Today we had our interview in Boston at 8AM.
Brief details of my case:
I am on a L1A visa for one year, which expired in Oct 31st. As I was current in Nov and based on the new Policy Memorandum, I filed initially on Sept 18 and it was rejected and return to be on Sept 31st. I refiled on the next day and it was accepted on the 9th Oct. While I filed for DV visa, I was in Status and once my L1 visa expired, our status was pending i485. I have also applied for EAD & AP.
When my visa expired, I look around for a job and got a conditional job offer pending my EAD. Our EAD was approved on the Dec 11 and when I went for interview, we still have not received it.
We arrived at 7.30 and quickly went through the security screen and reported to the desk for the interview. At 8.10AM, an officer came and called my name. He then explained that he will interview me (the Principal applicant) first and then bring in my wife, daughter and finally my son.
It was a row of cubicle and officer took us to his cubicle. He apologized for the size of his work area. First he made me take the oath. He told me he already revived the case in the morning. He enquired how we changes names in my country since all of us some changes made to our name. I explained to him, this is done through lawyers and will be filed in the courts.
He asked me how many times I was in US and when. I told him I was in US more than 5 times between 2004 and now. He asked me what type visa I was using and how long I was staying each time. I am on the visa waiver program and I can stay here for 3 months without any Visa. He asked me a couple of times, if I ever overstay in the US. I told him most of my stays were less than three weeks and I stayed twice for 2 month and once for slightly less 3 months. Again he repeated the question. I again said, I never overstayed in the US. At this point I was a bit worried, if the system could missed my exit. I recalled when I drove out from Seattle to Vancouver in 2006, the immigration officer forgot to take my i94. And this was coming back to hunt me. Luckily the officer did not pursue with that anymore. He took notes of what I said about the visits in the case note.
Next he asked if I am still working in my last company. I told him that as the Visa has expired, I stop working for my last company. Before he ask me what’s next, I told him that I have a conditional job offer pending my EAD. He looked at the letter. I had a copy of that and he took that and filed in my case sheet.
He then went through the whole i485 from the first to the last page every singal question starting with my name write up to “is this your signature”. Once that was done, he went into the system and did a lot of work. It took him almost 50 mins to complete my case. He told me he has approved my green card and will now interview my wife.
He left me at his desk and went to get my wife. Once she was sworn in, like what he did with me, he went through the i485. Next he asked her how many times she has been to US and how long were each visit. He again reconfirmed with her that she did not overstay during her visits. He also enquired about the type of Visa that we came into US.
He repeated the same process with my daughter and son. At all the time I was present during their interview. Finally at 10.30AM, he told me that he approve all of us and congratulate me. He escorted out to the reception and once again wish us good luck. The whole process took more than 2.5 hrs. I was relieved finally as the long journey came to a peaceful end.
He never asked any questions about the support documents or the originals except the job offer, which was not included in the original AOS.
About 10.40 AM, I received both text and email saying that "Your Case Status: Card/ Document Production"
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I will be around in the forum.
Hopefully it's not premature. Having saved up the down payment for quite some time now, we never allowed ourselves to entertain such dreams. But now, more and more it seems like we may be able to call this place home.
