AOS Interview in Atlanta
Jul 23rd 2005, 6:07 am
#1
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 13
AOS Interview in Atlanta
We arrived at the Martin Luther King Federal Building about half an hour before our July 18th 2:00pm interview. It was hot and muggy, and we had to queue outside the building for about five minutes. The security guards seemed to be getting a bit short-tempered in the heat as the people at the front of the queue would tend to hold the building door open and let all the hot air in. I had our evidence in a big file box, and was more than a little worried they wouldn’t like that. Of course, once through the security check, we saw people dragging suitcases around.
The waiting room was pretty full, but soon thinned out. We decided they had just finished a citizenship exam, as people were continually being called to the side, presented with something and sent away. We hadn’t had chance to review all the documentation as everyone suggests – my wife had been out of the country for about six weeks – so as soon as I had dropped the I-797 off, we sat down to do this; it took about 15 minutes.
We were called for our interview at about 2:10pm. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer interviewer. She took us to her office, stood us in front of her desk and said ‘please raise both of your right hands’. I can’t tell you how confused I was. Rather than run the risk of asking a silly question, I toyed with the idea of putting both my hands up (despite one of them being left) and just stopped myself short as I saw my wife waiting patiently with her right hand raised, wondering what my problem was. We were sworn in.
Our interviewer had an assistant who helped collect, punch (paper!) and staple. The interview wasn’t recorded in any way, as far as we knew. Our interviewer asked my wife for her driver’s license, and me for my drivers license, social security card, passport, I-94 and EAD. I handed them all over, plus my previous passport which expired last year, and previous EAD. I had photocopied *everything* except, it seems, the biometrics page in my new passport, so the assistant took that away to make a copy. After looking through all of those, she told us she would keep my expired EAD.
She then took out the I-485 application from her file. She asked us each other’s birthdate, and then asked me all the questions from section 3 of the I-485. It seems I got them all right…
Next, she turned up our I-864. I had completed another, except my wife hadn’t had chance to sign it (I had only picked her up from a hotel by the airport an hour earlier). I piped up that I had an updated I-864, if this would help, but that we hadn’t had the opportunity to have it notarized. She asked if it was signed, I said no, she said great – and asked my wife to sign it. Done – we didn’t have to produce anything else with regard to payslips, letters from employers (all of which we had of course – plus copies)…
She asked us for supporting evidence. I fetched out a bulging folder, plus wedding album. She took one wedding pic (copy) and I just passed across all copies of everything else. We had the last three months of statements from a credit card and two bank accounts, health, house, vehicle and jewelry insurance, my Roth IRA, showing my wife as beneficiary and our wills. Our Morgan Stanley statements were at the top of the pile, and there was some confusion after, having turned over about 50 pages, our interviewer found she was still looking at MS statements (anyone who banks with MS will know what I mean.) She asked 'is this all the same thing?' I explained I’d only brought three months of statements. I suggested she might only want to keep the first page. She suggested we consider electronic banking (ironically we have that too…) Anyway, it seems we had enough evidence, I’m not sure exactly what she kept.
She then asked me how we met. I told her my wife had a personal ad and I was lonely. My usual version of that story can go on for several hours. She asked our wedding date. Again, I nearly started to waffle about the fact that we had two weddings – small hurried courthouse affair, then church four months later – and then remember the advice from this forum about not doing that. I just told her the courthouse date, and that was that – no further questions on the subject.
Finally (documentation-wise) she asked for tax records. 2004 was no problem (we filed jointly, self-prepared.) For 2003, we filed jointly in the end, but we had to get an extension because my company made a mistake on my W2 which I didn’t notice till the last minute. When I copied the return, I failed to copy the W2c (correction), and she picked up immediately that there was a difference between the W2 and the 1040. I couldn’t explain this – I didn’t figure it out till the following day – anyway, she decided it wasn’t a big enough problem to de-rail the interview.
