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My (very fresh) interview experience

tearshred said:
I called my embassy here in Serbia and the person I've spoken to said that the bank statement isn't necessary. Now, since you are the man with all the information here, how come did they ask him to file it?
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I think this has been explained 1000 times already - but here you go, one more time....

The DV process has a set of rules that ONLY apply to the DV process (thing such as the minimum education level/work experience level) AND THEN there are a set of rules that have to be considered and met by any type of immigrant.

One of the latter type of rules is that the CO has to be satisfied that the applicant will not become a public charge. So they have to be satisfied that the applicant is not going to be starving in the streets. In non DV process this is achieved by someone taking financial responsibility for the new immigrant (either family for family based immigration or an employer in employment based immigration).

In the DV process the applicant has to be meet this test themselves. Sometimes the CO will not ask about the financial support (because they subjectively judge someone by their age/work/clothes or whatever). Sometimes however they will ask the question where they feel the need to do so. IF they ask, you must be able to satisfy them with your answer. For some people that means showing bank statements, perhaps information about assets they plan to sell, or in some cases people have an I-134 (affadavit of support) from someone already in the USA. These things can be combined to present an overall picture. It is somewhat subjective and there are no hard guidlines that govern exactly how much must be shown to meet this requirement but the requirement exists. The CO is perfectly entitled to deny the visa application if they feel the applicant is not able to meet this requirement. One of the first interviews this year from a forum member resulted in an AP case UNTIL the applicant provides evidence of more savings.

So, in summary, you can call someone at the embassy and they can say whatever they like, but it comes down to satisfying the CO on the day. You may be asked for financial info, you may not. There is no right of appeal in CP cases, so if I were you I would be ready to meet the financial support question.
 
After spending a nerve-wrecking 10 months of waiting and becoming kind of an addict of this forum, finally we had our interview last week.

11th March 2014, 1 pm, Budapest, Hungary. Of course we (me and my wife) arrived half an hour in advance and queued up at the entrance (we were accompanied by another family, but no one else). We were let in on the dot, security check and mobile devices were left behind, than we got into the waiting hall, took a number from the ticketing device and sat down.

After 15 minutes of waiting we were called to the 1st window. The lady was quiet in a bad mood and was saying nothing, but: "Documents, please!" Of course we prepared passports (both current and old ones, in which we had our previous US visas), birth certificates, marriage certificates, bank statements and certificates (no affidavit of support!), high school diploma (no college diploma was needed!), police certificates (both English and Hungarian) and sealed medical test envelopes. The lady asked again quiet rudely: "Do you want to submit anything else?" At that point she made us uncertain as we were preparing a lot more (e.g. letter of employment, visa photos, wedding photos, other educational certificates, etc...), but nothing else mandatory. Finally we said no nervously, than signed the KCC papers and lastly our fingerprints were taken.

Another 10 minutes waiting, than we were called for paying the non-refundable visa fee ($330/person).

Another 15 minutes waiting (of course it felt much longer and pretty much the most nervous moments in our life), than we were called for the interview. This time we were greeted by a smiley, middle-aged lady, who made us calm down. First we swore, than our fingerprints were taken again. Lastly she had some regular interview questions for us:

When did you meet each other?
Have you ever been to the States?
Where about?
Who's address is the one you put on the application form?
What are you planning to do there in the future?
How do you plan to support your financial expenditures?

I had the feeling, that she was asking us as a couple, but I let my wife speaking as she was the principal applicant. The whole interview did not take more than 3 minutes, than she said happily: "Everything looks very good, so I direct you back to my colleague, who explains you the further procedures." She did not say, if its approved or not, but everything looked very promising in that moment. :)

We were called back by the 1st window (rude) lady, who was questioning us, if we have registered already our delivery address on the embassy's website. Of course we did not as no official instructions were saying to do so. (This must be some sort of Hungarian way of issuing/delivering visas...) Once again she looked at us like we were idiots and gave us back all our documents, plus a brochure of the registration procedure. We thanked it and left happily. Altogether we did not spend more than 75-80 minutes at the embassy.

Of course we started with the online registration in the same time we got home. Shortly we noticed that our passport details (YES, the ones from our passports, which were obviously left behind at the embassy :) ) are also needed for the registration. WTF? Of course the rude lady was forgetting to call our attention for this. Once again our blood pressure went up high. After a couple of nervous minutes of searching finally we found the embassy's e-mail address (they didn't want to share sensitive information on phone) and managed to get the necessary details sent over to us. Registration done, another waiting period started.

Next day I noticed that our CEAC status turned into "Administrative Processing", which is normal as I heard, but still can be frustrating to see after a successful interview. :) The day after it became "Issued", which made us once again calm down, but still no infos received about the delivery. Next day we had to travel back to London (as we are currently working/living here), so left our family in charge of receiving the package.

Exactly one week after the interview (on the 18th March) there was an e-mail sent from the courier company saying they are about delivering our package that day, which is nice, but both names and address were written wrong in their records, so I had to call them to fix it quickly. Couple of hours later the package arrived safely. (BTW the visa's expiry date was set exactly 6 month after the interview date and not the medical test date as we were expecting it.)

All in all the interview itself went smooth, not like the delivery procedure, which was much more like another challenge of the Hungarian bureaucracy.

