Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

Yes, it's true! USCIS finally granted me my I-485 Residency (Green Card) today. To say that Christine and I are relieved and happy is a huge understatement... all the uncertainty has disappeared and we can now get on with our new life together.

The actual interview was possibly one of the simplest parts of the entire process: I guess if you manage to jump through all the hoops to get this far, you've got a pretty good idea of how things should work and can plan accordingly. This is the way our interview happened:

We arrived at the Federal Building in Portland about 15 minutes before our scheduled appointment time on 9:30 and passed through the standard security before being directed to the waiting room. We had to put our appointment notice into a basket mounted on the wall along with everyone else's - this led us to wonder how they selected names, as all the forms were placed in a random fashion: some people put theirs at the front, others at the back. It seemed like a bit of pot luck to us as to whether you got called up straight away or waited around in the grim little lounge for ever. As it turned out, the case reviewers have their workload for the day already sorted out in their office, and call people according to their interview time. So it wasn't long before we were called up at all, probably 10 minutes at most.

We accompanied our case reviewer to her office, where she quickly made us swear that we would tell the truth during our interview (no bible required) before sitting us down. She went through our paperwork quickly and efficiently, but gave no hints as to how our application was going. She'd definitely make a great poker player, because you couldn't read anything into her body language at all. She first confirmed Christine's income to ensure that she could stand as my guarantor (she passed) and then told us that we no longer needed Christine's mother's co-sponsorship. We were then asked a few general questions about how we met, when we first started dating and so on: these questions were all easily answered.

Then just a few yes or no questions like, "Have you ever been convicted for a criminal offence?" or, "Have you ever committed a criminal offence that you haven't been convicted for?" I wonder if anyone ever answers "Yes" to that one... "Yes, guv, you've got me bang to rights on that one. It was me!"

After that, we showed her a few photos of us together in different places, culminating in showing her the wedding album. We warned her the wedding was a "little" unconventional before she started, but we needn't have worried - she absolutely loved the whole thing and asked us lots of questions about the wedding, the idea behind it, who made the dress, etc etc. She was definitely amused that part of the inspiration was the American Government's insistence on referring to me as an "alien". She told us that we had made her week and that she had to go and make some photocopies of the album, both as evidence supporting our application and – we suspect – to show off to other workers later that day: "Look at this crazy wedding these two people had!"

While she was gone, we speculated as to whether there were any hidden cameras in the room that were observing our body language while no one was in the room, which kept us amused until her return when she told us that my FBI check was clean and that she was going to approve my application today. The card itself will be mailed to me within the next 2 weeks; no temporary card or stamp in my passport was given. The interview itself probably only took 15-20 minutes, plus the 10 minutes of waiting – almost an anticlimax considering the struggles we've had to get to this point!

Here's us all smiles after the interview:
It definitely seems to me that if you go to these interviews fully prepared – have copies of all your required documents ready and and hand, lots of photos and other evidence of relationship – and are honest in your answers, it's a very simple procedure. However, if you try and hide anything from them, they'll be onto you in a second and could make things very difficult for you indeed.

So ends this part of the saga – next, it's on to finding a job! Stay tuned!

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on December 18, 2007 at at 4:21:00 PM