Visa Troubles

[davidn]

After sending off a folderful of proof and information to the US Customs and Immigration Service in February, I thought that my application for a fiance visa was pretty much safe. It went through the National Visa Centre within about two days, but now that the process has moved to Britain, things have got much slower. It now looks like I'm going to have to delay travelling to the US, or abandon the current plan, go there without a visa, get married and come back again to organize one.

The problem began when I phoned the US Embassy here and they hadn't even heard of me. Apparently the applications take 10 to 15 days to reach Britain from the time they're sent, having been presumably strapped to the back of an elderly tortoise and pushed in the general direction of the UK. Once that's done, the embassy need to request another rainforestful of information, including a police certificate to prove I'm not a dangerous criminal, and a medical certificate to prove that I am indeed human.

Once that's done, they need to lose/burn/sit on the information for another month or so before finally inviting me to an interview. What happens with the visa after that is unclear, but I'm prepared to believe it'll be another few weeks before anything happens at all.

If you're applying for a visa at any point in the future, just be sure to do it about a year in advance, because the generous-seeming 120-day period estimated on the USCIS site is nowhere near enough time for them to get it sorted.

P.S. Aaaargh! Thank you.

Comments

[raphx.livejournal.com]

Immigration people do seem to enjoy toying with people, asking for information, asking for more information, asking for the first lot of information again, finding at least one thing wrong, just so you can't be fast-tracked through the system. It'll happen eventually though, and maybe by the end of it you'll have only killed two and a half trees.

[davidn]

Which is considerably fewer than the number of immigration officers I'll have killed.

[raphx.livejournal.com]

Given the speed of the whole process, I didn't think there were that many immigration officers available to kill.

[zephyr-pie.livejournal.com]

"The problem began when I phoned the US Embassy here and they hadn't even heard of me."

Well geez, all they have to do is a google search for you.

[stubbleupdate.livejournal.com]

you want them to let him IN to the country, remember?

[jenny0.livejournal.com]

I'm in the middle of my own USCIS issues. US Customs is so on-the-ball when it comes to international visitors coming into the country that it took three people to give our Canadian intern the wrong paperwork even when she specifically requested a particular stamp, form, and number. And since they can't be bothered knowing how to do their job, she now will either have to a)Go to Atlanta to the INS office to get the proper stuff, which will be at least a full day of waiting around, never mind the six-hour trip or b) GO BACK TO CANADA AND START OVER. Because clearly this can't be taken care of easily because she could be a terrorist. Which is why they let her into the country so easy. ARGH.

I also loved the seventeen-page visa application, sixteen pages of which were an explanation of the new paper reduction act.

[gr33bo.livejournal.com]

I realise this is too late for you now but someone here said it's 100 times easier to get married in the other country (i.e. the UK) and have the embassy here do basically all the paperwork, then go over as the spouse rather than fiance of a US citizen.

I had a better experience with the consulate general in Belfast but that was a different visa and they don't do fiance visas.

[davidn]

Our immigration lawyer has put forward as a desperate option the idea of going down and getting married quietly in a registry office, then still having the wedding in August.

Apparently there's another plan that's even more drastic than that, but she won't tell us what it is. It probably involves travelling in a suitcase.