jaya06
11-29-2006, 12:36 PM
Hi all,
I am very glad to share that my MIL got a tourist visa at Chennai on her 4th attempt.
Here is some background if anyone is interested:
My MIL is a widow aged 69yrs. She has 5 children married and settled in India and her second son (my husband) is living in USA for the past 8 yrs. We have greencard and a 5yr old child. My MIL lives alone in her home and leads a financially independent life on the rents she gets from her home. She came to USA on a 6-month tourist visa in 2001 and returned back in 4.5 months (we were on H1B at that time). She tried again in Jan-05, Feb-05 and June-06 (we got GCs by then). All the three times she was denied based on 214(b) rejection code (we weren’t sure if our GC was the reason for rejection). We weren’t as knowledgeable about tourist visa those days and hence did not prepare property affidavit or surveyor’s evaluation or family pictures or anything. The only thing we did was prepare a letter to the visa officer explaining all her family members and ties with India – this letter wasn’t seen by the VO all the 3 times. My MIL always took the original property documents (dated 50yrs ago when they bought the land) which showed the value of the property in a few thousands (vs. 40 lakhs in today’s rates). So, in a nutshell, the sponsor file was always perfect with all the necessary documents, but, we did not prepare my MIL’s documents very thoroughly and we learnt, in a hard way, that her documents are of utmost importance in the visa process.
Only after I started visitng and actively parcticipating in path2usa forums, I got a very good idea of the whole process and hence we prepared everything very thoroughly this time.
The things that we did differently this time:
1) My husband wrote a 2 page letter to the consulate officer explaining all his mom’s ties with India. He also attached copies of 2 pages of her passport which showed her I-94 from 2001 and copies of the return ticket to India showing that she left to India well before the expiry of her I-94.
2) My husband also contacted our senator who was very helpful. Senator’s office sent a request to Chennai consulate stating that the applicant will come for an interview on ‘so and so’ date and that she will bring ‘so and so’ documents along with her to show her ties. (We had to fax a list of all the documents to the Senator’s office so that they could include that list in their letter to Chennai consulate).
3) We evaluated the price of my MIL’s home by a surveyor. We attached the surveyor’s document (which is in English) to the original property document (which was in Telugu)
4) My MIL attached a picture from her grand son’s marriage where all her family members were there (except us who are in USA and who couldn’t attend the wedding). There were 5 couples sitting along with their children and grand children with my MIL in the middle.
5) We prepared a property affidavit stating all the properties that my MIL has (including things like jewelry, furniture, etc).
6) We organized the folders very well compared to how we prepared them earlier.
This is how the interview went:
The VO was a white American lady in her 50’s. The translator was a young gentleman in his 20’s probably.
All my MIL’s replies were in Telugu, but I am writing here in English so everyone could read.
VO: Welcome. Namasthe
MIL: Namaskaram
[My MIL first gave the folder with all the mandatory documents. She then immediately gave the folder with her support documents saying ‘this file has all the info about my home and property’. This file also has the 8x10 family picture with all my MIL’s children/grand children/great grand children. The VO looked at the property surveyor’s document, bank letter and then at the family photo]
VO/Translator: [After seeing 5 couples sitting next to my MIL in the picture], do you have 5 children?
MIL: I actually have 6 children, one son is in USA. These 5 children are here in India.
VO/Translator: Where do your 5 children live in India?
MIL: 3 of them live in XYZ and 2 of them live very close to my home in my hometown.
VO/Translator: Where does your son in USA live?
MIL: My son lives at XYZ (just city and state names)
VO/Translator: Where does your son work at?
MIL: [Could only tell the first 2 words (out of 4 words) of my husband’s employer name and was struggling with the reminder of the name and said ‘sorry, it is a long name. I don’t remember. You may look at the details in his folder’ and handed the sponsor’s folder to the translator]
VO looked at the first page of the sponsor’s folder for a minute and then browsed through the remaining pages very quickly. The first page is the letter from my husband to the VO explaining all the ties that my MIL has with India. His letter mentioned that he would like to take his mom to ‘so and so’ places in USA as he couldn’t take her to those places in 2001 since the weather was so hot at that time.
VO/Translator: So, you are going to USA to see more places?
MIL: Yes. My son couldn’t take me around to all the places 5yrs ago because of weather and also because of his hectic work schedule. He has been dreaming to take me around to those places this time around if I could make a trip in winter. I will stay in USA only for 2 months to visit those places and will have return back by Mon-yy for my grand daughter’s wedding.
VO and Translator were talking about something with pleasant appearance on their faces. My MIL wasn’t sure of what they were talking about and said the following:
MIL: I only want to go for 2 months coz ..….
Translator: [Interrupted my MIL’s sentence], the VO gave you a visa for 10-yrs so you can visit your son whenever you want.
