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| Manila, Philippines |  Review on June 8, 2010: |
Weatherman
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
The lady CO was pleasant. That is the best that can be said. And she did admit her mistake in the end and fixed it, so I suppose that is worth mentioning.
Unfortunately, she was also incompetent, and therefore caused us quite a bit of stress, consternation, and money. During my spouse's St Lukes Medical interview, she admitted to something that would prevent her from being admitted to the US IF SHE WAS AN ADULT when it occurred. She was not. She was a minor, and it occurred over 10 years ago, incidentally. The CO incorrectly denied our petition for a visa based upon this incident.
I was still overseas in a third country when i got the news of the denial and spent like a week of not sleeping well and doing some legal research that included consulting with an Immigration attorney via the phone and email. She recommended we file a waiver which would have taken a very long time, cost a lot of money, and opened up all kinds of more bureaucratic crapola.
Instead, I flew to Manila and took my wife to the Embassy and basically talked our way past several levels of security and frontline staff to finally sit in front of the same CO. Having a US Passport helps and perhaps as well as the ID that I carry, I guess they are supposed to treat US citizens with a certain amount of respect. For instance, i got to check our cell phones with Embassy security rather than leave them at a hotel or at home or something. Anyway, I showed the CO the copies I had made of rules of approval/disapproval from their own manual and she actually said "well, you certainly seem to have done your homework" Duh!! Its not like its our life or anything. She looked in her desk copy of the manual, realized she had made a mistake and went to get her supervisor's approval to correct her error and issue a visa, and he was busy or on break or some darn thing and we actually left the Embassy without knowing if we were actually finally approved. We got a call while on the MRT that we were. Thank goodness for the internet which is where i looked up the manual.
After that, it took the normal 2-3 weeks of processing to get our Visas which i went back to the Embassy to pick up instead of having them sent. We were rushed because I didn't want to leave without her, and i had somewhere to be and i was already late. We then had two days to get her exit processing done and get her stamp for departure from the Philippines overseas office or whatever its called.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #6179