Part-1: Successful CP on 24th July at Mumbai and POE on 3rd August at Washington

J

jk8

Registered Users (C)
Hi All

I had my successful GC interview on 24th July 2002. Thanks a bunch to all of you in this discussion forum. It really helped a lot.
I have listed below my experience below in the following order:
(1) Preparation before Interview
(2) Trip to India
(3) Medicals
(4) Day before Interview
(5) Interview
(6) Celebration
(7) Trip back to USA
(8) Port of entry


(1) Preparation before Interview
I think Srifix did a great job by listing out his experience and spending the time to create the list of Documents. Thanks Srifix!!

The file Folder I used was a transparent file folder with several separators and a handle at the top. Each separator had a slot for the label at the top. I labled it as per Srifix list. My list had a total of 8 folders. So I used only 8 separators. I had initially bought a A-4 size File Folder from OfficeMax for approx $7.00. Then, after I started arranging the docs, I realized that it was a mistake coz some of the documents like my degree certificates and Birth Certificate Affidavits were in Legal size and I didn’t want to fold the originals. I went back to OfficeMax, Staples etc but couldn’t find a similar filefolder in Legal size. Then I bought one in India for 300 Rs.
I would strongly recommend you buy a folder with separators because it saves you from lot of trouble during the interview as you would be asked to give various documents in a very short time frame and keeping it organized really helps!

I took the Srifix list as the basis and personalized it to my requirements. I found few things in Srifix list which were not required and few items which I wanted to be in there. So with that list as the basis, I created my own list in MS word with the following format: I had a Table with 6 columns, the first column was the “List of docsâ€. The second column was titled “Dallasâ€, the third column was titled “Atlantaâ€, the fourth column was titled “**bl†(name of my legal firm), fifth column was titled “Indiaâ€, Sixth column was titled “File Folderâ€. I did this because I had few items in the list which were spread out in/with several places/People (Atlanta, Dallas, Lawyers, India, etc). My goal was to get all the documents and put in the “File Folderâ€. Columns 2, 3, 4 and 5 were only few pixels wide just enough to put the Tick/Check Mark in the column. The File Folder column was just to type “Doneâ€. So I started filling out this table and at the end, I knew exactly where each item was – whether it was in Atlanta or India or with lawyers etc. Then whichever document I had with me, I put it in the File Folder and I wrote “Done†in the last column for that item.

I also made two copies of each and every document. I arranged each one of the copies in the same order as the originals. So I had all the originals in the File Folder and One set of copy with me in a big/thick envelope and the other set of copy I kept with me at home for my reference.

I started the above process of document arrangement one month ahead of my interview. It proved to be extremely helpful for me, coz I was sure that whenever I travel to India, I’ll have ALL the documents with me. I didn’t want to land in a situation where I would be in India and some of my documents would be in the US. Jeez…can’t think of that situation, that would really suck!!

(2) Trip to India
Flew from Atlanta to Mumbai via Paris through Delta Airlines. NO Transit Visa was required at Paris. I did not have one anyway. I had sent an email to the Paris Consulate before leaving asking them whether a transit visa is required and I got a reply from them saying that its not needed. So I took a printout of that email with me (just in case…).

Got tickets for almost approx $1600 each for me and my spouse. My travel agent sucks, or else I would have listed her name/address here to share the information. Don’t want anyone of you to go through what I went while dealing with her. But, I was in a good mood to go back to India and get this GC stuff over with, so I guess I really didn’t care much about the high ticket prices and annoying Travel agent.

