7 Tips for dealing with the Fiance Visa Interview Questions

These are my own personal tips based on my own personal experience, so I can’t say for sure that they’ll work for you, only that they served me well.  As the non US citizen member of the couple, it was me who had to undergo the interview for US visa and answer various fiance visa interview questions.  Anyway, here are my K1 interview tips.

1. Do some advance research about the sort of fiance visa interview questions that you might be asked well in advance.  (See part 6)
2. Also check up on all the instructions before you travel to the embassy or consulate.  For me going to the US Embassy in London, there were no electronic devices allowed, but many people failed to read that in advance and were sent to a local chemist/drugstore where they had to leave their devices for a (not small) fee.
3. Make sure that you take your bank card with you and there’s money in your bank, as may have to pay a large fee for the fiance visa.  I did.
4. Give yourself plenty of time to get to the embassy or consulate for your fiance visa interview.  For me, I had to go to the US Embassy in London which is in the city centre.  This presented a variety of potential difficulties and in the end I traveled down from Yorkshire in advance and stayed with my brother in Brighton, so that the journey on the morning would be a bit easier.  Once you’re there, the truth is they’ll almost certainly keep you waiting around, but you still don’t want to be late.
5. Once you’re inside the embassy, try to remain calm and alert while you’re waiting around to be called.  I took a book to read, but didn’t read much of it as I was paranoid that I’d miss my number being called.  When they do eventually call you up, be polite and courteous, even if you feel frustrated.
6. Here are some examples of the sort of K1 fiance visa interview questions that you might be asked.  What is the date of your fiancee’s birthday?  How did you two meet?  What does your fiancee do for a living?  Do you have any brothers or sisters?  Do you know the date that you will travel to the USA?  Did you have a party to celebrate your engagement?  As you can see, the questions aren’t too difficult if you’re in a bona fide relationship.
7. Be prepared for the fact that you’ll have to book and a pay for the delivery of your K1 Fiance Visa by courier.  I hadn’t thought it through and I told them to deliver the K1 Fiance Visa to my home.  However, I realized later that as you have to sign for it in person with ID and the couriers don’t give you an exact time and date for delivery, it made more sense for the documents to be delivered to my workplace.  So I had to ring them and change the deliver address later.

The I-129 petition process

This article is not intended to be any sort of official guide (you should contact the USCIS for specific details of the rules and procedures relating to visas).  Rather it is a personal account of what my wife and I experienced when we filed a USCIS I-129 petition and began the fiance petition process, as the initial part of the K1 visa application process.  From my account, you should hopefully get a good idea of what was involved for my wife and I, however, both practically and psychologically.

My wife (fiancee at the time) and I had been involved in a relationship for three years and were engaged to be married by the time we decided to get a USCIS K1 visa.  After some discussion we had decided that I would move to the USA, rather than her moving to the UK (I am British).  This was because firstly, my wife has an adolescent daughter and secondly, I fancied the adventure of moving to the USA and beginning a new life in Florida.

After weighing up all the visa options, we decided that we would go for a k1 fiance visa.  This would allow me to live in the USA indefinitely, after we were married and I’d applied for an adjustment of status.  I’d also be able to get a US social security number when I arrived in the USA and a green card at the end of the entire process, by us doing things this way.  After we’d made our decision, we researched the process regarding K1 visas on the USCIS website and also on British expat forums.  We were, however, a little naïve with regard to how long it would take and all the effort and money that would be involved.

Once you know that you meet all the various criteria for a K1 visa (the main ones usually being that one of you is a US citizen and you are in a bona fide relationship), the first step is for an USCIS I-129 petition to be filed.  This is done by the member of the couple who is a US citizen.  In the visa language, they are ‘petitioning’ the USCIS to consider allowing their foreign partner to move to the USA to marry and live.  In my case, it was my future wife who was the petitioner.  It doesn’t make any difference if the genders are reversed and it is an American man petitioning for his female partner to come to the USA, as far as I’m aware (although then presumably it would be then be a ‘fiancee petition’, rather than a ‘fiancé petition’!).

