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| Ghana |  Review on March 23, 2011: |
J J Moose
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
We dealt with this consulate for 5 years before getting a visa (although only 1 1/2 years for the K-1 specifically). If you are working with this consulate, check and double check everything; do NOT assume that they know what they're doing or will perform their work responsibly.
Also, please be aware that it is nearly impossible to talk to a human being in the visa section of this consulate. They don't answer their phone, and they frequently don't respond to emails. Our senator's office in Washington D.C. wrote an email to this consulate to ask a question, and the consulate did not respond. On the rare occasion that they did respond to the email, often the email simply rehashed what we had already stated and did not answer our question.
In short, my advice to anyone dealing with this consulate: get a lawyer, if you can afford it. I can't say that I loved the experience of having a lawyer (or paying for it), but in the end, I believe it was necessary because this process did not go as it should have. She ended up enlisting help from our Senator's office several times, and she even had to go to the Department of State with some issues.
Also, bring a lot of extra money to the interview with you. See highlights below.
Some highlights of our K-1 experience:
- They gave us an interview date more than 6 months after we received our NOA2. The NOA2 actually expired before we even got to the interview.
- The forms they sent home with us to fill out had been expired for 6 years.
- Other information in the packet they sent home with us was outdated and erroneous. The fees stated on the sheet were incorrect, and they asked for 2 passport photos, when really they required three. (We went outside to take new passport photos and came back).
- They scheduled my fiance's appointment on a national holiday, when the consulate was closed. We ended up returning several times because no one seemed sure when his date was actually rescheduled.
- The cashier inside the consulate tried to get more money from us than the Consular Officer told us we had to pay. Lucky for us, the Consular Officer walked in while we were protesting, and the cashier then stopped talking and took the correct amount of money from us.
- After the interview they sent us home with documents from his file, some of which we were not allowed to have.
- They misspelled my name on the K-1 visa.
- They neglected to give us a copy of the DS-3025 and actually directly told the medical clinic to not give us a copy of the form either, even though the instructions on the form clearly state that the applicant should receive a copy.
In short, it was a horrible experience, and our lawyer was actually shocked by how difficult they were. We got the visa in the end, however, and are happy that process is behind us. I wish anyone going to this consulate the best of luck.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #7307