Blog launch: visa nightmares
Sun 01 Apr 2007
Well, I have finally got round to writing this
website so I feel I should explain here how we got to
Dallas, the city where Melissa grew up. In 2004 we
considered moving to the US so we applied to the US
Embassy in London for an Immigrant Visa for me based
on Melissa's US citizenship. We thought it would be
easy - how naive we were!
We submitted the initial forms and as my application progressed, I started applying for jobs in the US. I got to the stage of having a phone interview for a job working for the state government of Florida (ultimately for Jeb Bush!) in Tallahassee when we started to have second thoughts, at least on the timing of the move. We then let the visa application lie dormant for nearly two years and re-activated it in August 2006. I had my medical in December 2006, where the US government insist on you being pumped full of childhood vaccines. If any of you think my behaviour was unusual at New Year I blame it on the MMR. We then attended the interview at the US Embassy in London in January 2007, expecting to get a grilling from the embassy officials á la Depardieu/MacDowell in Green Card. As it was, we got a perfunctory interview and were sent on our merry way with my chest X-Ray (to show absence of TB on arrival) and the promise of the visa by courier within 2-3 days. Hooray, we thought.
The visa duly arrived in a little A5 size packet and we bade fond farewell to family in the UK and packed our bags (well, a bit more than bags actually) and flew to Dallas/Fort Worth on 17 March. The Customs and Border Control official looked at my visa and asked for the accompanying packet of documentation. "What packet?", we asked. And so our nightmare began.
After being held for four hours by Immigration at DFW (with Mia, aged 5 months) it became clear that the US Embassy should also have given me a packet containing my original documents together with any background checks the Embassy had undertaken. This was supposed to be presented to Immigration on arrival to allow them to carry out the same checks the Embassy have done - madness! The Embassy had neither given us that packet nor notified us either verbally or in writing that such a packet was required. A retrospective review of the guidance on the US Embassy website reveals that the only clue is that immigrants are advised to present documents (plural) on arrival in the US!
We have now retained an immigration attorney here in the US who has advised us that the Embassy does not retain copies of visa applicants' applications (huh?!) and that I have to return to the UK to be re-interviewed by the US Embassy. Needless to say in the meantime I cannot work and we are burning through more of our Emigration Cashpile than anticipated! With the second interview likely to be scheduled for late May/early June at least there is light at the end of the tunnel.
We submitted the initial forms and as my application progressed, I started applying for jobs in the US. I got to the stage of having a phone interview for a job working for the state government of Florida (ultimately for Jeb Bush!) in Tallahassee when we started to have second thoughts, at least on the timing of the move. We then let the visa application lie dormant for nearly two years and re-activated it in August 2006. I had my medical in December 2006, where the US government insist on you being pumped full of childhood vaccines. If any of you think my behaviour was unusual at New Year I blame it on the MMR. We then attended the interview at the US Embassy in London in January 2007, expecting to get a grilling from the embassy officials á la Depardieu/MacDowell in Green Card. As it was, we got a perfunctory interview and were sent on our merry way with my chest X-Ray (to show absence of TB on arrival) and the promise of the visa by courier within 2-3 days. Hooray, we thought.
The visa duly arrived in a little A5 size packet and we bade fond farewell to family in the UK and packed our bags (well, a bit more than bags actually) and flew to Dallas/Fort Worth on 17 March. The Customs and Border Control official looked at my visa and asked for the accompanying packet of documentation. "What packet?", we asked. And so our nightmare began.
After being held for four hours by Immigration at DFW (with Mia, aged 5 months) it became clear that the US Embassy should also have given me a packet containing my original documents together with any background checks the Embassy had undertaken. This was supposed to be presented to Immigration on arrival to allow them to carry out the same checks the Embassy have done - madness! The Embassy had neither given us that packet nor notified us either verbally or in writing that such a packet was required. A retrospective review of the guidance on the US Embassy website reveals that the only clue is that immigrants are advised to present documents (plural) on arrival in the US!
We have now retained an immigration attorney here in the US who has advised us that the Embassy does not retain copies of visa applicants' applications (huh?!) and that I have to return to the UK to be re-interviewed by the US Embassy. Needless to say in the meantime I cannot work and we are burning through more of our Emigration Cashpile than anticipated! With the second interview likely to be scheduled for late May/early June at least there is light at the end of the tunnel.