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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawWhat Interview Questions are asked in a CR-1 Visa Application?

What Interview Questions are asked in a CR-1 Visa Application?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing CR-1 visa interview questions specifically. 

As previously noted, I'm based here in Bangkok, Thailand so a lot of this is going to come from my personal perspective of having dealt with that Consular section at that Embassy. Although we do deal with cases in a more regional manner, most of our cases that we deal with pertain to that Embassy so I'm a little bit tinted in my analysis kind of dealing more with Thai matters. That being said, I think some of the information throughout this video is pertinent just in a more general context. 

Let me further preface this video by saying that I am not going to just sit here and list possible questions that an interviewing officer could ask. I don't think would even do anyone any good and here's the reason why. 

Interviewing Consular Officers in visa applications such as the CR-1 visa application are not, this is not a robotic process okay.  Adjudicators are looking at every case on a case-by-case basis. They are ascertaining the underlying facts of the case: they're looking at possible red flags that they may have based on the facts of that case: they are also doing an analysis to ascertain whether or not any legal grounds of inadmissibility may exist in a given case: they're also looking to see if for example in a CR-1 case, is the marriage genuine, it is not some sort of marriage of convenience for example. All of these things factor into their underlying analysis and for this reason, it's important to understand their thinking. A  good legal professional, such as myself, I would like to think so, is going to prepare the client to sort of be forewarned what possible questions are going to be asked based on the circumstances of that case. This is where simply having a list of just a bunch of questions isn't necessarily the best way to do things and sometimes I have cases where I look at the overall case and I say I don't think they're going to ask very much because there isn't much to ask about. You have been together for a prolonged period of time everything looks on the up-and-up; I don't see any reason why there would be a problem. I also have cases where there's clearly grounds of inadmissibility or I have cases where it's a bit of a gray area where it is not quite certain exactly where this thing falls and sometimes we actually have to tease it out by using things like the Foreign Affairs Manual or the Immigration Nationality act; we have to go in there and try to figure out exactly where things stand. But a good legal professional is not going in to provide their client with some sort of flowery language to dance around topics. Instead what they are trying to assist them in doing is concisely and accurately, explaining their legal situation, explaining their factual situation, so that an adjudicating officer can make their determination in a sort of efficient manner.  It’s best to just go in, for example legal grounds of inadmissibility need to be admitted. You have to tell the truth in the Immigration forms and for this reason to be able to just concisely and accurately say "look this is the set of circumstances: this is how it happened: I'm prepared to deal with these consequences", oftentimes that is a better way of dealing with things. I would never do anything other than that way but I do know people that kind of try to dance around it when they are filing their own cases and things. It's just a bad way to handle it, especially as it does risk the possibility of a fraud and misrepresentation finding which is really, really problematic. 

Again just sort of sum up this whole video interview questions are important. In the cases that I handle I try to sort of foresee and predict the kind of questions that are going to be put to a given applicant and in those interviews try to provide that applicant not only with a comfort level to deal with the matter but also provide a means and method of them being able to accurately and concisely explain the situation and move the process through as quickly as possible.