zaeemshoaib

@podeena Really sorry to hear about your issue. I have a close friend who faced the exact same issue as yours, though he had applied for a fiance visa. He had the interview in March 2020, and his passport was not returned, and after waiting for almost 2 years, his fiance had to file a mandamus suit, and he finally got his visa and passport back in October 2022. I really do pray and hope you get a positive response much sooner and hopefully before the medical expires. Just wanted to give you that context so you are prepared to reach out to a lawyer to file a mandamus if god forbid it is needed. This is why I was urging everyone who has the means to transfer their cases because anything can happen with the Islamabad embassy.

Took 2 weeks to get the UAE residence permit, 3 days to change the embassy and got the interview letter in 25 days after that. The interview took place about 30 days after I received the interview letter. I would like to disagree here. Yes, record keeping in Pakistan is bad but that does not mean all the people applying have faulty records. The vast majority of people applying for immigration are educated professionals and have their records in order. As for giving the interview in English, your command over the language really has no bearing on whether you're eligible to immigrate or not. If you're not confident in speaking English, then yes, it makes sense to get a translator. But I'm not a native speaker or have any degrees in English and gave the interview in English and had no issues. Multiple people, even those not on the same speaking level as me, gave the interview in English and were approved easily. It is not productive to hold native speakers on a pedestal either. I know "native speakers" who are far below and also far above my speaking level as well. Everyone's speaking abilities are different and they are not dependent on the education system. Immigration being a matter of security does not mean that the embassy has to give aspiring immigrants a hard time or look for reasons to deny, that literally goes against the entire concept of immigration and US immigration law. Yes, the onus is on the applicant to provide all their documents but then it is the embassy's responsibility to do background checks etc. to ensure that security rather than trying to trip up people in interviews with trick questions. No other embassy except Islamabad operates this way. Some more productive advice would be: Try to not get nervous, the counselors are people just like you. Be confident during the interview, have your answers prepared beforehand no matter what language you're giving the interview in. Look up what questions are asked in immigration interviews and practice your answers with someone. Keep your answers in line with your main mandatory documents and any additional documents you are providing.

There must be a directive given to them to do this stuff because I have now seen how the Abu Dhabi embassy operates and went through the process there and it is leagues ahead in efficiency. I don't believe any other embassies around the world are this bad either. I'm just glad I avoided all this mess and am through it. I incurred a lot of costs for getting residence, shifting my case and living in the UAE for a month or so but now it all seems worth it.

The US embassy in Islamabad is just a joke at this point. These horror stories of them not even returning passports after approval are way too common. I'm so glad I transferred my case to the UAE (Yes, you need to have legal residency in the UAE to do that). After the transfer, which took 3-4 days, I got my interview within one month (Feb 2022 DQ) and got my passport back from the Abu Dhabi Embassy within 3 days with my visa.

Legal residency or citizenship are still major requirements to transfer your case to another embassy. I don't think anything has changed here.

I'm sorry to be so negative but there is no way to get their attention or contact them to get anything other than a generalized templated email. Senators only respond to help requests in humanitarian cases, filling out those forms will not do anything. There is no way to send any letters to the ambassador. Petitions are not going to do anything either. They are not even responding to genuine expedite requests. There is no way to protest and let's face it, when has a protest in Pakistan ever accomplished anything? If they wanted to fix things after COVID, they would have by now, like embassies in other countries. Unless you can somehow get the US President himself to take note of the situation and call them up, nothing is going to happen. If you've been waiting for more than a year after getting documentarily qualified, then file a mandamus lawsuit against them. That is literally the only way to get their attention and get a response. If I do not get a response by February, I am filing a lawsuit and I highly suggest anyone in the same situation to do the same.

Once it reaches a year for us without update, we will

That's a very common misconception, that there is a "risk," usually thrown around on forums instead of people consulting an actual lawyer. Most lawyers do consultations for free even. The Mandamus has no bearing on your case being rejected. The USCIS/the embassy has to prove there is no unreasonable delay, especially if the case on hold for a year or more. The burden of proof is more on them.

Where did you get that information that it will be declined? The primary purpose of the Mandamus is to show an unreasonable delay and a 2 -year total wait away from your spouse obviously counts as unreasonable. The burden is on the embassy to show that it is not unreasonable, which they obviously can't.

They were stuck on February for almost 5 months. That should give you an idea of how slow it's going. Our DQ date isn't much further than yours but I am not OK with waiting and sort of surprised that you're OK with waiting for another year after being in the process already for a year I'm assuming, but to each their own I guess. Glad that you're managing it well. Being apart from my wife for months at a time is like torture to me.

A bit incorrect of me to say they are working on the Afghanistan cases first. They are working on cases by date but obviously an entire country's cases just coming in to one embassy has increased the backlog that was there due to COVID by 10x even if they are going by date. Why do you think the embassy is still processing cases that were documentarily qualified in March 2021 for interview in September 2022? There's still more than a year of waiting ahead of us at this pace.

SIVs are special immigrant visas and DVs are diversity visas. They are basically working on all the cases that came in from Afghanistan first. They said they are increasing staff and trying to cover the backlog but they have been saying that since the start of 2021 too. The fact remains that just sitting and waiting is not going to do anything. Is the wait worth the years of your life you're going to be away from your spouse? For me, it's not.

In a recent Facebook Q&A, the Islamabad Embassy confirmed that SIV and DV are going to stay the priority over IR/CR visas. This confirms basically what I have been saying: The only way to speed things up and actually put pressure on the embassy is to take action by filing the Mandamus. The more people that file, especially the ones who are waiting for a year after DQ , the better it will be for others in the pipeline. If we just sit on our hands, keep waiting and accept that the embassy is slow, nothing is ever going to happen and we will be stuck waiting for god knows how many years to be with our spouses.

I have explored those routes as well and they will take a lot of time as well and the cost would be on par, if not higher than filing a Mandamus case. Those routes are only viable for people in categories of visas other than IR-1/CR-1. Some other visa categories have a much longer wait time of 5 years or more A mandamus is the only good option as the USCIS/NVC is required to submit a response within 60 days of filing.

I basically posted the same thing on the Facebook group discussing the delays. Contacting Senators and any local ministries in Pakistan is useless for our cases. From my research and from consultation with 3 lawyers, filing a Mandamus lawsuit seems the only way forward is for people who have been waiting for an interview for more than a year after being Documentarily qualified. It's not only for Administrative processing cases and can be filed at any stage in the process where there has been an "unreasonable delay," which is what most, if not all of us, are facing right now. According to lawyers, a year or more in one stage without any movement is considered an unreasonable delay. Different lawyers have different interpretations of an unreasonable delay but one year is generally considered the minimum. I think it is best if everyone consults with an immigration lawyer if a Mandamus is the best course of action for their particular case or not. Most lawyers offer consultations for free. We had a consultation with Goldstein Immigration Lawyers in Los Angeles. As you can imagine, there will be urgency by the embassy if a lot of people file the Mandamus at once. And no, a group cannot file a Mandamus case. I've asked and other people have asked too. I also understand that not everyone might be in a position to file the Mandamus as it costs anywhere from $4k-$6k, including the lawyer and filling fees. But the more people file, the better is the chance for people waiting in the pipeline to get their interview sooner as the embassy will be pressured by the state department to process the Mandamus cases. If we just keep sitting an waiting, the Embassy literally has no impetus or reason to move faster and we will end up waiting even more than we already have away from our significant others.