Stoopid @#$!$#%@% US Embassy!

[..]

OK, a little rant just to get it off my chest. Gawd, I hate US Embassies. I have never, ever, had a pleasent or even less than totally frustrating experience in 16 years of dealing with them!

 

The story is that since my company has chosen to stop doing biz in Asia, I am more-or-less unemployed. Covering all bases, I decided to make sure the kids would be able to go back to the States if I accepted an offer there (one is in the cards). For that, I needed to go submit immigrant visa applications for my two step-daughters. They are really nieces -- long story, but they are step-daughters in the eyes of the embassy (I was told this by the INS or whatever they now call themselves office), and this is not at all essential to this tale. Anyway, I had already been sent packet 3s for both of them. BTW, where/what were packets 1 & 2 -- no one has ever told me this And I missing something? Who knows? Communication seems to not be a strong suit.

 

Anyway, filling out the paperwork, the letter clearly says "FIRST: complete & return immediately the enclosed form (entitled Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration)[/i]...This office cannot process your case until this form is received. SECOND: Obtain the following documents on this checklist...Do NOT (bolding is on the document) send them to this office" Ok, that's clear enough. Then the list of docs follows. Standard stuff. No problem. But then at the end of the list, in all caps is "ONLY ONE COPY OF EACH DOCUMENT, EXCEPT PHOTOGRAPHS, MUST BE SUBMITTED WITH THE VISA APPLICATION. OK, WTF? You just told me NOT to submit these docs in the previous paragraph. Calls to the embassy yield only more confusion. OK, I'll take them with me to be safe (but I do not yet have them all ). Minor inconvenience, but I expect better, especially since these letters are mostly being sent to non-native English speakers. Am I being unreasonable?

 

Hmmmm. There is a space where the kids have to sign in front of a consular officer. Even tho' they are 10 & 12 years old and their signature is not valid for any binding contract in the US. This means that I have to pull them out of school for the morning anyway. Not thrilled about that either. No sympathy from the Embassy staff upon calling and questioning. That's the policy, they said. I wonder what happens if the kid is too young to write? Put an "X" on the line like the olden days when most folks were illiterate? More stupidity in action!

 

I pop over to the US Embassy web site and go on to the Immigrant Visa page to check counter opening times. Well, to make this short, the hours were listed as: "The unit's hours of operation are from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday - Friday. We are open for information inquiries every day from 1:00-3:00 p.m." OK, cool. We will go at 0700 and the kids will only miss an hour or two of school. And I should be able to keep an afternoon appointment with a customer. We arrive at 0710 and go inside. The guard, friendly & speaking excellent English asks what we want. I say that I am dropping off immigrant visa applications for the two kids. OK, no problem, go on (but leave your phone with the guard to cause maximum inconvenience under the guise of security ). No instructions given. We go in and see signs pointing to three queues: Immigrant Visas, Non-Immigrant Visas and American Citizen Services. We get into the immigrant visa queue. Two hours later (I timed it!), I see a small sign at the front of the line saying "Non-Immigrant Visas" and another at the window saying "Document Checking for All non-Immigrant Visas." WTF???? Well, we committed two hours to this, lets ride it out. The old Thai dragon lady does not even know what these documents are! Sure enough, wrong queue. "Come back at 1:00PM," I was told. "Where do I go?" "Inside" "Where inside?" "Mai roo." ARRRGGGGGHHH!

 

So I wander inside to check it out. A zoo. Nobody to ask any questions. I finally see a sign (in English & Khmer, of all things) saying that they only accept applications from 1300-1500. ARRRRGGGGHHHH! Why was this not communicated to us in the letter or during one of the phone calls or by the guard upon arrival? I am sure that they deal with this on a daily basis. Stooopid fucks! Now I am going to miss my appointment and the kids are going to miss a whole day of school. Un-fuckin'-believeable! You'd think that you would get better service from the self-proclaimed world leader and for the amount of money spent on these visas (US$420+ for each kid). Is it unreasonable to expect correct signage or employees to guide one through the process? I do not think so.

 

You can bet that I will bend Ambassador Johnston's ear for a few minutes when I next see him at the Pacific City Club. Not that anything will change, but it'll make me feel better. And maybe he'll buy me a drink or sumptin'...LOL

 

Now let's see what unpleasent surprises are in store when we return at 1300 today. Geeezzzz.

 

Cheers,

SD

[pattaya127]

I can see the cries of racism if that heppened the other way around, in a thai embassy!!!!!

[..]

LOL, yer prolly right.

 

Anyway, the saga continues:

 

On the way out, #3 daughter askes the guard/phone-giving-back lady what was the scoop. She said come back at 1300 and go to window 13. I knew this was wrong, but we thanked her and left. At least she tried.

 

So we come back at 1250 and get inside. For those that have not been there and as I recced before, there are about a dozen windows. 13 is marked cashier (which is why I knew the lady earlier was wrong) and we had already paid. but numbers 4 & 5 were marked Immigrant Visas in English & Thai. Number 5 was shuttered, but #4 was open with about 10 folks in line. Windows 6-12 were unmarked save the number and the blinds drawn on all but #10, which had about 25 people in line.

