🇺🇸 US B1/B2 Visa Experience – India | Family of 3 | 221(g) → Approved
Sharing my recent US B1/B2 visa experience because I couldn’t find many similar cases while researching — particularly a family application where the wife and child were approved while the main applicant received 221(g).
**👨**👩👧 Our profile
We are a family of three from India:
Me: 35M, senior strategy & investor-relations professional at an infrastructure investment company
Wife: 35F, entrepreneur running her own small business with an online presence and corporate clients
Daughter: 4 years old
This was our first US visa application. None of us had previously travelled to the US or held a US visa.
We were applying for a family vacation. Our plan was to stay in Philadelphia with my wife’s relative, who is a US citizen, and visit New York and Washington, D.C. for sightseeing.
🌎 Travel history
We have reasonably good international travel history as a family.
In the last five years, using our current passports, we have travelled together to the UAE, Thailand and Malaysia.
I also have an older passport with travel to around 10 countries, including countries in Europe, Singapore, Indonesia, Kenya, Ghana, Bangladesh and the Philippines. The Europe trips were for sightseeing, while Kenya, Ghana, Bangladesh and the Philippines were primarily work-related trips from my previous company.
My wife has also travelled to around 9 countries.
Interestingly, the officer did not ask about our previous travel history and did not ask to see my old passport, so I have no idea whether any of this was considered during the review.
📅 Appointment
We accidentally booked two separate appointments — one with me as the primary applicant and another with my wife as the primary applicant and our daughter as her dependent.
Both appointments happened to be for the same morning slot.
We were initially worried that this might mean we would be interviewed separately. However, when we explained at the embassy that we were a family and asked whether we could interview together, the staff were happy to accommodate us.
We were interviewed together as a family.
The interview was at the US Embassy in New Delhi and lasted around 2–3 minutes.
The officer’s demeanor was very neutral and professional — neither overly friendly nor aggressive. The interaction was calm throughout.
💬 Interview
The interview was essentially a straightforward Q&A.
Officer: What is the purpose of your trip?
Me: It’s a family vacation. We plan to visit Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. for sightseeing.
Officer: What do you do in India?
Me: I explained my current role in strategy and investor relations and briefly described my responsibilities.
Officer: Where do you work?
Me: I gave the name of my employer.
Officer: How much do you earn?
Me: I answered directly with my annual income.
Officer: Do you have any relatives in the US?
Me: Yes. My wife’s relative lives in Philadelphia, and we plan to stay with him during our visit.
Officer: What is his visa status?
Me: He is a US citizen.
Officer: How did he become a US citizen?
Me: I explained how he obtained his US citizenship.
Officer: How old is your daughter?
Me: She is four years old.
At one point, the officer also asked my wife:
Officer: What do you do, ma’am?
Wife: She explained that she runs her own business, is an artist, sells products online and also does corporate gifting.
The officer then continued with my questions.
The interview remained calm throughout. There was no confrontation or anything that felt unusual.
📂 Documents
We had prepared a very comprehensive document folder before the interview.
We had everything organized — educational records, MBA documents, employment certificates, recent payslips, bank statements, ITRs, Form 16s, my wife’s business documents, website printouts, GST certificate and various other supporting documents.
Basically, we prepared for almost every possible document the officer could ask for.
But…
The officer did not ask us to show a single document.
We also didn’t volunteer documents unless asked. The interview remained a straightforward question-and-answer conversation.
⚠️ The 221(g)
At the end of the interview, the officer told my wife and daughter that their visas were approved.
Then he told me that he would be keeping my passport and that the process would take some time.
He handed me a white 221(g) slip.
He did not specifically say the words “administrative processing.”
There was also no request for any additional documents or information from me.
Interestingly, I wasn’t particularly worried at that moment.
I already knew broadly what 221(g) meant and understood that it could involve additional processing. I was actually quite calm and, frankly, relieved that my wife and daughter had been approved.
The fact that they had kept my passport also felt reassuring to me. It was only after I got home that I started reading more about 221(g) experiences.
And that’s when I became curious.
I found plenty of B1/B2 221(g) experiences, but I couldn’t find many similar examples of a family applying together where the wife and child were approved while the main applicant was given 221(g), had his passport retained, and wasn’t asked for any additional documents.
So I thought I’d document my experience here in case it helps someone else in a similar situation.
⏳ What happened next
Since the 221(g) slip did not ask me to submit any additional documents, I didn’t proactively send anything to the consulate.
I simply waited and monitored the status.
The interview was on a Thursday in early October, followed by a public holiday and the weekend.
So the following Monday was effectively the next working day.
Around 11 AM, my wife’s and daughter’s status changed:
Approved → Issued ✅
Then, around 2 PM, my status changed:
📝 My takeaway
The biggest thing I learned is that my 221(g) turned out to be a temporary administrative-processing step, and I wasn’t asked to provide anything further.
At the interview itself, I was actually quite comfortable with the 221(g). The uncertainty came afterwards, when I started searching for similar cases and couldn’t find many that matched our situation.
Obviously, every 221(g) case can be different, so I’m only sharing what happened in my particular case.