We were told we would have to go back to the waiting room while she ran some security checks. Just as we were leaving, she remembered she hadn’t asked for my AP. I handed it across, and she said that she would return it (it had expired so I wasn’t really worried.) We were out about five minutes. She called us back, and told us that she wouldn’t be able to finish processing my case that day since the fingerprint check hadn’t come back yet. She asked when I had been fingerprinted, and I told her Friday. She asked to see the stamp from the ASC – apparently there’s sometimes some kind of serial number on there – but there wasn’t on mine. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. I had read on this forum that that might happen. Fifteen months after my original fingerprinting, I had phoned CSC and asked if I could be re-fingerprinted and they told me I would have to wait to be sent an appointment. When it ultimately arrived, for the (working) day before my interview I went to the ASC and asked if they could do it earlier, but they basically said no, so I felt I had done everything I could.
Anyway, our interviewer told us that, assuming the fingerprint check turned out OK, she would approve the application. I asked if I could get the stamp in my passport (I thought that was what CPR was) at my local ASC, and she said no – I would have to make an infopass appointment and come back to Atlanta, but why bother – I would probably receive the card only a week or two after that by mail. I had intended to ask, at the end of the interview, why our case had moved ahead of the posted processing date, and why they weren’t processed in order. I decided against it, since the case was still open - I didn’t want to antagonize her, and the waiting room was still pretty full. She returned all our stuff – the only thing she kept in the end, other than copies, was one expired EAD. We thanked her and left at around 2:40pm. Online Friday, I saw that they have the results of my fingerprint check now, so hopefully within the next few weeks…
Wow – that’s quite a tome – even for me. On the off-chance that there’s anybody still reading, I’d like to thank everyone here who’s given me advice thus far (I appreciate it isn’t over yet), to everyone who takes the time to answer questions and post their views and experiences, and to the moderators for keeping it all in check. This has to be the best resource of its kind on the internet. I’ll let you all know when my card arrives. Hopefully a short post sometime soon.
The waiting room was pretty full, but soon thinned out. We decided they had just finished a citizenship exam, as people were continually being called to the side, presented with something and sent away. We hadn’t had chance to review all the documentation as everyone suggests – my wife had been out of the country for about six weeks – so as soon as I had dropped the I-797 off, we sat down to do this; it took about 15 minutes.
We were called for our interview at about 2:10pm. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer interviewer. She took us to her office, stood us in front of her desk and said ‘please raise both of your right hands’. I can’t tell you how confused I was. Rather than run the risk of asking a silly question, I toyed with the idea of putting both my hands up (despite one of them being left) and just stopped myself short as I saw my wife waiting patiently with her right hand raised, wondering what my problem was. We were sworn in.
Our interviewer had an assistant who helped collect, punch (paper!) and staple. The interview wasn’t recorded in any way, as far as we knew. Our interviewer asked my wife for her driver’s license, and me for my drivers license, social security card, passport, I-94 and EAD. I handed them all over, plus my previous passport which expired last year, and previous EAD. I had photocopied *everything* except, it seems, the biometrics page in my new passport, so the assistant took that away to make a copy. After looking through all of those, she told us she would keep my expired EAD.
She then took out the I-485 application from her file. She asked us each other’s birthdate, and then asked me all the questions from section 3 of the I-485. It seems I got them all right…
Next, she turned up our I-864. I had completed another, except my wife hadn’t had chance to sign it (I had only picked her up from a hotel by the airport an hour earlier). I piped up that I had an updated I-864, if this would help, but that we hadn’t had the opportunity to have it notarized. She asked if it was signed, I said no, she said great – and asked my wife to sign it. Done – we didn’t have to produce anything else with regard to payslips, letters from employers (all of which we had of course – plus copies)…
She asked us for supporting evidence. I fetched out a bulging folder, plus wedding album. She took one wedding pic (copy) and I just passed across all copies of everything else. We had the last three months of statements from a credit card and two bank accounts, health, house, vehicle and jewelry insurance, my Roth IRA, showing my wife as beneficiary and our wills. Our Morgan Stanley statements were at the top of the pile, and there was some confusion after, having turned over about 50 pages, our interviewer found she was still looking at MS statements (anyone who banks with MS will know what I mean.) She asked 'is this all the same thing?' I explained I’d only brought three months of statements. I suggested she might only want to keep the first page. She suggested we consider electronic banking (ironically we have that too…) Anyway, it seems we had enough evidence, I’m not sure exactly what she kept.
