L1, L2 Visa

Hello,

Friends its a bit strange story, I forgot to pay 4,500$ visa fee. If anyone has faced or know what to do please help me.
Today i was having L1b interview at 9Am.
I went inside US consulate. arranged the 3 set of documents. Then i paid fraud prevention fee of 500$.
Then went for interview, she just asked 3 questions(I will post the questions& ans separately). Then she told your visa is approved. I was very happy and i asked is there anything else i need to do. She told thats all. I came out of office. after coming out and after 5min i realized, was she not supposed to ask me visa fee(remaining 4500$)? :S i also forgot to ask them , offcourse i was carried away with visa approved word.
Then i went back to US consulate office and off-course i tried to explain them my situation at entrance to let me go inside to pay the visa fee, i was not having passport also with me as i gave it inside for stamping. They didnt let me in and i came back home.
Friend plz let me know what i can do now, She told i will get passport in 3days.
How do i pay the amount now?
Incase if i dont get to know how to pay the amount in 2-3 days and if i get my passport with visa in 3days,what should i do and what would happen in future?

Hi -

I am currently in USA on L1-A visa and due for my 2nd (last) renewal in May 2020. Both of my previous approvals have been via individual petition. Now, my company's immigration lawyers are advising to go for blanket route as there are apparently lot of denials happening across the L1 categories (Both A and B and initial and renewals). I am a bit hesitant since I've had 2 successful approvals before and also have an approved I-140 (under EB1-c category) petition. Also, my wife is working on L2 EAD and filing in premium mode for L1-A extension generally processes all L1, L2 and EAD concurrently, otherwise it's taking almost 6 months these days.
I would like to ask the experiences folks here if going for blanket vs. individual is better? Any experiences shared are appreciated.

Hello,

I am from Turkey. I was working for one of the biggest companies in America and I needed to extent my L1b visa. I was interviewed in one of the embassies in Canada to extent my visa in June 2018. My case stuck in admin processing. I asked to submit my passport in April with few other documents. My company rehired me and provided the documents needed. This process took some time. In August 17 I submitted the required documents and I haven't heard back anything from the embassy. I am still waiting for my passport and it's been more than a month. Anyone has similar experience. I am wondering if my Visa is approved or not and how long can the embassy hold my passport.

Best

Thanku all who has contributed to this forum.

interview questions asked
Which company you work for
XYZ
what ur company do?
its YYYY company , develope software applications to different clients.
Your roles and responsiblities?
answered
what is ur package in US?
XYZ

today i was having L1b visa interview and visa got approved. In hurry i forgot to ask or collect the visa paid receipt. I want to claim the full amount from my employer so i need the fee paid receipt. Do anyone one how to I collect it now.?

L1B Extension was filed on Jan/10/19 and my company decided to do PP on Aug/02 and received RFE on Aug/03. We filed RFE response on Sep/09 and today is 15th day, no response received yet. Anyone faced this situation?

I have been searching the internet for experience of HR Managers for L1A visa but couldn't find much. I mostly found details of technical managers and hence I would like to contribute here. Also, this website has been of great help for prepping me up.

I and my spouse traveled for the interview.

Bio-metrics:
You just need to carry your current passport, DS 160 confirmation page and visa appointment page. You don't need anything else. If you have kids as dependents then, their Passport, DS 160 confirmation page and their visa photographs. That's it!

Visa Interview:
Your company will give you a bunch of documentation which you must carry but all you need is as given below. Please keep additional documents handy as they may ask case to case basis.

1) Passport & DS 160 from the bio metrics day(since they stamp the DS 160, you need to take the same copy for interview)
2) I 129 S & I 797
3) Passport & DS160 of dependents
4) Marriage certificate and kids birth certificates

Once documents are arranged, you will be guided to make a payment of fraud detection fees and re confirmation of bio metrics. You are then sent to the main queue where visa interviews are conducted and you can overhear the questions & answers:

Following was my interview:

Me: Good Morning officer
VO: Good Morning with a smile

Vo: You have two children, I don't see them here?
Me: Yes, since they are below 14 we chose not to get them

Vo: which company do you work for?
Me: Gave my company name

VO: What is the location of your company?
Me: Gave the same with city and state

VO: You are travelling on L1A? What is your title?
Me: Agreed that the visa was L1A and gave my managerial title

VO: What will be your salary in US?
Me: I gave the number and mentioned that it is the base salary

VO: What will be the title of your reports?
Me: Gave the titles

VO: Who will you be reporting to?
Me: Gave the title of my manager which is equivalent to VP

VO: who will your manager report to?
Me: Gave the answer which is equivalent to head of HR

VO: Looked at me smiled and said, I am going to change gears a little bit now, when is your date of marraige?
Me: gave the date

VO: looked at my spouse and asked, what is your highest education degree?
Spouse: Answered it

VO: Asked my spouse, what do you do?
Spouse: Software architecture and design

VO: What do your kids like to eat? since i don't see them here I must ask a question about them and smiled.
Spouse: They love fruits

VO: Your visa is approved and all the best for your new job, Don't pack your I 129S as you will need to show it at the port of entry.

Me and spouse: Smiled and thanked her.

Stay cool, confident and review questions on this website to prepare yourself and not to fumble at the interview.