It's still hard to admit our dream has just became true. Hereby I'd like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all of you guys here at the forum, especially to Britsimon, who is doing an incredibly fantastic job here. Make sure you are invited for a beer, whenever you visit Denver, CO in the future. :)

And finally let me put our case details down below here. I really hope it serves a good help and gives hope for those, who are still waiting for the moment of their life:

CN: 2014EU00019***
Entry date: 03/10/2012
1st NL checked: 01/05/2013
Sent forms to KCC: 07/05/2013
DHL delivery confirmation: 09/05/2013
KCC confirmation: 23/05/2013
2nd NL: 17/01/2014
PCC English: 24/01/2014
PCC Hungarian: 25/01/2014
Medicals: 24/02/2014
Interview: 11/03/2014 - Successful
Passport delivery: 18/03/2014
POE: Denver, CO (mid summer)
 
baluska said:
After spending a nerve-wrecking 10 months of waiting and becoming kind of an addict of this forum, finally we had our interview last week.

11th March 2014, 1 pm, Budapest, Hungary. Of course we (me and my wife) arrived half an hour in advance and queued up at the entrance (we were accompanied by another family, but no one else). We were let in on the dot, security check and mobile devices were left behind, than we got into the waiting hall, took a number from the ticketing device and sat down.

After 15 minutes of waiting we were called to the 1st window. The lady was quiet in a bad mood and was saying nothing, but: "Documents, please!" Of course we prepared passports (both current and old ones, in which we had our previous US visas), birth certificates, marriage certificates, bank statements and certificates (no affidavit of support!), high school diploma (no college diploma was needed!), police certificates (both English and Hungarian) and sealed medical test envelopes. The lady asked again quiet rudely: "Do you want to submit anything else?" At that point she made us uncertain as we were preparing a lot more (e.g. letter of employment, visa photos, wedding photos, other educational certificates, etc...), but nothing else mandatory. Finally we said no nervously, than signed the KCC papers and lastly our fingerprints were taken.

Another 10 minutes waiting, than we were called for paying the non-refundable visa fee ($330/person).

Another 15 minutes waiting (of course it felt much longer and pretty much the most nervous moments in our life), than we were called for the interview. This time we were greeted by a smiley, middle-aged lady, who made us calm down. First we swore, than our fingerprints were taken again. Lastly she had some regular interview questions for us:

When did you meet each other?
Have you ever been to the States?
Where about?
Who's address is the one you put on the application form?
What are you planning to do there in the future?
How do you plan to support your financial expenditures?

I had the feeling, that she was asking us as a couple, but I let my wife speaking as she was the principal applicant. The whole interview did not take more than 3 minutes, than she said happily: "Everything looks very good, so I direct you back to my colleague, who explains you the further procedures." She did not say, if its approved or not, but everything looked very promising in that moment. :)

We were called back by the 1st window (rude) lady, who was questioning us, if we have registered already our delivery address on the embassy's website. Of course we did not as no official instructions were saying to do so. (This must be some sort of Hungarian way of issuing/delivering visas...) Once again she looked at us like we were idiots and gave us back all our documents, plus a brochure of the registration procedure. We thanked it and left happily. Altogether we did not spend more than 75-80 minutes at the embassy.

Of course we started with the online registration in the same time we got home. Shortly we noticed that our passport details (YES, the ones from our passports, which were obviously left behind at the embassy :) ) are also needed for the registration. WTF? Of course the rude lady was forgetting to call our attention for this. Once again our blood pressure went up high. After a couple of nervous minutes of searching finally we found the embassy's e-mail address (they didn't want to share sensitive information on phone) and managed to get the necessary details sent over to us. Registration done, another waiting period started.

Next day I noticed that our CEAC status turned into "Administrative Processing", which is normal as I heard, but still can be frustrating to see after a successful interview. :) The day after it became "Issued", which made us once again calm down, but still no infos received about the delivery. Next day we had to travel back to London (as we are currently working/living here), so left our family in charge of receiving the package.

Exactly one week after the interview (on the 18th March) there was an e-mail sent from the courier company saying they are about delivering our package that day, which is nice, but both names and address were written wrong in their records, so I had to call them to fix it quickly. Couple of hours later the package arrived safely. (BTW the visa's expiry date was set exactly 6 month after the interview date and not the medical test date as we were expecting it.)

All in all the interview itself went smooth, not like the delivery procedure, which was much more like another challenge of the Hungarian bureaucracy.

It's still hard to admit our dream has just became true. Hereby I'd like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all of you guys here at the forum, especially to Britsimon, who is doing an incredibly fantastic job here. Make sure you are invited for a beer, whenever you visit Denver, CO in the future. :)

And finally let me put our case details down below here. I really hope it serves a good help and gives hope for those, who are still waiting for the moment of their life:

CN: 2014EU00019***
Entry date: 03/10/2012
1st NL checked: 01/05/2013
Sent forms to KCC: 07/05/2013
DHL delivery confirmation: 09/05/2013
KCC confirmation: 23/05/2013
2nd NL: 17/01/2014
PCC English: 24/01/2014
PCC Hungarian: 25/01/2014
Medicals: 24/02/2014
Interview: 11/03/2014 - Successful
Passport delivery: 18/03/2014
POE: Denver, CO (mid summer)
Click to expand...

Congratulations!
 
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