thatsonlyme
Registered Users (C)
A little background first because I have not been very active on forums.
Came to USA on J1 in '05, overstayed, served NTA in '09, detained, released on bond, married my ex-wife (not-USC so no immigration benefit from her), filed for withholding of removal, divorced in '10, met current wife (USC) in march '11, married in Oct '11...
Well, finally we had our interview yesterday and I wanted to share my experience. Before the interview and after reading numerous posts on this forum and all other immigration sites I thought we were going to have a Stokes interview because we got married after NTA was served and I was already in removal proceedings so our marriage should have been considered fraud by default. My lawyer on the other hand said that we were most likely going to have just a regular interview. I still have no idea whether our interview was Stokes or not...
So, we went in with our lawyer, the IO was polite and not intimidating, we gave our oath and he asked for our ID's and marriage certificate and my divorce certificate which I foolishly forgot to bring. Then he politely said that he was going to question my wife first and escorted me out.
From most descriptions this looked like Stokes except that it was not recorder (or at least we were not told so) and it lasted 15-20 minutes!
After he questioned her he brought me back in and started asking questions and writing down answers on a peace of paper, next to my wife's answers.
I as surprised that he didn't ask to many questions, no details like color of our toothbrushes or anything like that.
He asked where we met, where my wife lived at the time, when the relationship turned romantic, first date, mutual friends and when we were with them last time, who usually cooks (me) and when was the last time I cooked, what we did last weekend, my work schedule, hobbies we have together, when was her birthday and what we did on that day.
My wife told me later that he asked her more questions that he didn't ask me but he obviously based some if not most of my questions on her answers. We answered almost all questions similarly but not identically partly because we couldn't possibly know what details he was gonna ask so we didn't prepare it and partly because our marriage is real and people use different words to describe same things. Our lawyer said that we did really good and only a few questions didn't match perfectly.
Surprisingly enough the IO didn't out us back together to explain any discrepancies but instead just said that he will check with his supervisor if we can proceed without my divorce certificate and he will let my lawyer know.
He also didn't go through our bona fides on the spot, just before the interview he asked if we had any and after our lawyer gave him nicely organized stack he said he'll go through it after the interview.
We have no idea what to expect and we're a little worried because the interview was nothing like most interviews described here, it was short and very easy. I guess now all we have to do is wait and see what happens.
I can only hope that they're not expecting exactly the same answers because common sense tells me that exact same answers means only that they were learned by heart. we learned some names and dates but that was about it. the rest was from our memory and of course it didn't match perfectly, because that's all it was, a memory and different people experience and remember things differently. I can only hope that our IO had at least a tiny bit of common sense lol
And just a few things I've noticed about the questions:
- he asked my wife who are our closest friends and she named two couples and my best friend who's single.
I was asked who are our closest COUPLES friends and I answered the same but dropped my best friend because it was not the part of the question. I feel like that could have been a trick question to see if we learned things by heart in which case we would have probably had exact same answers.
- I couldn't remember when exactly was the last time we hung out with our closest friends and I said it was a few months ago, around the beginning of summer (it was the beginning of June) and he kept pressing me on that one, like what do I consider the beginning of summer and was it more like a month or 6 months ago... I just couldn't remember and I almost screwed up by saying that it was just a random bbq with friends, then I remembered and corrected myself, it was our friend's b-day! of course I couldn't remember the date and I said so but I guess he was satisfied with that answer because he finally let it go.
- he asked what we did last weekend and I said nothing, we ordered in and stayed home, played with our dog, but then he asked about my work schedule and I always work weekends (night shift) so I corrected myself and said that we ordered in a few days before on my days off and on weekend I had to work late and we just spent time at home together before I left for work. he didn't seem to pay much attention to it but it still kind of worries me because it was just a stupid mistake that could end up pretty costly! It's just that I usually refer to my days off as weekends even though it's technically not correct, I work Saturdays and Sundays and I just got confused and didn't think about the fact that my "weekends" are not real weekends!
-he asked my wife about my cousins who live here and she met only once (we're not that close and we visit each other maybe once a year or so). she couldn't remember their names (foreign names mind you) but when asked who lives in my cousin's house, a man or a woman, she answered a man and a woman, referring to my aunt and her son. I was asked who OWNS the place and I said my aunt and I added that I think one of my cousins still lives with her (I'm really not sure as i don't see them often).
Well, that was my experience, I'll let you know how it goes and I hope this helps someone... Good luck to you all!