MIL: Thank you. Should I wait for more time or is the interview over?
Translator: You can go home now. You will receive your passport in courier within less than a week.
MIL: Thank you. Namasthe.
My MIL said that everyone in the consulate office was very courteous and the VO appeared very pleasant and cool. There were about 6 couples and 6 individual applicants in front of my MIL. All of them were approved the visa except one of the single applicants. She said there were more than 10 counters actively interviewing and she guesses that they would have allocated one counter per visa category per language. Whole process finished in about 1.5 hrs – the interview being only less than 5 minutes.
The points that worked in our favour this time:
1) The senator’s letter would have made the VO look at all the documents and ask questions before she made her decision (Last 3 attempts, my MIL was interviewed by a white male who did not see any documents and asked only 2-3 questions and based his decision on those 2-3 answers + info in DS156).
2) The family picture was very helpful. Instead of keeping small 4x6 pictures in a separate album, it was my MIL’s idea to tack on the 8X10 picture to her other documents in her folder so that the picture will be seen right after the VO opens the folder.
3) Evaluating my MIL’s home by a surveyor would have helped too. The original property documents were only showing a value of few thousands when my FIL bought the land about 45-50yrs ago. The new surveyor’s document was showing 40+ lakhs.
4) My MIL can’t read English and hence we couldn’t explain her about any of the documents in the sponsor’s folder (ex: I134, pay stubs, employer name, bank name, our home address in USA etc). We told her to hand over the sponsor’s folder if they ask any question that is related to her son’s status in USA or her son’s employer or about his bank balance or I134 or whatever. We only asked her to concentrate on the documents that she is preparing from her end. Though she can’t read English, she got very well familiarized with ‘which document is for what?’ from her end. We also prepared her with how to answer each question. We did not bother her to by heart all the names and dates, but we asked her to concentrate on how she could explain that she has all the ties. She appeared to be better prepared than she was in her previous attempts.
By the way, the DD for Rs.2300/- was returned back as there is no more ‘visa issuance fee’. My MIL took it with her just to be on the safe side.
We are still waiting on her passport to find out the duration of her visa. We are truly hoping for a 10yr M visa as per the translator’s words. I will post the same message in ‘success stories’ once we get the passport.
If you have come this far, then I bet you have a family member’s appt coming up very soon. I hope I covered everything in this message, but, if you have any additional questions, please feel free to ask and I will reply back.
Good luck to every tourist visa aspirant!!
- Jaya.
I am very glad to share that my MIL got a tourist visa at Chennai on her 4th attempt.
Here is some background if anyone is interested:
My MIL is a widow aged 69yrs. She has 5 children married and settled in India and her second son (my husband) is living in USA for the past 8 yrs. We have greencard and a 5yr old child. My MIL lives alone in her home and leads a financially independent life on the rents she gets from her home. She came to USA on a 6-month tourist visa in 2001 and returned back in 4.5 months (we were on H1B at that time). She tried again in Jan-05, Feb-05 and June-06 (we got GCs by then). All the three times she was denied based on 214(b) rejection code (we weren’t sure if our GC was the reason for rejection). We weren’t as knowledgeable about tourist visa those days and hence did not prepare property affidavit or surveyor’s evaluation or family pictures or anything. The only thing we did was prepare a letter to the visa officer explaining all her family members and ties with India – this letter wasn’t seen by the VO all the 3 times. My MIL always took the original property documents (dated 50yrs ago when they bought the land) which showed the value of the property in a few thousands (vs. 40 lakhs in today’s rates). So, in a nutshell, the sponsor file was always perfect with all the necessary documents, but, we did not prepare my MIL’s documents very thoroughly and we learnt, in a hard way, that her documents are of utmost importance in the visa process.
Only after I started visitng and actively parcticipating in path2usa forums, I got a very good idea of the whole process and hence we prepared everything very thoroughly this time.
The things that we did differently this time:
1) My husband wrote a 2 page letter to the consulate officer explaining all his mom’s ties with India. He also attached copies of 2 pages of her passport which showed her I-94 from 2001 and copies of the return ticket to India showing that she left to India well before the expiry of her I-94.
2) My husband also contacted our senator who was very helpful. Senator’s office sent a request to Chennai consulate stating that the applicant will come for an interview on ‘so and so’ date and that she will bring ‘so and so’ documents along with her to show her ties. (We had to fax a list of all the documents to the Senator’s office so that they could include that list in their letter to Chennai consulate).
3) We evaluated the price of my MIL’s home by a surveyor. We attached the surveyor’s document (which is in English) to the original property document (which was in Telugu)
4) My MIL attached a picture from her grand son’s marriage where all her family members were there (except us who are in USA and who couldn’t attend the wedding). There were 5 couples sitting along with their children and grand children with my MIL in the middle.
