Photo by Alexander Kovalchuk
Interview
The interview was scheduled for 14:30, and half an hour before that time we were already standing outside the consulate. There were few people wishing to enter, so we were let in without delay, after checking passports and the interview time. Our bag and phone were taken away, so we were left with only passports and an impressive packet of documents.
Inside the building it was fairly crowded, although there was no line as such: all visa applicants have numbered tickets for their interviews. “Who has an interview at 14:15? Please come to window eight. No one? 14:30?” A young, polite clerk checked that all papers, photos, and signatures were in order and handed me a ticket with a three-digit number: 278. All that remained was to wait.
I don’t know why, but I had imagined the U.S. consulate differently—much larger than it actually is. And what I certainly did not expect to see were boxes of toys on the floor next to the American flag, which children were playing with.
While I was trying to concentrate on some American travel magazine, number 270 was called—a young woman, in my opinion dressed too flashily. I immediately remembered the advice from an American book about visas: “Wear to a visa interview what you would wear to visit your grandmother.” Well, “visit your grandmother” is a fairly broad notion. I was wearing jeans and a sweater, while that lady was wearing high stiletto boots, an open blouse, and a miniskirt. The “number 270” came out of the interview room only about thirty minutes later—I immediately figured that my turn would come in about three hours, if not four. But—I was called next! In novels, in such cases they write that “at that moment something inside snapped”...
The interview room was small and for some reason resembled a hospital ward.
— Mr. Ames? You will be called if needed, but for now I want to speak with your fiancée.
— What language do you speak with each other?
— Esperanto.
— Esperanto?
The consul was surprised by the answer; I would bet he had never heard that before.
— Esperanto is an international language developed in 1887 by the Warsaw doctor Zamenhof...
— I know, I know—(here it was my turn to be surprised)—I just didn’t know that people still speak Esperanto and even publish magazines. Tell me, how did you meet?
— It all began in 2001, when the position of editor of the international Esperanto magazine “Kontakto” became vacant, and we (then still strangers to each other) submitted our applications. They chose me, and I chose Joel as my deputy. We met in person only two years later: after the World Esperanto Congress in Sweden, I invited Joel to visit Ukraine. Then, in August 2003, we realized that we loved each other, and in November we became engaged.
The consul seemed satisfied with the answer, looked through the packet of papers once more, entered something into the computer, asked to see the first joint magazine with our names, and did not even check the remaining packet.
— How many times has your fiancé come to Ukraine?
— Five times.
— When exactly?
(Good thing I remembered all the exact dates of arrivals and departures before the interview!)
— Do you know his parents?
— Only through correspondence.
— What are their names? Do they know that you want to get married?
— Harvey and Lynn. Of course, there is a card in which they congratulate us.
The consul did not even look at the card, nor did he ask about the names of the fiancé’s relatives to the fifth degree. However, he asked a couple of repeated questions to test me:
— So when did you meet? In November?
— No, in August. We became engaged in November.
Next on the program were fingerprinting and the oath.
— Raise your right hand. No, not like that, like this—as in the movies—the consul showed how to hold your hand, and I solemnly swore that all information about me, oral and written, was correct.
— I congratulate you, everything is in order; tomorrow your passport with the visa will be sent to you by courier mail. Here are instructions on what you should do next.
I left the interview room as if in a half-dream. “God, is that all? And so fast—just 5-7 minutes!”
How it all began
I began my path from engagement to an American man to a U.S. visa by visiting the website of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine—www.usemb.kiev.ua. Gathering the documents took about nine months. We filled out all the paperwork ourselves, without lawyers—there was nothing complicated about it.
First you need to decide which visa you want: a fiancée visa (K-1), with the marriage to take place in the United States, or a wife’s visa, with the marriage registered in Ukraine. Contrary to popular belief, a wife’s visa is harder to obtain. It would seem that a stamp in a passport is quite convincing proof of the seriousness of a relationship. But not for the U.S. consulate. A fiancée visa is something like a conditional immigrant visa; it does not guarantee that you will receive a green card. That is why Americans are much less picky about fiancée visa applicants: after all, in the United States they face a second, far more serious interview, and the Kyiv consulate’s responsibility in that case is smaller.
The paperwork is roughly the same in both variants; the only difference is that when applying for a K-1, you will have to fill out the bulk of the documents and wait for the green card in the United States, whereas in the case of a wife’s visa—in Ukraine. Processing all the documents and waiting for a wife’s visa takes at least twice as long as waiting for a fiancée visa. By chance, in Atlanta I met a Tajik woman who had to wait for her wife’s visa for more than two years.
One more thing. If you are getting a wife’s visa, a visa (K-2) is not issued to children over 18 but under 21. If, however, you are getting a fiancée visa, there are no problems in that regard. That said, it cannot be said that fiancée visas are handed out left and right at the U.S. consulate—you will have to fill out quite a lot of documents and be patient.
Visa process
The visa process consists of three main stages: your fiancé filing a visa petition, after its approval collecting and filling out various papers, translating them into English, undergoing a medical examination, and finally, the visa interview itself. (By the way, after filing the first application, you are not allowed to submit documents for any other U.S. visa.) As the embassy website writes, "successful approval of a visa petition is only the first stage of the visa process and does not guarantee the issuance of a visa in any way." Nevertheless, the speed and outcome of the process itself directly depend on this stage.
First, your fiancé should go to the website of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS, (www.uscis.gov) and download Form I-129F. (The main thing is not to accidentally fill out document I-129 (without the letter "F") - it is a completely different document and also much longer.) I-129F consists of two parts - biographical data of the future spouses. The most difficult question is the 19th, about how and where you met. Here you can safely give free rein to your writing talent! It is advisable that the answer fits on one page, but at the same time be detailed. And most importantly, your subsequent answers at the interview should not diverge from this story. So ask your fiancé to send you a photocopy of all the visa petition documents, since many questions are repeated.
