Toughdba:
First of all my intervew was rescheduled from January 6, 2003 to April 28, 2003.
Actually there were 4 interviews combined in one: for my wife, two children and myself, though we had different appointment letters and different times. We came without a lawyer, so the first thing we were asked is to sign a paper telling that we agreed to be interviewed without a lawyer. Then the officer asked me for the employer letter and for our Marriage Certificate. I handed him the papers and said that they must have our Marriage Certificate for it should be submitted with the applications. He said that he has our Birth Certificates, but there is no Marriage Certificate. I still do not know whose fault that it was missing: may be INS lost it or may be my lawyer forgot to include the copy when he submitted our I485 applications. It looks like I’ll never know the truth, but it may be the reason why we were transferred to the local office for the interview.
I cannot recall all the questions. Following are the most memorable ones :
1. Am I still working for the same employer?
2. What’s my current salary? (It was higher than in the letter, so he made some notes)
3. When did we come to the USA?
4. Did we travel abroad since then? (We traveled to Canada, so he asked us about the details)
5. Is my wife working?
6. Did we submit any other applications to INS? (My elder older son had submitted the application to change his nonimmigrant status from H4 to F1 when he was admitted to the college. That was before my I-140 approval, and the only reason for changing his status was to be able to work on the campus. However very soon my I-140 was approved and he received EAD that allowed him to work anywhere. That is why when he received RFE for his change status application he did not reply on it. This may be another reason why we were transferred to the local office for the interview... I also told him that we have recently extended our H1/H4 status for the 7th year. He made the copies from the approval notices that I gave him.)
7. Did we commit any crime?
8. Were we granted by mistake of any unemployment or other benefits that we are not eligible for?
Finally he took off our I94s, our expired EADs and said that our FPs are expired and we need to re-take them. Then he gave us new appointment letters for FP and said that we should do it ASAP in order to speedup the final decision. On my question how long will it take, he said “a few weeks”. We’ve done our FP in the other day in the Boston Application Service Center. After a month of anxious waiting we decided to go to Boston find out what does “a few weeks” mean. After a lot of waiting in different lines we were received by IIO and she said that our FPs are OK, that our files are on the shelf, and that we have to wait at least two month more.
I still have one question that bothers me: Why did he take out our I94s at the interview? It's my understanding that if in the case of our AOS applications are denied, we still can stay in this country until the expiration date of our H1/H4. But in such case we must have I94 stapled in our passports.
Now I understand how much I was wrong in my previous message. The intervew is not the end of the torments...
Best regards,
YLB2
EB2
EAC-02-037-5****
PD 06/01/2000
RD 09/18/2001
ND 11/14/2001
EAD1 12/05/2001
FP 01/22/2002
TD 07/31/2002
ID1 01/06/2003
ID2 04/28/2003
EAD2 01/10/2002
FP2 04/30/2003