She then asked me how we met. I told her my wife had a personal ad and I was lonely. My usual version of that story can go on for several hours. She asked our wedding date. Again, I nearly started to waffle about the fact that we had two weddings – small hurried courthouse affair, then church four months later – and then remember the advice from this forum about not doing that. I just told her the courthouse date, and that was that – no further questions on the subject.
Finally (documentation-wise) she asked for tax records. 2004 was no problem (we filed jointly, self-prepared.) For 2003, we filed jointly in the end, but we had to get an extension because my company made a mistake on my W2 which I didn’t notice till the last minute. When I copied the return, I failed to copy the W2c (correction), and she picked up immediately that there was a difference between the W2 and the 1040. I couldn’t explain this – I didn’t figure it out till the following day – anyway, she decided it wasn’t a big enough problem to de-rail the interview.
We were told we would have to go back to the waiting room while she ran some security checks. Just as we were leaving, she remembered she hadn’t asked for my AP. I handed it across, and she said that she would return it (it had expired so I wasn’t really worried.) We were out about five minutes. She called us back, and told us that she wouldn’t be able to finish processing my case that day since the fingerprint check hadn’t come back yet. She asked when I had been fingerprinted, and I told her Friday. She asked to see the stamp from the ASC – apparently there’s sometimes some kind of serial number on there – but there wasn’t on mine. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. I had read on this forum that that might happen. Fifteen months after my original fingerprinting, I had phoned CSC and asked if I could be re-fingerprinted and they told me I would have to wait to be sent an appointment. When it ultimately arrived, for the (working) day before my interview I went to the ASC and asked if they could do it earlier, but they basically said no, so I felt I had done everything I could.
Anyway, our interviewer told us that, assuming the fingerprint check turned out OK, she would approve the application. I asked if I could get the stamp in my passport (I thought that was what CPR was) at my local ASC, and she said no – I would have to make an infopass appointment and come back to Atlanta, but why bother – I would probably receive the card only a week or two after that by mail. I had intended to ask, at the end of the interview, why our case had moved ahead of the posted processing date, and why they weren’t processed in order. I decided against it, since the case was still open - I didn’t want to antagonize her, and the waiting room was still pretty full. She returned all our stuff – the only thing she kept in the end, other than copies, was one expired EAD. We thanked her and left at around 2:40pm. Online Friday, I saw that they have the results of my fingerprint check now, so hopefully within the next few weeks…
Wow – that’s quite a tome – even for me. On the off-chance that there’s anybody still reading, I’d like to thank everyone here who’s given me advice thus far (I appreciate it isn’t over yet), to everyone who takes the time to answer questions and post their views and experiences, and to the moderators for keeping it all in check. This has to be the best resource of its kind on the internet. I’ll let you all know when my card arrives. Hopefully a short post sometime soon.
Jul 23rd 2005, 6:34 am
#2
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 35,082
Re: AOS Interview in Atlanta
Originally Posted by BooGeek
She then asked me how we met. I told her my wife had a personal ad and I was lonely. My usual version of that story can go on for several hours. She asked our wedding date. Again, I nearly started to waffle about the fact that we had two weddings – small hurried courthouse affair, then church four months later – and then remember the advice from this forum about not doing that. I just told her the courthouse date, and that was that – no further questions on the subject.
Almost congrats for your almost success... soon come!
