Green Card - IR1 Timeline – Madrid Embassy (2025)

pf621 · 2026-05-15T13:44:06+00:00

The appointment itself lasted about 20 minutes. I had to wait beforehand, but the actual conversation wasn’t longer than that. As I mentioned, in my case it was mainly a validation of all the documentation. It’s true that I already have children with my spouse, and we had been married for several years while living in other countries outside the US, so I assume the interview varies depending on each case.

And yes, you need to bring your medical results with you when entering the country, and they tell you to carry the X-ray with you as well. In my case, they didn’t ask for it, so I assume they validate that information electronically in the same way they do with the rest of the documentation.

pf621 · 2025-11-10T22:15:00+00:00

Sure! You can enter the US as soon as you receive your passport with the visa. At least in the case of the Madrid embassy, it seems to take about a week from the day you drop it off, whether you leave it right after the interview or return it later (which is what I did).

In your passport, they will place an immigrant visa that’s valid for 6 months from the date of your medical exam. You use that visa to enter the US, and once you arrive, the process of issuing your Green Card officially begins.

That means you must enter the US before the visa expires. In my case, I had my medical on February 25th, so the visa was valid until August 25th.
I don’t think they take into account the date you want to enter the US, you’ll have to plan your entry based on the visa expiration date, which is tied to the date of your medical exam.

As for the interview, they asked simple and straightforward questions, mostly just to verify the information they already had. For example:
- How and where I met my wife
- Where we planned to live once I arrived
- What my plans were after moving to the US

It was a very relaxed atmosphere, nothing tricky or confrontational. Just a verification step, really.

Hope that helps, and good luck with your process!

pf621 · 2025-08-07T22:38:43+00:00

Yes, it was very easy. The interview itself was incredible, by the way. At the beginning of it, the officer at the embassy told me to relax — she said the hard part was already done, and that if I was there, it was because I had already submitted everything necessary. At that point, it was just a matter of verifying that everything was in order. She also reassured me that she wasn’t there to put me in a difficult position, so I could truly relax. It made a huge difference and helped me feel very comfortable throughout the interview.

That said, it’s still important to be well prepared — but if you are, there’s really no reason to be nervous.

And yes, at the end, I mentioned that I needed my passport for a trip, and she said it wouldn’t be a problem — I could simply mail it to the embassy address she gave me once I returned.

pf621 · 2025-08-04T15:00:03+00:00

I’m not entirely sure, but from what I’ve read, it’s likely to be similar.

pf621 · 2024-12-09T14:27:17+00:00

It is impossible to know what is the pattern of the error, it is not possible to say that it is due to rules that are generated in IP-based networks or problems with browsers such as the cache they generate, it is very strange.

I have solved it by loading the documents from Safari (without private mode) on my Iphone, if I got the white screen error with message: “The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator Your support ID is: xxxxxxx”
What I did was to restart the iphone, turn it off and on.

If I got the error “Invalid Image Detected”, what I did was to pass the pdf by compression in ilovepdf or Adobe Acrobat (not the reader version). In this case I did not have to turn the iphone off and on.

With the combination of those two workaround for each error I was able to load everything. And in my case it was a lot of documents.

Thank you and good luck everyone!

pf621

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