of them) and explaining where every one was taken and the story behind them (and highlighting the ones where we had family or friends in them) and she took all our photographs
After that, she told us that she was going to approve us and we should get a notification about the card being produced in 30-60 days and thanked us again for being so organized and said she loved how we had organized everything with dates since that showed the strength and length of our relationship. She then walked us out.
20 minutes later after we were sitting down to get lunch, I got a notification that our card was in production.
My case is not a standard K1 case but H1B to green card via marriage (my wife and I met in University in 2010, remained friends till 2015 (I was out of the country from 2011-2015 since I moved back to my native country after my grad studies) and the company I worked for moved me for a work project to Seattle on H1B and we renkindled our in-person friendship again and started dating shortly after that and got engaged in Aug 2016 and got married in July 2017.So its a little different from most other cases but the basic principles of applying with all key evidence remains (and also ensuring you are super organized when you for your interview).
Special thanks to the seniors on this forum who helped me and gave me plenty of practical advice how to arrange my table of contents.Now I am on the train for the for removal of conditions and I am going to take the advice on the forum and ensure I build a even more solid case.
For those who are interested, this is how our final folder organization looked like
Feel free to ask me any questions.
1. We reached the seattle office 45 minutes before the interview [ Parking for the USCIS office in Tukwila is $8 Cash, so don't forget that]
2. We walked into the office 30 minutes before the interview and checked in on the first floor
3. We walked up to the second floor and sat on the left hand side (we should have sat on the right hand side since that's were the officials come out and call the names but luckily we heard her clearly)
The interview took about 45 minutes with the first 15 minutes being spent in:
1. Taking the photo
2. Fingerprints (index fingers only)
3. Making us take the oath and checking our id's - Keep your passport, drivers license, EAD (for the beneficiary) ready and for the petitioner, ensure they have their drivers license or passport ready
3. Going through all the questions on the I-485 (the officer also peppered us with questions form the I-130 such as each other's birthdays, parents names, each others full names, where each other was born and so on) while going through the questions in the I-485.
4. The next 30 minutes was spent mainly asking us about the following
--- How we met
--- How long did we know each other before we started dating and how we kept in touch
--- When did we decide to make it official
--- How we got engaged (this she asked my wife to tell the story and asked me questions as my wife was telling the story)
--- What we did for our marriage
--- Asking about common interests
--- Random stuff like "do you have any pet peeves about each other"
Then she asked us if we had any additional documentation to add to what was already submitted in the initial application. I handed her our very extensive Table of contents (which can be found here: https://www.immihelp.com/forum/showt...972#post593972) which she absolutely loved and asked if she could keep it since said it was incredibly well organized. From the list of evidence she asked for
1. Common bank statements (interestingly she only wanted the latest statement and not the statements for the last 6months since she said she didn't want to overwhelm the file and wanted to keep the case file no thicker than 6 inches)
2. Copy of the Lease agreement for the apartment we stayed in before we bought a house
3. Copy of the title deed of the house
4. Insurance documents - she was a little surprised that we didn't have each other on each other's health insurance but we explained that we both had health insurance from our respective companies (which was fully paid for by the company) and if we needed to add each other to the company insurance, we need to pay fairly high premiums which didn't make sense. She agreed that made sense and she liked the other insurance documents we had presented.
5. Copy of our Power of attorney documents
6. Copy of the 2017 tax filing (she just wanted the first 2 pages to show that we filed jointly)
After that we spent some time looking through all the photographs we had got (about 40 of them) and explaining where every one was taken and the story behind them (and highlighting the ones where we had family or friends in them) and she took all our photographs
After that, she told us that she was going to approve us and we should get a notification about the card being produced in 30-60 days and thanked us again for being so organized and said she loved how we had organized everything with dates since that showed the strength and length of our relationship. She then walked us out.
20 minutes later after we were sitting down to get lunch, I got a notification that our card was in production.
My case is not a standard K1 case but H1B to green card via marriage (my wife and I met in University in 2010, remained friends till 2015 (I was out of the country from 2011-2015 since I moved back to my native country after my grad studies) and the company I worked for moved me for a work project to Seattle on H1B and we renkindled our in-person friendship again and started dating shortly after that and got engaged in Aug 2016 and got married in July 2017.So its a little different from most other cases but the basic principles of applying with all key evidence remains (and also ensuring you are super organized when you for your interview).
Special thanks to the seniors on this forum who helped me and gave me plenty of practical advice how to arrange my table of contents.Now I am on the train for the for removal of conditions and I am going to take the advice on the forum and ensure I build a even more solid case.
For those who are interested, this is how our final folder organization looked like
Feel free to ask me any questions.
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