All the best!

All,
I need help understand if I am missing something if I don't see the visa slots open up for L1B blanket at Chennai. Reading on this website understood last year it opened up on Sep 13. I am in a mess because I have my family tickets booked and waiting on the slots to open up to book appointment. I have written to the consulate not sure if I will get a response and if I get I guess it will be the default response. If I should not be waiting and should be doing something different please do advise.
Thanking all who have taken thier time to post thier experience to help first timers like me.

Hello All,
I have my interview by this week only and i received my petition from USA now. The problem is this I found many blunders in my I-129S form . I am not satisfied at all with the petition ,even my work specialization has not been listed properly as if the petition is for some associate engineer. I am shocked because I have already shared lots of supporting documents and all already and possessing a good specialization. As I suggested by my company to coordinate with the Attorney and make it right by this last minute. I already have been too pressurized and worried. I can suggest them may be they will make it good by last minute. Shall I take this risk or reschedule the interview.
Rescheduling the interview has any negative impact ?
Please suggest me

I am really thankful for the members who have shared their experiences that helped me prepare for the interview. I am adding mine, i am trying to touch all the points and procedures to present the best help.

I had the 9:15 interview slot on 20th Sept and 14:45 slot on 19th Sept 2019 for biometrics.
Though not necessary, I took all the documents for biometrics too but requirement is just for your appointment and DS160, biometrics are easy and you will be free in 20 minutes.

The real daunting task is the interview, under the chaotic stage of standing in layers of queues before you finally get in the consulate, be sure that what queue you are standing. I was applying for the L1 B(blanket) , reached by 8:30 and was able to get in 9:10. The over-anxious faces melted away into hustle of getting screened by a securtity guard who was hurling directions. You will be given a pamphlet, asking to sort your I-129s + I-797 into 3 sets, the DS160 confirmation and your passport.The B1 candidates don't require sorting and are directed to join the next queue. If you are going to pay the fraud detection fee by Demand Draft, the name & particulars are required to be added in it's back. I chose to pay with the credit card. My AmeX corporate card breezed up nicely. I wanted to try my Diner's black but I saw there was some problem with a guy, ahead of me, whose card was not getting read and the cashier asked him to go outside, the cashier was strict and not in a mood to entertain another credit card. But the guy requested and he was able to pay by the next card. So, i refrained to use my diner's.

I searched for which all credit cards are accepted as my pre-work, but didn't get any worthy info so I am sharing the info.
 
After a final biometric confirmation, you are sorted to wait for your turn and the noises of rejections get to your head. Keep a calm and steady persona and think positive.
My turn came and there was a L2 candidate just before me, I knew this will be converted (and it did) so it gave me a sense of positivity.

VO: come over please
Me: good morning officer
VO: a warm morning

VO: so you are applying for L1 blanket, which company you work for?
Me: xxx (a leading EDA brand)

VO: what is your stay period?
Me:36 months
VO: 3 Years
Me: yeah

VO: Will you be working in the office location?
Me: (i misunderstood her question) I am currently working in the Delhi subsidiary of the company
VO: No, i meant at what location will you be working in US? will you be working in the same location or multiple locations?
Me: I will be working from Mountain View, California.

VO: What is your per annum salary going to be?
Me: xxK base and yyK bonus (greater than 120k)

VO: who are your end clients?
Me: I am a developer and we serve a lot of semiconductor companies. As we took projects that are binded by non-disclosure agreement I can't specify a brand.

VO: what do you specialize in?
Me: I am a design and verification engineer architecting product for verifying memory subsystem.

VO: why do you think this is special and require you to be in US?
Me: Memory subsystem is a complex circuitry helping out your processors from say,Intel in your desktop and Qualcomm in your cell phone perform smart tasks optimally. I,in my company, lead this with variety of Dynamic memory (DRAM) technologies. As we are trying to complete the product line, I will be working with the IP team in US to signoff the development at brisk pace.

(VO starts writing something on the I129-s) VO: Are you married?
Me: I am single

The golden snatch of the stamp, and she signed off with "your VISA is approved"
Me: Thanks a lot officer.
VO: Welcome and take care.

Some pre-work i did:
1. Prepared short 2-3 lines answers for the generic questions. Explain my work in a layman language to my relatives who don't have any understanding of how complex the systems interact under the hood. In a month time i gained confidence to explain it to anyone.
2. Asked my company's attorney to have a mock interview session a day earlier before my VISA interview. My attorney advised me to NOT use acronyms and if there's an intent explain it with fullform and stick to what is written in the letter of intent.
3. Took advise from my colleagues and US hiring manager who already have been working in US with L1B
4. I made sure to get an early time slot, i was getting a time slot of 11AM on 21st August and then there was a slot of 9:15 after a month, i chose the latter as early morning slots are always better as your VO is fresh.
5. Learn on the rejection ratio for your company, i discussed this with my Director. This helped me set the correct mindset.

I did get a feeling that VO (and their back-end team) pre-work your case and the 5 minutes interaction is to just ascertain your genuineness. So make sure you are getting a good salary at par with current median where you will be working; have gained good experience(6+ is considered great) in your domain/company for you to be called a specialist; your DS160 should boldly point on the daily tasks and duties.

Thanks and best of luck!