Came to USA on J1 in '05, overstayed, served NTA in '09, detained, released on bond, married my ex-wife (not-USC so no immigration benefit from her), filed for withholding of removal, divorced in '10, met current wife (USC) in march '11, married in Oct '11...
Well, finally we had our interview yesterday and I wanted to share my experience. Before the interview and after reading numerous posts on this forum and all other immigration sites I thought we were going to have a Stokes interview because we got married after NTA was served and I was already in removal proceedings so our marriage should have been considered fraud by default. My lawyer on the other hand said that we were most likely going to have just a regular interview. I still have no idea whether our interview was Stokes or not...
So, we went in with our lawyer, the IO was polite and not intimidating, we gave our oath and he asked for our ID's and marriage certificate and my divorce certificate which I foolishly forgot to bring. Then he politely said that he was going to question my wife first and escorted me out.
From most descriptions this looked like Stokes except that it was not recorder (or at least we were not told so) and it lasted 15-20 minutes!
After he questioned her he brought me back in and started asking questions and writing down answers on a peace of paper, next to my wife's answers.
I as surprised that he didn't ask to many questions, no details like color of our toothbrushes or anything like that.
He asked where we met, where my wife lived at the time, when the relationship turned romantic, first date, mutual friends and when we were with them last time, who usually cooks (me) and when was the last time I cooked, what we did last weekend, my work schedule, hobbies we have together, when was her birthday and what we did on that day.
My wife told me later that he asked her more questions that he didn't ask me but he obviously based some if not most of my questions on her answers. We answered almost all questions similarly but not identically partly because we couldn't possibly know what details he was gonna ask so we didn't prepare it and partly because our marriage is real and people use different words to describe same things. Our lawyer said that we did really good and only a few questions didn't match perfectly.
Surprisingly enough the IO didn't out us back together to explain any discrepancies but instead just said that he will check with his supervisor if we can proceed without my divorce certificate and he will let my lawyer know.
He also didn't go through our bona fides on the spot, just before the interview he asked if we had any and after our lawyer gave him nicely organized stack he said he'll go through it after the interview.
We have no idea what to expect and we're a little worried because the interview was nothing like most interviews described here, it was short and very easy. I guess now all we have to do is wait and see what happens.
I can only hope that they're not expecting exactly the same answers because common sense tells me that exact same answers means only that they were learned by heart. we learned some names and dates but that was about it. the rest was from our memory and of course it didn't match perfectly, because that's all it was, a memory and different people experience and remember things differently. I can only hope that our IO had at least a tiny bit of common sense lol
And just a few things I've noticed about the questions:
- he asked my wife who are our closest friends and she named two couples and my best friend who's single.
I was asked who are our closest COUPLES friends and I answered the same but dropped my best friend because it was not the part of the question. I feel like that could have been a trick question to see if we learned things by heart in which case we would have probably had exact same answers.
- I couldn't remember when exactly was the last time we hung out with our closest friends and I said it was a few months ago, around the beginning of summer (it was the beginning of June) and he kept pressing me on that one, like what do I consider the beginning of summer and was it more like a month or 6 months ago... I just couldn't remember and I almost screwed up by saying that it was just a random bbq with friends, then I remembered and corrected myself, it was our friend's b-day! of course I couldn't remember the date and I said so but I guess he was satisfied with that answer because he finally let it go.
- he asked what we did last weekend and I said nothing, we ordered in and stayed home, played with our dog, but then he asked about my work schedule and I always work weekends (night shift) so I corrected myself and said that we ordered in a few days before on my days off and on weekend I had to work late and we just spent time at home together before I left for work. he didn't seem to pay much attention to it but it still kind of worries me because it was just a stupid mistake that could end up pretty costly! It's just that I usually refer to my days off as weekends even though it's technically not correct, I work Saturdays and Sundays and I just got confused and didn't think about the fact that my "weekends" are not real weekends!
-he asked my wife about my cousins who live here and she met only once (we're not that close and we visit each other maybe once a year or so). she couldn't remember their names (foreign names mind you) but when asked who lives in my cousin's house, a man or a woman, she answered a man and a woman, referring to my aunt and her son. I was asked who OWNS the place and I said my aunt and I added that I think one of my cousins still lives with her (I'm really not sure as i don't see them often).
Well, that was my experience, I'll let you know how it goes and I hope this helps someone... Good luck to you all!