The second document that you will most likely have to fill out yourself is Form G-325A (downloaded from the same website). This is a four-page document with more detailed information about you. In addition to the usual data, you will need to indicate your places of work for the last five years (starting with the most recent). In the "visa type" field, three options are given - naturalization, status as permanent resident, and other. Choose the last one and add next to it "fiance applicant". In the "address" field, indicate your official address (place of registration), even if it does not coincide with the actual one, since later you will need to obtain a criminal record certificate with the official address indicated.
Also included in the visa petition package are:
* two color photographs (yours and your fiancé's);
* a check for a certain amount (according to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine website, $165) for processing documents;
* confirmation that your fiancé is a U.S. citizen, that is, a notarized birth certificate, passport, or certificate of naturalization;
* if necessary, a divorce or death certificate of the previous spouse;
* copies of Ukrainian visas, tickets, joint photographs with dates, postcards, passport stamps, credit card statements (if money was withdrawn in Ukraine), phone bills - in short, everything that proves that your fiancé was actually in Ukraine and that your relationship is genuine.
Before having your photos taken, be sure to visit the website www.uscis.gov and check the latest photo requirements, as they change frequently. Your fiancé must send all these documents to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office at his place of residence. After that, you can sleep peacefully - at least for a few months.
Continuation of the "visa odyssey"
After an initial superficial check of the documents for completeness, the presence of signatures and photographs, the Citizenship and Immigration Services sends your fiancé a confirmation of receipt of the petition (in our case this happened after two months). Then the documents are sent to the National Visa Center (NVC), where they are checked in more detail. If the papers are in order, the NVC sends your fiancé another confirmation (in our case this again took about two months). Then your information is sent to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, and after some time you receive "packet three" and your case number. If several months have passed and "packet three" has not arrived, download it from the embassy website.
So, with the receipt of "packet three" begins the second stage of the "visa odyssey". You are given four months from the moment of petition approval to collect documents. If you do not meet this deadline, be sure to write about it to the U.S. Consulate in Kyiv ([email protected]), otherwise you will have to start over.
In "packet three" there are no forms as such, only explanations (in English and Ukrainian): a detailed description of the documents you need to collect and translate into English; photo requirements; all sorts of reminders; explanations regarding the criminal record certificate (it must be obtained not only at your place of residence in Ukraine, for Kyiv residents - at the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 15 Volodymyrska Street, but also in any of the countries where you lived for more than a year); requirements for evidence of financial independence or financial support; and finally, form KEV-1, which you send back to the embassy after all the necessary documents have been collected.
The list of documents to be collected and translated into English, in my case, included a foreign passport, a birth certificate (original, copy plus translation into English), a police certificate (original plus translation), and evidence of financial support. By the way, the stamps of a licensed translation bureau are quite sufficient for officializing the translation - in other words, having official translations notarized is unnecessary.
I will not dwell in detail on all the documents you will have to collect and fill out - in the "visas" section on the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv website there is a complete list of documents and a five-page instruction for filling them out. I will focus on one of the most important documents - the certificate of financial independence or financial support.
The instructions for this document consist of two parts. The first part concerns you only if you yourself are acting as a guarantor of your own financial independence. In that case, you should fill in the blanks for “Applicant’s own funds” and “Employment” (meaning your employment in the States). The second part of the document is about the affidavit of support.
The instructions do not specify exactly what funds your sponsor must have. Therefore, to check whether their income meets the official requirements, download Form I-864P (Poverty Guidelines) from the USCIS website. Your sponsor’s minimum income must be at least 125% of the poverty line. If your fiancé’s income is insufficient, he will have to persuade someone among his parents, relatives, or friends to act as a co-sponsor. Next, your fiancé (and if necessary, the co-sponsor) will need to fill out Form I-134 (Affidavit of Support, downloadable from the USCIS website) and provide any two of the following documents: a letter from the place of employment stating the position, salary, length of service, and nature of work (permanent or temporary); a notarized copy of the latest tax declaration; a bank statement confirming the existence and status of the account, indicating the date it was opened; as well as “other documentary evidence of the sponsor’s ability to fulfill his obligations to the applicant for an indefinite period.” We decided to play it safe and provided three documents instead of two - a letter from the workplace, a copy of the tax declaration, and a bank statement. It took us at least two months to prepare and send the documents, obtain bank statements, and so on.
In “package three” there are contacts for two clinics where you can undergo a medical examination (costing $65-100). Even though you will need the medical exam results only at the interview, it is better not to put it off. The examination takes only a few hours - and the results are given out the same day (under no circumstances should you open the envelope!).
After all the documents are collected and translated, and the affidavits of support have been received, all you have left to do is fill out the only “fillable” document in “package three” - Form KEV-1, indicate your desired interview date, and send it to the embassy by fax or email. As a rule, the interview is scheduled approximately one to one and a half months from the initial date (my interview, by the way, was scheduled exactly on the day I specified in Form KEV-1).
After some time, you will receive “package four.” It includes two standard visa application forms (one of which is filled out in duplicate), another instruction regarding the medical exam, photo requirements, and an invitation to the interview. You should arrive early for the interview - at the specified time you should already be inside the building, not at its doors. The consular fee for the visa, as is known, is $100. In case of refusal, the money is not refunded.
If the interview goes successfully and all the paperwork is in order, you will be told immediately after the interview ends, and your passport with the visa will be sent by courier mail within two days. The K-1 visa is valid for six months from the date of issuance - that is, you must enter the United States within six months. Then you are given 90 days to get married and apply for a green card. Next, you undergo a procedure called adjustment of status, which lasts at best a year. But that is a topic for another story...