Jul 23rd 2005, 7:34 am
#3
Forum Regular
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 34
Re: AOS Interview in Atlanta
Originally Posted by BooGeek
We arrived at the Martin Luther King Federal Building about half an hour before our July 18th 2:00pm interview. It was hot and muggy, and we had to queue outside the building for about five minutes. The security guards seemed to be getting a bit short-tempered in the heat as the people at the front of the queue would tend to hold the building door open and let all the hot air in. I had our evidence in a big file box, and was more than a little worried they wouldn’t like that. Of course, once through the security check, we saw people dragging suitcases around.
The waiting room was pretty full, but soon thinned out. We decided they had just finished a citizenship exam, as people were continually being called to the side, presented with something and sent away. We hadn’t had chance to review all the documentation as everyone suggests – my wife had been out of the country for about six weeks – so as soon as I had dropped the I-797 off, we sat down to do this; it took about 15 minutes.
We were called for our interview at about 2:10pm. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer interviewer. She took us to her office, stood us in front of her desk and said ‘please raise both of your right hands’. I can’t tell you how confused I was. Rather than run the risk of asking a silly question, I toyed with the idea of putting both my hands up (despite one of them being left) and just stopped myself short as I saw my wife waiting patiently with her right hand raised, wondering what my problem was. We were sworn in.
Our interviewer had an assistant who helped collect, punch (paper!) and staple. The interview wasn’t recorded in any way, as far as we knew. Our interviewer asked my wife for her driver’s license, and me for my drivers license, social security card, passport, I-94 and EAD. I handed them all over, plus my previous passport which expired last year, and previous EAD. I had photocopied *everything* except, it seems, the biometrics page in my new passport, so the assistant took that away to make a copy. After looking through all of those, she told us she would keep my expired EAD.
She then took out the I-485 application from her file. She asked us each other’s birthdate, and then asked me all the questions from section 3 of the I-485. It seems I got them all right…
Next, she turned up our I-864. I had completed another, except my wife hadn’t had chance to sign it (I had only picked her up from a hotel by the airport an hour earlier). I piped up that I had an updated I-864, if this would help, but that we hadn’t had the opportunity to have it notarized. She asked if it was signed, I said no, she said great – and asked my wife to sign it. Done – we didn’t have to produce anything else with regard to payslips, letters from employers (all of which we had of course – plus copies)…
She asked us for supporting evidence. I fetched out a bulging folder, plus wedding album. She took one wedding pic (copy) and I just passed across all copies of everything else. We had the last three months of statements from a credit card and two bank accounts, health, house, vehicle and jewelry insurance, my Roth IRA, showing my wife as beneficiary and our wills. Our Morgan Stanley statements were at the top of the pile, and there was some confusion after, having turned over about 50 pages, our interviewer found she was still looking at MS statements (anyone who banks with MS will know what I mean.) She asked 'is this all the same thing?' I explained I’d only brought three months of statements. I suggested she might only want to keep the first page. She suggested we consider electronic banking (ironically we have that too…) Anyway, it seems we had enough evidence, I’m not sure exactly what she kept.
She then asked me how we met. I told her my wife had a personal ad and I was lonely. My usual version of that story can go on for several hours. She asked our wedding date. Again, I nearly started to waffle about the fact that we had two weddings – small hurried courthouse affair, then church four months later – and then remember the advice from this forum about not doing that. I just told her the courthouse date, and that was that – no further questions on the subject.
Finally (documentation-wise) she asked for tax records. 2004 was no problem (we filed jointly, self-prepared.) For 2003, we filed jointly in the end, but we had to get an extension because my company made a mistake on my W2 which I didn’t notice till the last minute. When I copied the return, I failed to copy the W2c (correction), and she picked up immediately that there was a difference between the W2 and the 1040. I couldn’t explain this – I didn’t figure it out till the following day – anyway, she decided it wasn’t a big enough problem to de-rail the interview.