(3) Medicals
We took our appointment at Lilavathi at 7am on 22nd July 2002. Documents required:
- Orignal Appointment letter
- Passports
- 3 passport size photographs (these are ordinary normal photos and NOT the immigration photos)
- vaccinations records if any ( I did not take anything with me)
Important : at lilavathi – no photocopies of above are entertained. You have to come with the originals.
We went to the front desk and asked where we need to go for Immigrant visa medicals. They directed us to the right place. We waited till 8am. At 8am, Mr. Manish (in charge of this visa section medicals) gave us forms to fill. Btw, Manish is a real gentleman and he was helping all of us. We waited for one hour and then we gave our blood test. Then we waited for another hour and gave our chest x-rays. Then we waited for half-an-hour and then we had our physicals (ht, weight, vision, blood pressure) done. Then we waited for another 30 mins and then we visited the Doctor, who checked all the physicals records and decided which vaccinations we need to take. She asked both of us if we had chicken pox, I said yes and my wife said no. I was asked to take only two vaccinations (tetanus and MMR). My wife was asked to take 3 vaccinations (tetanus, MMR , Chicken Pox). We waited for another 30 mins and then we had our vaccinations done. We paid Rs 1160 each applicant for everything except vaccinations in credit card and 180 Rupees for vaccinations in cash (don’t know why didn’t accept credit cards vaccinations.). We had asked Lilavathi the previous day about the cost and taken only the required amount with us. We were told the same thing…everything can be paid in credit card except the vaccinations and the vaccinations needs to be paid in cash and usually the vaccinations costs around 50 rupees each and the total comes to around 180. So we went with very limited cash. Guess what….the chicken pox vaccine turned out to be Rs 1300+. So we had to step out for a while and get some cash. So, I would strongly recommend, come with lot of cash plus credit card.
After the vaccinations, we were asked to come and collect our reports at 4:30pm. The visa medical office is open only until 5pm. So don’t be later. We waited from 2:30 to 4:45pm. Finally The visa office door was opened at 5pm and we collected the reports by showing our receipts.
You’ll get two envelopes per applicant:
- Sealed medical report envelope
- Sealed x-rays envelope
Please take both of these to the consulate. The consulate needs only the sealed medical report and they don’t ask for the x-ray envelope. But, I’ll be taking the x-ray envelope with me for POE.

(4) Day before the Interview
Spent couple of hours and went through the list of documents couple of times with my wife and made sure we had everything. Then spent half an hour with my wife discussing about possible CP interview questions.

(5) Interview day

Continued in Part -2
 
Part –2 Successful CP on 24th July at Mumbai and POE on 3rd August at Washington

(5) Interview day
- Process
We had our interview scheduled at 9:30am. We left our house at 7:15am. Reached the consulate at 8:15am. Went straight to Raj Pavilion. They said that Immigrant visa folks can go directly to the consulate and need not go in their bus. So we walked down to the main gate and the security guard asked us for our appointment letter and passports and asked us to go in. As soon as you enter in, gents are supposed to go through the left side and ladies on the right side for security check. You have to pass through the metal detector (similar to the ones at airport). Note: No purses allowed for ladies. There is no reason to panic, if you/your wife has a purse, you can keep it at Raj Pavilion. They will watch it for you. You may have to pay a small amount for it. My wife did not bring her purse coz we were aware of this rule. Also note that no electronic items are allowed.
After the security check you walk into the consulate and there are 12 counters in front of you. The entire room was filled with several visa applicants. We were asked to go to counter 10. Counter#10,11 and 12 are for immigrant visa’s. There were 3 desi ladies at each of these counters. The desi lady at counter#10 took our appointment letter and passport and asked us if we have paid the Visa amount in the US. We said yes, she asked us to go back and take a seat. It was 8:45am now. For the next 2 hours (yeah, TWO hours) all we did was sit there and watch the 3 ladies collect and verify the documents of other immigrant applicants. I was wondering ….what is the concept of “appointment time of 9:30amâ€. Btw, the lady at Counter#11 was so rude. She was giving tough time to most of the folks. She was asking most of the folks to re-take their photographs. She never smiled even ONCE the entire time I was at the consulate. She had a lot of attitude problem in my opinion. We were really hoping to get either counter#10 or #12. It was so boring to sit there for 2+ hours and do nothing. Didn’t even know if going to restroom was a good idea or not. Coz I was worried if my name would be called. Btw, one good thing I noticed was in the same room at the back end of the room opposite the counters they have allocated a small place for canteen – here you can get sandwiches, water , cold drinks etc. We didn’t get anything from here so don’t know how it tastes.
At 10:45am, my name was announced and guess which counter? Yep, counter#11. This lady asked ONLY the following documents from both me and my wife:
- Passport
- Birth Certificates (we gave Birth Certificate Affidavits too. My lawyer had asked us to create affidavits and submit them to the consulate. We had 2 affidavits from our parents)
- Employment letter
- I-134
- Marriage Certificate
- 3 Immigration Photos
- Medicals
- PCC (We gave ONLY our Houston consulate PCC’s. We DID NOT give our local pcc’s. I had also stapled the copy of the Houston consulate stamp on the passport to the PCC page.). Read Note below regarding local pcc’s.
Original Documents retained by the consulate:
- Employment letter
- I-134
- PCC
- Passport
- Medicals

