Good evening/day/morning,
This fairly longish story regarding DV Lottery interview is written with a view to share my own experience and to assist in any way (helpful - one hopes) for those lucky enough to be selected for further processing in DV program and interviewed in London in the future.
Main reason this storytelling is in English rather than in Russian trivial – I do not presently have a Russian keyboard; writing in Russian language using Latin letters is daunting for myself and makes it an unpleasant experience for a reader.
This was my first entry for this program (Russian citizen) and luckily for me a successful one. Got married after receiving notification of selection to my long term partner. Our interview was scheduled for January 2010.
With some help from my friends (thank you Grafalo) researched pretty much everyday everything there is to know about London US immigrant visa interviews. I realised that a dreadful lady everyone was referring to (by the look of it) is the one and only person who has a weight in any decision making process concerning immigrant visas.
“The day” had come – queue to the Embassy in ridiculously early hours of the morning, 4 different passport/security checks, ticket issued – waiting hall. Around 10am our ticket number is announced. First port of call is lovely Ms. Brown, a few jokes, documents check, small talk, finger prints. Next port of call not so lovely Ms. Everyone is talking about, first question/suggestion/statement “you got married for a visa, right?.” State of shock, obviously not triggered by the question itself but by the manner of speaking. I am a criminal – she is a judge (full stop). Thankfully for us, I’ve been on an unmarried partner dependant visa for quite some time (basically married by the choice of lifestyle but not legally registered – it is a norm in the UK and British Government treats such unions with the same respect as married ones but checks them thoroughly). That was satisfactory. The next stage is the scrutiny of our financials – not good enough to be eligible to go to States. For confidential reasons I am not going to talk about our financials in this topic, however if there are questions please send them over I’ll do my best to give some clues as to what is required. A blue spreadsheet was handed over to us to comply with the requirements – she was specifically insisting on an official affidavit of support from a US citizen and was less keen to receive details of bank accounts and assets.
A few weeks later we sent off what we had – financial statements and description of assets. The result (much anticipated) was satisfactory and going to the pub to celebrate such an occasion was in order. However, upon further inspection it appeared that my name was misspelled, weeks after trying to get hold of anyone/someone we were instructed to send it all back for correction.
Out of a blue, a phone call from Embassy requesting our presence for another chat, apparently they forgot to take our sworn statements and signatures. Another queue to the Embassy in ridiculously early hours of the morning, 4 different checks (however this time we didn’t have our passports as they were in the Embassy, talking to security officers explaing the position, calling Ms. Brown to request her permission to move further up in a queue, explaining hardly trained polish staff that in fact you are expected and you are a human being even though you do not have a passport), ticket issued –waiting hall. Ms. Brown asks to come forward without a queue (bless her), quick chat, a few jokes, correction of misspellings, in a few minutes later pleasantly charming chap took our sworn statements and asked to go home with peace to await news/packet.
Last week our packet arrived – all well that ends well.
Next month off to the new shores to test the waters….
Now for the important bits: if one was lucky to be selected and one can afford to go back to the country of birth for an interview then one should carefully consider this option. London Embassy is rather tough.
Well, good luck and all the best wishes from goodself to everyone in this not very smooth ride to a dream.