What can I expect at my second green card interview? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our offices in St. Louis, Missouri, San Diego, California, and Washington DC. Let me just say you don't want to have a second green card interview. One of the reasons that you really want to be well-prepared for your first interview and to bring all the right documentation to your first interview is in the hopes that you won't have a second interview. We don't want to have a second interview. We only want to have one interview. We want to knock it out and we want to get the case approved right away. We don't want to have a second interview. So the goal is no second interview. If you get a notice for a second interview, that's a really good sign that you probably need to talk to a lawyer.
I'm sure there've been cases in which the people did not have a lawyer, but as I said to Haley, my paralegal the other day, nothing good happens at the second interview. I used to be a trial lawyer and in trial, nothing good ever happens when your client is testifying. When your client's on the stand, nothing good happens. When the other side's witness is on the stand, good things happen because you get to cross examine them and make them out to be the liar that they probably are. But when your client is going into USCIS or to the state department for another interview, usually nothing good ever happens. Now with the state department, sometimes you have to go do a second interview just to pick up your visa. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about substantive interviews, either at USCIS or at the embassy where it's a second interview.
If it's a second interview, it probably means something's wrong. Now, if you had an interview long ago and we sue and you have a second interview, that's usually a good sign. But if you just on your own, get a second interview scheduled, that probably means there's something wrong with your case. And it's probably serious enough that you need to talk to a lawyer. You don't want to go into the second interview without a lawyer. This is especially true if this is a marriage based case. Because if it's a marriage based case, they've probably gone out and found some evidence that they want to confront you with and you need to be ready for it. Of course, we always tell everybody you need to be ready for anything. But if you're getting called in for a second interview, you really need to be ready to have the hammer dropped on you.
And so you need to be prepared. You need to think about, what is it they could be asking me for? Why are they calling me in for the second interview? Do I know whether they've gone out and talked to anybody that I know? Did they go talk to my landlord? Landlords are a big topic and living arrangements are a big topic at second interviews. Usually when you have a second interview is because they've discovered something that they want to catch you in a lie about. So either they found something in your application that wasn't true, or they've gotten your file back from the state department and found out about some non-immigrant visa that you filed. And now they want to ask you about that. Usually a second interview means that there's been work done between the time of your first interview and now this new interview, and they want to confront you with it.
And most likely they want to set you up to lie about it so that they can deny you either for the information that they've now obtained or for the answers that you're going to give at the second interview. So be very careful if you get scheduled for a second interview. If you've been scheduled for a second interview and you have questions, and if you need our help, you know who to call, 314-961-8200. Email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group. It's called immigrant home. We'd love to have you in there. And then of course we have our YouTube channel. I add a new video to it every single day. And we have our YouTube live show on Tuesdays and Thursdays in our Facebook group and on YouTube, usually at noon central time where I'm answering as many immigration law related questions as possible. Thanks a lot and have a great day.