5) We prepared a property affidavit stating all the properties that my MIL has (including things like jewelry, furniture, etc).
6) We organized the folders very well compared to how we prepared them earlier.
This is how the interview went:
The VO was a white American lady in her 50’s. The translator was a young gentleman in his 20’s probably.
All my MIL’s replies were in Telugu, but I am writing here in English so everyone could read.
VO: Welcome. Namasthe
MIL: Namaskaram
[My MIL first gave the folder with all the mandatory documents. She then immediately gave the folder with her support documents saying ‘this file has all the info about my home and property’. This file also has the 8x10 family picture with all my MIL’s children/grand children/great grand children. The VO looked at the property surveyor’s document, bank letter and then at the family photo]
VO/Translator: [After seeing 5 couples sitting next to my MIL in the picture], do you have 5 children?
MIL: I actually have 6 children, one son is in USA. These 5 children are here in India.
VO/Translator: Where do your 5 children live in India?
MIL: 3 of them live in XYZ and 2 of them live very close to my home in my hometown.
VO/Translator: Where does your son in USA live?
MIL: My son lives at XYZ (just city and state names)
VO/Translator: Where does your son work at?
MIL: [Could only tell the first 2 words (out of 4 words) of my husband’s employer name and was struggling with the reminder of the name and said ‘sorry, it is a long name. I don’t remember. You may look at the details in his folder’ and handed the sponsor’s folder to the translator]
VO looked at the first page of the sponsor’s folder for a minute and then browsed through the remaining pages very quickly. The first page is the letter from my husband to the VO explaining all the ties that my MIL has with India. His letter mentioned that he would like to take his mom to ‘so and so’ places in USA as he couldn’t take her to those places in 2001 since the weather was so hot at that time.
VO/Translator: So, you are going to USA to see more places?
MIL: Yes. My son couldn’t take me around to all the places 5yrs ago because of weather and also because of his hectic work schedule. He has been dreaming to take me around to those places this time around if I could make a trip in winter. I will stay in USA only for 2 months to visit those places and will have return back by Mon-yy for my grand daughter’s wedding.
VO and Translator were talking about something with pleasant appearance on their faces. My MIL wasn’t sure of what they were talking about and said the following:
MIL: I only want to go for 2 months coz ..….
Translator: [Interrupted my MIL’s sentence], the VO gave you a visa for 10-yrs so you can visit your son whenever you want.
MIL: Thank you. Should I wait for more time or is the interview over?
Translator: You can go home now. You will receive your passport in courier within less than a week.
MIL: Thank you. Namasthe.
My MIL said that everyone in the consulate office was very courteous and the VO appeared very pleasant and cool. There were about 6 couples and 6 individual applicants in front of my MIL. All of them were approved the visa except one of the single applicants. She said there were more than 10 counters actively interviewing and she guesses that they would have allocated one counter per visa category per language. Whole process finished in about 1.5 hrs – the interview being only less than 5 minutes.
The points that worked in our favour this time:
1) The senator’s letter would have made the VO look at all the documents and ask questions before she made her decision (Last 3 attempts, my MIL was interviewed by a white male who did not see any documents and asked only 2-3 questions and based his decision on those 2-3 answers + info in DS156).
2) The family picture was very helpful. Instead of keeping small 4x6 pictures in a separate album, it was my MIL’s idea to tack on the 8X10 picture to her other documents in her folder so that the picture will be seen right after the VO opens the folder.
3) Evaluating my MIL’s home by a surveyor would have helped too. The original property documents were only showing a value of few thousands when my FIL bought the land about 45-50yrs ago. The new surveyor’s document was showing 40+ lakhs.
4) My MIL can’t read English and hence we couldn’t explain her about any of the documents in the sponsor’s folder (ex: I134, pay stubs, employer name, bank name, our home address in USA etc). We told her to hand over the sponsor’s folder if they ask any question that is related to her son’s status in USA or her son’s employer or about his bank balance or I134 or whatever. We only asked her to concentrate on the documents that she is preparing from her end. Though she can’t read English, she got very well familiarized with ‘which document is for what?’ from her end. We also prepared her with how to answer each question. We did not bother her to by heart all the names and dates, but we asked her to concentrate on how she could explain that she has all the ties. She appeared to be better prepared than she was in her previous attempts.
By the way, the DD for Rs.2300/- was returned back as there is no more ‘visa issuance fee’. My MIL took it with her just to be on the safe side.
We are still waiting on her passport to find out the duration of her visa. We are truly hoping for a 10yr M visa as per the translator’s words. I will post the same message in ‘success stories’ once we get the passport.
If you have come this far, then I bet you have a family member’s appt coming up very soon. I hope I covered everything in this message, but, if you have any additional questions, please feel free to ask and I will reply back.
Good luck to every tourist visa aspirant!!
- Jaya.