Finally, after 16 months of dealing with immigration, my wife is in the USA, but it was a close call . . .
We got the letter telling us that the interview would be 8:00am Friday December 1, 2006 in Rio. We got there a day early, because brazil was just starting to have problems with cancelled flights, due to the work slowdown contraversy regarding the Brazilian jet that has crashed there due to controller errors.
Anyways, we get to the consulate about 7:45am, and take a number. Ends up we should have got to the consulate about an hour earlier, because we ended up being last in line. We waited in a waiting room for about 2 hours, waiting our turn. We turned in all of our documents, and then were told to wait some more. We waited about 2 more hours, and finally got our interview.
My wife was very nervous. She speaks and understands English, but is very timid in using it with anyone but me. The interviewer asked her if I spoke Portuguese, and I told him "No." He then asked my wife if she spoke English, and she said "No."
He of course asked us how we could possibly communicate. By this time I was getting a little nervous. I told him that in the beginning we did have trouble communicating, but now we can type as we talk using "Skype," and we have no trouble. He asked me how often I visited her. I told him that I visited her 4 times in 16 months for about 1 to 2 weeks each time. I told I would have liked to visit her more, if I could afford to take more time off of work.
He asked for phone logs or transcripts to prove that we were talking often. I did not come prepared with that, but fortunately my wife had some love letter I sent with hearts and "I Love You" colored in red felt pen.
That seemed to work,
We had to wait until 3:00pm on Monday to get her passport with a cool page that is basically a temporary green card. We flew to Dallas from Rio. Unfortunately we left when the strike was hitting hard. Basically all of our flights were cancelled, and we had to bully our way onto other flights to get out of Brazil.
When we landed in Dallas, all we had to do was submit the envelope, wait an hour, and then get our fully functional passport stamp.
About 3 weeks later we got her official green card.
We drove to Mexico about a month later. It was amazing how easy it was for her to re-enter the USA with a green card. She got in easier than I usually do.
We got the letter telling us that the interview would be 8:00am Friday December 1, 2006 in Rio. We got there a day early, because brazil was just starting to have problems with cancelled flights, due to the work slowdown contraversy regarding the Brazilian jet that has crashed there due to controller errors.
Anyways, we get to the consulate about 7:45am, and take a number. Ends up we should have got to the consulate about an hour earlier, because we ended up being last in line. We waited in a waiting room for about 2 hours, waiting our turn. We turned in all of our documents, and then were told to wait some more. We waited about 2 more hours, and finally got our interview.
My wife was very nervous. She speaks and understands English, but is very timid in using it with anyone but me. The interviewer asked her if I spoke Portuguese, and I told him "No." He then asked my wife if she spoke English, and she said "No."
He of course asked us how we could possibly communicate. By this time I was getting a little nervous. I told him that in the beginning we did have trouble communicating, but now we can type as we talk using "Skype," and we have no trouble. He asked me how often I visited her. I told him that I visited her 4 times in 16 months for about 1 to 2 weeks each time. I told I would have liked to visit her more, if I could afford to take more time off of work.
He asked for phone logs or transcripts to prove that we were talking often. I did not come prepared with that, but fortunately my wife had some love letter I sent with hearts and "I Love You" colored in red felt pen.
That seemed to work,
We had to wait until 3:00pm on Monday to get her passport with a cool page that is basically a temporary green card. We flew to Dallas from Rio. Unfortunately we left when the strike was hitting hard. Basically all of our flights were cancelled, and we had to bully our way onto other flights to get out of Brazil.
When we landed in Dallas, all we had to do was submit the envelope, wait an hour, and then get our fully functional passport stamp.
About 3 weeks later we got her official green card.
We drove to Mexico about a month later. It was amazing how easy it was for her to re-enter the USA with a green card. She got in easier than I usually do.