We were told we would have to go back to the waiting room while she ran some security checks. Just as we were leaving, she remembered she hadn’t asked for my AP. I handed it across, and she said that she would return it (it had expired so I wasn’t really worried.) We were out about five minutes. She called us back, and told us that she wouldn’t be able to finish processing my case that day since the fingerprint check hadn’t come back yet. She asked when I had been fingerprinted, and I told her Friday. She asked to see the stamp from the ASC – apparently there’s sometimes some kind of serial number on there – but there wasn’t on mine. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. I had read on this forum that that might happen. Fifteen months after my original fingerprinting, I had phoned CSC and asked if I could be re-fingerprinted and they told me I would have to wait to be sent an appointment. When it ultimately arrived, for the (working) day before my interview I went to the ASC and asked if they could do it earlier, but they basically said no, so I felt I had done everything I could.
Anyway, our interviewer told us that, assuming the fingerprint check turned out OK, she would approve the application. I asked if I could get the stamp in my passport (I thought that was what CPR was) at my local ASC, and she said no – I would have to make an infopass appointment and come back to Atlanta, but why bother – I would probably receive the card only a week or two after that by mail. I had intended to ask, at the end of the interview, why our case had moved ahead of the posted processing date, and why they weren’t processed in order. I decided against it, since the case was still open - I didn’t want to antagonize her, and the waiting room was still pretty full. She returned all our stuff – the only thing she kept in the end, other than copies, was one expired EAD. We thanked her and left at around 2:40pm. Online Friday, I saw that they have the results of my fingerprint check now, so hopefully within the next few weeks…
Wow – that’s quite a tome – even for me. On the off-chance that there’s anybody still reading, I’d like to thank everyone here who’s given me advice thus far (I appreciate it isn’t over yet), to everyone who takes the time to answer questions and post their views and experiences, and to the moderators for keeping it all in check. This has to be the best resource of its kind on the internet. I’ll let you all know when my card arrives. Hopefully a short post sometime soon.
The waiting room was pretty full, but soon thinned out. We decided they had just finished a citizenship exam, as people were continually being called to the side, presented with something and sent away. We hadn’t had chance to review all the documentation as everyone suggests – my wife had been out of the country for about six weeks – so as soon as I had dropped the I-797 off, we sat down to do this; it took about 15 minutes.
We were called for our interview at about 2:10pm. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer interviewer. She took us to her office, stood us in front of her desk and said ‘please raise both of your right hands’. I can’t tell you how confused I was. Rather than run the risk of asking a silly question, I toyed with the idea of putting both my hands up (despite one of them being left) and just stopped myself short as I saw my wife waiting patiently with her right hand raised, wondering what my problem was. We were sworn in.
Our interviewer had an assistant who helped collect, punch (paper!) and staple. The interview wasn’t recorded in any way, as far as we knew. Our interviewer asked my wife for her driver’s license, and me for my drivers license, social security card, passport, I-94 and EAD. I handed them all over, plus my previous passport which expired last year, and previous EAD. I had photocopied *everything* except, it seems, the biometrics page in my new passport, so the assistant took that away to make a copy. After looking through all of those, she told us she would keep my expired EAD.
She then took out the I-485 application from her file. She asked us each other’s birthdate, and then asked me all the questions from section 3 of the I-485. It seems I got them all right…
Next, she turned up our I-864. I had completed another, except my wife hadn’t had chance to sign it (I had only picked her up from a hotel by the airport an hour earlier). I piped up that I had an updated I-864, if this would help, but that we hadn’t had the opportunity to have it notarized. She asked if it was signed, I said no, she said great – and asked my wife to sign it. Done – we didn’t have to produce anything else with regard to payslips, letters from employers (all of which we had of course – plus copies)…
She asked us for supporting evidence. I fetched out a bulging folder, plus wedding album. She took one wedding pic (copy) and I just passed across all copies of everything else. We had the last three months of statements from a credit card and two bank accounts, health, house, vehicle and jewelry insurance, my Roth IRA, showing my wife as beneficiary and our wills. Our Morgan Stanley statements were at the top of the pile, and there was some confusion after, having turned over about 50 pages, our interviewer found she was still looking at MS statements (anyone who banks with MS will know what I mean.) She asked 'is this all the same thing?' I explained I’d only brought three months of statements. I suggested she might only want to keep the first page. She suggested we consider electronic banking (ironically we have that too…) Anyway, it seems we had enough evidence, I’m not sure exactly what she kept.
