saado

Good luck indeed.

If you are really stuck, my suggestion is to keep email the Embassy and voice your frustrations with ustraveldocs. Eventually they should answer you. If not, see if you locate online the name and email address of the current consular officials at your Embassy and write them directly.

This is the most recent list of key officials:

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/111812.pdf

Thank you for your responses. My problem was that the Embassy required me to direct all my communication to a telephone hotline here in Haiti that was operated by a third party. I assume the third party was the "ustraveldoc" company. The operators all had Filipino accents and no knowledge of the details of the visa process. They had no details at all on my case and were unable to respond to any questions properly. They answered each time by saying, "we will escalate it to a higher authority" and were clearly reading from a script. Essentially, I think they just email your question to the Embassy. Two days later I would get an email response from the hotline that would always fail to answer the question.

My repeated emails to the Consular Section would go unanswered. Each time I called the Embassy, they would refuse to connect me to the Consular Section. It was incredibly frustrating. How can I comply with their request for documents when the request makes no sense and they refuse to speak to me to clarify it?

Anyway, I ended up finally getting a response from the Embassy and have an interview scheduled. The most frustrating part is that all the documents and info they were requesting in fact was not needed. It appears that my emails finally got an actual Consular Officer to look at my case directly and realize that my docs were all there and the visa staff requests to me were inaccurate. It was, to say the least, a terribly disorganized and frustrating experience, particularly since I had so carefully researched everything and prepared all the documents in accordance with the instructions.

My lesson learned is to stop banging my head against the wall with low-level staff that give you inaccurate information and/or have no access to the answers. Go directly above them if you can and be persistant. I should have demanded that they connect me to a Consular Officer from the beginning. It would have cleared everything up in five minutes.

I am in the middle of the immigrant visa process for my wife. It has been a very frustrating process, primarily due to my interaction with the "ustraveldocs" company. Whenever I call the hotline to get clarification on an issue, they are unable to assist me properly. It is obvious that they are reading from a script and that they personally have no detailed knowledge of the visa process itself, let alone knowledge of or even access my particular file. With every question they put me on hold, run off to check the answer, then answer back a general response with publicly available information that does not answer my question properly. Finally, they say they are not sure and end the call by saying, "I will escalate this to a higher authority and get back to you in 48 hours." This is essentially code for, "I'll write to the Embassy, who will answer me back and I will forward that response to you." When I call the Embassy, they refuse to connect me to anyone in the Consular section, say they do not take calls from applicants, and tell me to call the hotline (even though I tell them I've already done that).

As you can imagine, this is a frustrating process. Does anyone have a similar experience? Does anyone have any information on this "usatraveldocs"/hotline company? Is it the same company worldwide that runs the hotlines? The staff I speak to always have Filipino accents, though I am very far from the Philippines. It sounds crazy to me that the U.S. would outsource the entire visa application process and not allow an American citizen to speak to a Consular officer regarding the case.

Thanks for any details and advice you have.

My wife and I have worked around the world as United Nations staff members. I understand that the immigrant visa application requires police certificates from each country where the applicant has lived for more than 12 months. In our case, this is a number of countries where it is difficult to obtain a police certificate. I have read the State Department's instructions for obtaining a police certificate in each individual country.

My question is whether my wife can be exempt from providing these police certificates given our status as United Nations employees with the privileges of immunity/extraterritoriality (i.e. exempt from local judicial process, police interference, etc.)? Does anyone have experience with this? If so, does anyone have a sample letter or language that could be used to explain this principle and that would be accepted by the consular officer?

Thanks.