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How Immigration Interviews Are Like A Concert

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Jim Hacking: How is an immigration interview like a high school musical concert? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, Immigration Lawyer, practicing law throughout the United States. Today I was meeting with my clients, getting them ready to file their spouse visa application. They're excited about getting it on file, but they did have some concerns about the interview itself, and so we talked about how the interview goes. About what happens, how you get sworn in, and put under oath, and how they ask for all your identifying documents. How they ask for all your other supporting documents for the application, and this principle that I'm going to talk about today really applies to all kinds of immigration cases. It doesn't just apply to spouse cases, but in any event, I was trying to explain to them what it's like for the officer to be receiving all of the evidence, and so obviously, I've never been an immigration officer, but I have been in hundreds of interviews.
I've had the chance to observe officers, and see their reactions, and how they respond to various answers, and to various evidence that is presented to them, and so I thought I would make this video to explain it to you the way I explain it to my clients. The way I sort of set it out is that in a lot of ways, an immigration interview is like a musical concert, and I have been spending a lot of time at my son's various year end holiday concerts, and so the metaphor seemed apt, and so in these situations, you always have one of the high school kids. The music is sounding great, and then every now and then, you hear a wrong note, and if there's a collection of wrong notes, then you're sort of scratching your head and saying, "What is it about this song? What is it about this band? What's going on? Who's making that noise?"
It's not what the person receiving the information or the music is expecting, so an immigration interview is a lot like that, so when you go in for your interview, you want to hit every note perfectly, and if your notes are off, if you have a combination of notes, if you strike one bad note after another, it's going to end up with a very bad, messy interview. What do I mean by that? Well, the example we were talking about today in our meeting was driver's licenses, so sometimes people will go to their interview and the couple may have just recently moved in together, and one or both of them may not have gotten around to updating their address on their driver's license, so when the officer starts off the interview by reviewing their identifying documents, they look at the driver's licenses and here you have two people, who say that they're married, who are asking for an immigration benefit, yet they have two different addresses.

Now there might be logistical or legal reasons for this, but this is a bad note. Another bad note is when you come without all your documents. If you don't have your original birth certificate with you or if you don't have the original marriage certificate. These are all notes that cause the officer to pause, and we don't want our immigration officers pausing. We want them to be going along quickly and as smoothly as possible, because when they pause, they think. When they think, they think of more questions to ask. Our job, as immigration attorneys, is to be the conductor. We want to orchestrate a interview that sounds perfect, that sounds great. Obviously, we're always telling our clients to tell the truth, but there are really tons of reasons why the way you present yourself, the way you sound with your answers, the answers that you give, the evidence that you bring, all these things contribute to a good concert, a good interview, so make sure that you don't sing the wrong note. That you don't hit the wrong note.

Don't bring in bad evidence. Don't make it easy for them to deny your case. You want to do everything you can to have your case tracked the way that they're used to receiving their cases, so you're going to want to have all of your evidence lined up. You want to know all your dates. You're not going to have any fumbling around, looking through documents, all that stuff. You really want to put on a show for the officer.

Obviously, you're always telling the truth, and being truthful, and honest, and thorough as you can, but at the same time, there is a little bit of professionalism and good work that you bring when you go to an interview properly, so if you have any questions about this, if you want to know how we can help you sound a better tune at your immigration interview, be sure to give us a call at 314-961-8200 or you can email us at [email protected].

If you liked this video, be sure to hit the like button below and subscribe to our YouTube Channel. We're heading towards 900 subscribers and we're really excited about that. We want to get as many subscriptions on, so that you guys can find out whenever we update the YouTube Channel. Thanks a lot and have a great day.

 

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