She then asked me how we met. I told her my wife had a personal ad and I was lonely. My usual version of that story can go on for several hours. She asked our wedding date. Again, I nearly started to waffle about the fact that we had two weddings – small hurried courthouse affair, then church four months later – and then remember the advice from this forum about not doing that. I just told her the courthouse date, and that was that – no further questions on the subject.
Finally (documentation-wise) she asked for tax records. 2004 was no problem (we filed jointly, self-prepared.) For 2003, we filed jointly in the end, but we had to get an extension because my company made a mistake on my W2 which I didn’t notice till the last minute. When I copied the return, I failed to copy the W2c (correction), and she picked up immediately that there was a difference between the W2 and the 1040. I couldn’t explain this – I didn’t figure it out till the following day – anyway, she decided it wasn’t a big enough problem to de-rail the interview.
We were told we would have to go back to the waiting room while she ran some security checks. Just as we were leaving, she remembered she hadn’t asked for my AP. I handed it across, and she said that she would return it (it had expired so I wasn’t really worried.) We were out about five minutes. She called us back, and told us that she wouldn’t be able to finish processing my case that day since the fingerprint check hadn’t come back yet. She asked when I had been fingerprinted, and I told her Friday. She asked to see the stamp from the ASC – apparently there’s sometimes some kind of serial number on there – but there wasn’t on mine. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. I had read on this forum that that might happen. Fifteen months after my original fingerprinting, I had phoned CSC and asked if I could be re-fingerprinted and they told me I would have to wait to be sent an appointment. When it ultimately arrived, for the (working) day before my interview I went to the ASC and asked if they could do it earlier, but they basically said no, so I felt I had done everything I could.
Anyway, our interviewer told us that, assuming the fingerprint check turned out OK, she would approve the application. I asked if I could get the stamp in my passport (I thought that was what CPR was) at my local ASC, and she said no – I would have to make an infopass appointment and come back to Atlanta, but why bother – I would probably receive the card only a week or two after that by mail. I had intended to ask, at the end of the interview, why our case had moved ahead of the posted processing date, and why they weren’t processed in order. I decided against it, since the case was still open - I didn’t want to antagonize her, and the waiting room was still pretty full. She returned all our stuff – the only thing she kept in the end, other than copies, was one expired EAD. We thanked her and left at around 2:40pm. Online Friday, I saw that they have the results of my fingerprint check now, so hopefully within the next few weeks…
Wow – that’s quite a tome – even for me. On the off-chance that there’s anybody still reading, I’d like to thank everyone here who’s given me advice thus far (I appreciate it isn’t over yet), to everyone who takes the time to answer questions and post their views and experiences, and to the moderators for keeping it all in check. This has to be the best resource of its kind on the internet. I’ll let you all know when my card arrives. Hopefully a short post sometime soon.
Thank you for sharing your interview experience with us. Mine is coming up in Sept and your post has been very helpful
Looks like you should hear from USCIS soon on your approval.
Best wishes.
Julia
Jul 23rd 2005, 2:47 pm
#4
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2004
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 771
Re: AOS Interview in Atlanta
Mine is coming up in September as well. Good luck to us all and thanks for the story!
Good luck to us all and thanks for the story!
Jul 25th 2005, 4:18 am
#5
K1 via London
Joined: Sep 2003
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Posts: 1,959
Re: AOS Interview in Atlanta
Hey BooGeek, I'm sure you will receive your GC before you know it. I'm sure that fingerprint will come back fine and you won't have to worry about a thing for another while. Let us know when everything comes through.