Copies retained by consulate:
- Marriage Certificate (2 copies)
- Birth Certificate (and Birth Affidavits in our case)

Surprisingly, she did not ask for DS 230 I and DS 230 II forms. These forms were already submitted during packet 3 to NVC. So she used those forms itself.

While she was taking the above documents, she asked me the name of my dad and mom and verified and circled the names of my parents and my wife parents name on the DS 230 forms. She asked me if I was married only once and asked the same question to my wife. Then she circled some other question in the DS 230 forms. Then she asked me to write my local Indian address on the DS 230 I form in item# 10. My lawyer had not written anything under the occupation item for my wife. So she asked my wife was she was doing and she then wrote housewife in that item. She then asked for our photographs. She accepted my wives photos but rejected mine. She asked me to go and take mine again. My wife was asked to sign on one of the photograph. This needs to be signed in front of them. Rotate the photograph by 90deg in anti-clockwise direction and sign at the top of the photograph. You will be told how to sign…so don’t worry too much about it. The above process took only 10 minutes.

Luckily for me, next to the canteen in the same room they have a photocopy machine and a photographer . So after I was done with this lady, we walked to the end of the room to get my photo done. This whole photograph stuff is a scam I feel. This guy charges 200 rupees for a set of 5 photos. So I told him I need only 3 anyway…so he told me that I actually need 6 (3 now and 3 at the POE. I’m not sure about the POE stuff, I believed him and said ok.) So I had to buy 2 sets of 5 (total of 10) photographs. Waste in my opinion. But he charges only 100 for the second set. So I paid a total of 300 Rupees. Btw, the same guy also runs the Xerox machine and he charges 5 rupees per copy. Better come with copies of all your documents. Remember, again, you need 2 copies of your marriage certificate and only one copy of all other documents. Once you come in, you cannot step out of the consulate, becoz you do not possess the appointment letter anymore. It costs 50paise or max of 1 Rupee for photocopy outside the consulate but it costs 5 rupees per copy inside.;

We then went back to Counter#11 and gave my picture and signed on one of the picture. Then we went back and sat down and waited to be called again. It was 11am now. Guess what….we were called at 1pm to counter#9 finally!! There was an American in this counter. She asked us to raise our right hand and take an oath saying that all the information is correct. No questions were asked. She did take a look at the Employment Verification letter and the LC. She asked us to go to the Cashier (opposite Counter#12) and pay the remaining amount and collect our sealed envelope at 3:30pm outside the consulate. Vow! That was such a relief.

We then went to the cashier and paid the two drafts (2 drafts worth $65 each in Rupees at the rate of 1$==49Rupees). He gave us a receipt. This receipt is needed to collect the sealed envelope. He asked us to come at 3:00pm to collect the sealed envelopes. So we now had two times: 3:30pm given to us by American lady and 3:00pm given to us by the cashier desi guy. I jokingly told my wife that, after experiencing such long wait the entire morning, we probably need to add these two times (3 + 3:30 == 6:30pm) and come at 6:30pm to collect our items.

By the time we stepped out of the consulate it was 1:35pm. Remember, we had 9:30am interview time. J

Sealed Envelope Collection:
We came back at 2:45pm and stood in the line outside the consulate. At 4:00pm (yep…4 pm), we were asked to go near the counter outside the consulate to collect our Papers. I gave my receipt and colleced passport and sealed envelope for both me and my wife. The passport did not have any stamp. On the H1/H4 visa page, they wrote C.W.O.P across the visa page. I don’t what CWOP means.