The burden is very much on the petitioner at this stage.  They have to provide proof that they are a US citizen, and lots of financial evidence to show that they can support their partner, once they’ve moved to the USA.  The fiance on the other hand, me in this case, just has to provide some basic biographical information and some proof that the relationship is a real one and not a sham.  The forms aren’t always east to fill out, however, and any mistakes you make could lead to a delay, or in extreme cases, rejection, so you have to be very careful when filling them out.  Neither my wife or myself are wealthy, so there was no question of us getting a lawyer or attorney to help us.  We just did it ourselves, referring to the USCIS guidelines and information that we’d researched online.

Some of the proof can take a lot of time to assemble and organize.  But it’s worth the effort, in my opinion.  The last thing that you want is for the whole process to be extended further.  There is also a large fee of several hundred pounds to pay when you’re finally ready to send off your USCIS I-129 form.

In some ways, the worst bit is waiting.  Once you’ve sent off your USCIS I-129 petition with all the other forms and evidence, they send you a receipt to say they’ve received it, then you just wait and wait.  If you’re anything like my wife and I, you begin to wonder if they’ve forgotten about you, or there’s been some major bureaucratic error.  Over three months had gone by when we received our notification (a form called an I-797) that the I-129 petition had been accepted and all the necessary documentation would now be passed on to the National Visa Centre.  It’s apparently not unusual for people to wait longer or shorter than we did, it all depends on how busy the USCIS are.

About a month after we'd received the I-797, the US Embassy London contacted me in the UK with instructions for filing the K1 fiance visa application forms.

The Fiance Visa Processing and Wait Time

One of things that I wish we’d known when Abby, my wife (fiancee at the time) and I decided to get our K1 Fiance Visa was roughly how long the entire K1 Fiance Visa processing time would take in total, as well as the fiance visa wait time for each individual stage.  Of course, one can never predict an exact timescale for any application as it varies according to how busy the authorities are at any one time.  Plus security concerns and events such as terrorism and organized crime may occur and may lead to a slowdown in the K1 Fiance Visa processing time in some or all areas.  Note therefore that all I can give is my own personal experience and timescale.  Having said that, however, I don’t believe that my own experience was untypical.

(NOTE: If you want to see a simple and straightforward breakdown, showing all the relevant dates, see my K1 Fiance Visa timeline)

Preliminaries

I am not going to go too much into the period before Abby and I sent in our first form, the I129 F, but obviously we spent time making sure that we met the requirements of the K1 visa (such as my wife being a US citizen and us both being in a bona fide relationship) and also collecting all the necessary evidence to send in with our I129 F and related forms.

Stage 1: The I129 F Petition

Abby sent in her I129 F Petition in March.  We weren’t prepared for the long wait time that occurs with K1 Fiance Visa processing at first and naively hoped that they would process the fiancé visa quickly.  We then got frustrated when nothing seemed to happen for a long time.  However, after just over a three month long wait, Abby received her I797, telling her that the petition had been accepted and our documents were being forwarded to the US National Visa Centre.

Stage 2: The National Visa Centre

The National Visa Centre did whatever they do with our documents then contacted the US Embassy in London, as I’m a British citizen and was living in England at the time.  About a month after Abby received her I797, the K1 Fiance Visa Application Forms were sent out to me, or rather I was told where to get them on the internet.  It took me over two weeks to gather my evidence and submit the forms.  I had already done some preparations, however, getting documents such as my Police Certificate together well in advance.

Stage 3: The K1 Fiance Visa Medical

When I received the letter about the K1 Fiance Visa, I was also informed that I needed to book my K1 medical exam and given instructions on how I should go about this.  It’s best to have it done at least 4 or 5 days before the K1 Fiance Visa, so that they have time to process the medical documents and send them on to the US Embassy in London.

Stage 4 The K1 Fiance Visa Interview

My K1 Fiance Visa interview took place towards the end of October.  I arrived at the US Embassy in London early and spent the entire morning there, not leaving until around 1pm.  Everything went well, although there was a lot of waiting around involved and you are not allowed to take any electronic devices such as mobile phones or ipods inside.  You can read a more detailed account of how my interview went here.

Stage 5: The K1 Fiance Visa was delivered by courier

My K1 Fiance Visa arrived in early November, five days after the visa interview at the US Embassy in London.  All in all, the entire K1 Fiance Visa processing time from start to finish for me had taken nearly 8 months.

I was in Florida for Christmas!

You can read a full overview of my K1 Fiance Visa experience here.