L1 Visa Renewal Interview - Family together or separate

[Mike Wells]

Hi all,

So my L1 visa will be undergoing a renewal because the I797 petition has expired. This expiration came as a bit of a surprise for a number of reasons out of my control. Never-the-less the situation is that, by chance, my Wife and kids will be traveling to South Africa as the petition expires, so they won't be able to come back to the States until they have the new visas. I will be remaining in the States until it is time to do the interview at which point I will need to leave and find a US Consulate. I have three possible options, London, Frankfurt or Cape Town.

London would be my home country
Frankfurt is where the parent company of my US company are based also where I did the first interview for my L1
Cape Town is where my family will be at the time the interview is required.

So my questions are;

Is there any benefit to certain US Consulates, based on country of citizenship or location of foreign company?
Is it beneficial to interview as a family? Better to have the L1 and L2 applicants in the same room together? Ideally I would travel to Cape Town to minimize the pain of this on the rest of the family, hours in a US Consulate with a 1 and 3 yr old is not fun! Plus in South Africa I think I can leave the kids with family while my wife and I interview, would be nice!

[raghvi]

Hi all,

So my L1 visa will be undergoing a renewal because the I797 petition has expired. This expiration came as a bit of a surprise for a number of reasons out of my control. Never-the-less the situation is that, by chance, my Wife and kids will be traveling to South Africa as the petition expires, so they won't be able to come back to the States until they have the new visas. I will be remaining in the States until it is time to do the interview at which point I will need to leave and find a US Consulate. I have three possible options, London, Frankfurt or Cape Town.

London would be my home country
Frankfurt is where the parent company of my US company are based also where I did the first interview for my L1
Cape Town is where my family will be at the time the interview is required.

So my questions are;

Is there any benefit to certain US Consulates, based on country of citizenship or location of foreign company?
Is it beneficial to interview as a family? Better to have the L1 and L2 applicants in the same room together? Ideally I would travel to Cape Town to minimize the pain of this on the rest of the family, hours in a US Consulate with a 1 and 3 yr old is not fun! Plus in South Africa I think I can leave the kids with family while my wife and I interview, would be nice!

Ideally speaking the first interview should be in the country where the non US business entity is there, so Frankfurt in your case but as it is your second stamping anywhere should be fine. Check with the US consulate in Cape Town.

This is my opinion not legal advice.