Note: Regarding local PCC’s - Getting local PCC’s was so painful. Initially, I thought Iâ€ll get local pcc’s just to be on the safe side. So we started getting local pcc’s from various cities. I got few ones from couple of cities with lots of trouble and $$. I don’t want to get into detail about the trouble in getting local pcc’s, we all know how things work in India and how much of hassle it is to get these kind of documents from a Government office in India. We went through a lot of trouble trying to get Bangalore local PCC, but couldn’t get one. I gave up! And I sent an email to Mumbai consulate asking them clearly whether we need local pcc’s or not. They replied that since I’m living in the US, I do not need local pccs from India. I made sure I took a printout of this email to the interview (just in case…).
Both I and my wife had decided earlier that we’ll give only what is asked and we’ll not act smart. If people start giving unnecessary documents, then it tends to become a requirement and the folks scheduled for interviews later on will get screwed. I would sincerely request all of you to please follow this.

(6) Celebration
It was a great relief, there is really no words to describe, one can experience it only after going through this ordeal for several years. Had a Puja at my in-laws in the evening. At night we all celebrated. I (just) had a mug of KingFisher that night. Then logged in to send few quick emails to close friends/collegues/relatives to share the good news. Woke up araam-se the next day!! It was a good feeling to spend the next day without any worries of GC J

(7) Trip back to the USA

Continued in Part-3
 
Part –3 Successful CP on 24th July at Mumbai and POE on 3rd August at Washington

(7) Trip back to the USA
Flew back to the US on the 3rd of August. At Mumbai and Paris airport they looked at the H1/H4 visa and asked what does “CWOP†mean. I didn’t know what that means either and I showed them the sealed envelopes and they seemed to be ok with it. I wish the US consulate comes up with some better process. This whole process of sealed envelope is so scary. There is always a worry of getting screwed at the airports. Why cant the passport be stamped with some kind of visa? Why this sealed envelope stuff? Also, it would be so better to spell out CWOP on the H1 visa or type in couple of lines like “H1 has been cancelled because of Green card†or something like that. That would make a lot more sense then writing some stupid abbreviation like CWOP on the H1 and H4 visa page.

(8) Port of Entry
I live in Atlanta, but I flew via Washington…so my POE was at Washington. I would not recommend this POE to anyone. It’s the worst. There are only 2 queque’s – one for US citizens and the second one for Non-US citizens. So we went for the Non-US citizens line and that was such a huge line. (Other cities have separate lines for Green card holders). We were in this line for 1 hour! Luckily the connecting flight to Atlanta was after 4 hours. So we were not worried. We went to the INS officer, he opened the seal and stamped the passport with the EAC number and then asked us to go to the Immigration room/secondary check room. We waited for half an hour in this room. The officer then called us, asked us to sign twice and took the finger prints of our index fingers twice and then stamped the passport with temporary evidence of permanent residence (I-551) valid for one year. He said the actual card will be mailed to the US address mentioned in our application form.
Note: Additional immigration photographs were NOT requested at the POE. So the desi photographer in Mumbai consulate LIED to us. That really is pathetic, I feel.

Please feel to post any questions you have. I’ll answer as many questions as I can.

In the meantime stay cool and keep all the documents ready! I strongly feel, if you have all the documents, CP is pretty much guaranteed!. Good Luck!!



Thanks
JK
 
congrats

and thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed experience. Do you know that you are thr first JULY mumbai guy to post ? Got us worried for a while there.

Anyway, enjoy your GC life and C.W.O.P. = Cancelled WithOut Prejudice
 
JK, Congratulations.

Thanks for posting detailed experience. Man I was thinking to do same thing when done with GC process, but seems I don't have to do it now or else I'll cut and paste from your experience. Anyways enjoy your post GC life and all the best.

Thanks Maoulin, for CWOP. Once again you rescued us!!!
 
Congrats !!! I have a few questions.....

When did U call up Lilavati to set up appointment? Also from where did U take the immigration style photographs?
Appreciate your reply.Enjoy the post CP era!!!
 
answers

THanks.

- got an appointment 2 days before the interview. I called them up a week before to schedule an appointment
- got the immigration picutres from Immigration-Services in Atlanta (more details can be found at www.visalady.com). I wouldn't recommend it, coz, I was asked to retake my picutres at the consulate.

HTH
JK
 
Congrats, help

Please advice for some good and fast attorney in Seattle area. My current is slow and does not listen to me. My I-140 is filed last week. They did not allow me to see it. Promissed to write CP but actually wrote AOS and I will need to file I-824 probably.
Please help with some good attorney about I-824, AC I140 (CP) and your experience.

Thank you and conratulations again
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Photo question

Congrats man.

Does that consulate photographer gives you instant photo or there is some wait time.
 
Photo question

Did you need 3 passport style photos for your medical? How many visa style photos did you need for the interview?

On my instruction sheet, it says I need 2 visa style photos at the time of interview. For medical exam, I thought I just need one...or that's what the lady at the doctor's office told me. (I don't know how credible what she says anyway, so I want to be very sure.)

If you could clearify this, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Mitsy
 
answers

- 3 immigration style picutres are needed at the consulate
- no picutres are needed at the POE
- 3 regular passport size pictures are needed at Lilavati (Medicals)
- The consulate phot-wala gives the pictures immidiately. He charges 200Rs for a set of 5. He'll dupe you by saying you need 6 of them. 3 at the consulate and 3 at the POE. So he'll charge you Rs.300 for 10 pictures(2 sets). So ignore him and just take one set.

HTH
JK
 
Part4 - Applied for our Social Security Cards today

We applied for our Social Security Cards today. After the CP interview, the consulate gives a two page document on social security card which gives instructions on how to apply for one.

My wife didn't have a S.S # as she was on H4 before. So today she applied for a new card. I had a S.S# before. So I applied for a new card with same number but change in information.

We went to our local Social Security office ( http://s00dace.ssa.gov/pro/fol/fol-home.html ) with our passports, drivers license, birth certificates, marriage certificate. We have to fill out a simple one page form. The officer just looked at our drivers license our passports and the page on the passport which has the I-551 stamp. She mentioend that we'll get the S.S.card in 2 weeks. The whole process took less than 10 mins.

Now all that remains is wait for the actual GREEN CARD.

HTH
JK
 
Got our Plastic card

Got our plastic card yesterday (Aug 17).
our POE was at Washington on Aug 03.

That was pretty quick.

Thanks
JK
 
Birth Certificate Question

I have a problem with the Birth Certificate of my spouse. She does not have a birth certificate. Her passport has her true birth date Jul 1st 1974. However her schools leaving certificates (Xth and XII Std) have a birth date of Jul 1st 1977.
I am aware one can get an affadavit for the birth certificate from my in-laws and provide a secondary proof of Birth.

JK: You have stated in your post that you used Affadavits of Birth. Did you get Non-availability ceritficate. Did you provide any secondary proof of birth. Please let me know.

Thanks,
Bapa
 
Birth Certificate Affidavit FORMAT

This format was given to me by my lawyer. I got two of these signed by my parents and two more signed by my in-laws for my wife. Here is the format:
HTH
JK

AFFIDAVIT


I, (Please indicate Mother’s first and maiden names for mother’s affidavit. For father’s affidavit, please indicate first and last names.) being duly sworn, hereby affirm and state:

1. I reside at (current home address).
2. I was born in (town, district, state), (Country), on (date of birth) and I am the (Please indicate: Mother or Father) of (Applicant’s First and Last Name).
3. I am married to (For mother’s affidavit, please indicate father’s first and last names. For your father’s affidavit, please indicate mother’s first and last names.) We have been married since (date).
4. (Applicant Name) was born on (month/day/year) to me and (Please indicate father’s first and last name for your mother’s affidavit and for your father’s affidavit, please indicate mother’s first and last name). (Applicant Name) was born in (city, town state) (Country).


________________________
Mother/Father’s name

Sworn before me this ---------
Day of (Month), 2000

___________________’
Notary
 
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