 

Given the above information, we logically chose #4. Using gummint logic, naturally it was the wrong choice. The lady at the window looked at me like I was an idiot (seriously) and said that "this window was for Cambodians only! Were you not listening when I announced it???" Yup, a verbatim quote; to which I responded, "no you must have announced that before we came inside. Why is the window not marked as such?" She ignored that, but made another announcement (in Thai, but not Khmer ) stating that #4 was only for Cambodians seeking immigrant visas. That is a large number of people I am sure. She said go to window 10, who's queue had grown to about 80 people. *$^&*%@#&!!!

 

I was right about the large numbers of Cambodians. After we were shooed away, there were a total of three more people that went to that window. Of course, she did not take anyone out of the overflowing #10 line. Fine use of resources!

 

We get about 3/4 of the way to the front of the #10 queue and I notice that #5 (one of the Immigrant Visa windows, remember?) is open and a few people are queued there. I was willing to bet the farm that we will be told wrong window again and be sent there. But not sure enough to get out of line and just go there (I am getting the hang of this bastard logic they use ). So after a bit over an hour in total waiting, we get to #10 window. A pretty and pleasant lady was there. She briefly looked at our stuff, gave us a handwritten number, 16, and told us to go to #5. The first staff who was courteous and pleasant. But why oh why were we not able to go to window #5 straight away? The mind boggles.

 

Now since we were waiting in a queue, I was wondering just what purpose the number had. Well, they actually used it in that some old lady, who was there before us but had #19 (we had 16) was sent back to her right place in line. No idea where she came from, and I would have let her stay in front of us cuz she was cute in that little-old-lady/gramma way. But not up to me...

 

OK, after about 30 minutes we get up front. The queen of the Thai dragon ladies is there. Boy, is she rude & obnoxious. Only Thai, no English, even though I was having trouble following some of what she said through the bulletproof glass. And she sure would not listen to anything. She entered the wrong surname into the computer while I tried to tell her what she was doing wrong. How/why? [color:"666666"]Allow me to digress for a moment...the nieces have taken my wife's maiden name as she adopted them when their parents died (I couldn't be on the adoption record for some reason). Thai passports use a stamp and a handwritten note to signify a name change. Well the offical mis-transliterated the family name and we had to get it redone. I knew that if the romanization was not true to the "offical" spelling of wife's maiden name that there would be unnecessary headaches.[/color] So dragon lady would not flip the page to the second name change and entered it wrong. This is of course after studying it for (seriously) about 5 minutes trying to figure out why the names did not match. Only then did she look for a name change.

 

Then the kicker. My handwriting is crap, so I like to do everything on the computer if possible. And the US Embassy in Seoul graciously has the DS-230 forms on their website as a fill-in-able PDF file. Great. Looks nice, is legible. Marked as offical, no problem. Who cares if the form also has Korean script on it along with the English. We are reading the English and anyway it's an offical form approved by the State Department.

 

Oh dragon lady did not like that one bit and sent me outside (once again not speaking direct to me but to a 10 & 12 year old child) to redo the form by hand. Childishly, I made sure that the form was as messy as possible while still being barely legible. But it made me feel better . Besides, I was so hot under the collar that I was shaking when I wrote, so it was not a struggle to make a mess .

 

We did get to jump the queue and hand in those forms. #3 daughter, who is pretty damn sharp, used a paper clip to force the passport to open to the second name change page AND handed the passports to dragon lady open to that page. She finally got it and corrected the names. We got interview appointments scheduled for Aug 16. Not too bad -- 12 weeks. better than those poor bastards who apply in the States for their wives living overseas -- I hear that now 720 days is a common length of time for them to wait!

 

What an ordeal! And it is still not over <sigh>. I bet that I could rewrite "Alice's Restaraunt" song to just about cover this day...

 

Cheers,

SD

 

PS -- It was not a total waste of time; I was in line with a 3 star RTAF general. He was in uniform, but he had to wait like cattle like the rest of us. I teased him about that LOL! Great guy: funny and enjoyed teasing the kids. Got his namecard and an invite to meet him for drinkies later this week. He is going to Vegas, so I mentioned that my wife was there now managing a casino (a bit of a stretch, but mostly true) and could show him around, get him tix to shows, etc. He liked that and so did she when I told her. We both feel that it's always good to have another friend in high places !

[Guest]

suadum:

 

 

I can sympathze with you, I got the "run around" last sept. dealing with the thai staff is really frustrating, most of it was at the bcis office across the street from the embassy in the Sindhorn Building .

 

I think you will end up there also.

 

 

I sincerly hope you dont have to deal with the thai person at the bcis office. ( I would not dignify her by using the term lady).

 

She looked over our papers and found several things that needed to be corrected, but told us a different item each visit instead of telling what needed to be done the first visit, had to extend my stay an additional 19 days because of this, ( and a few U. S. holidays they were not open also)

 

after it all, had to come back to the USA and got a letter if denial of visa after 5 weeks.

 

 

 

From this experience and also talking with many thai friends ( some in gov work) they say the thai staff takes delight in "flexing" their power, and making it no fun at all.

 

somehow, I think if "Tea money" was offered the process would go much faster. ( just my opinion though).

[Grabii]

suadum,

 

suadum said:

OK, a little rant just to get it off my chest. Gawd, I hate US Embassies. I have never, ever, had a pleasent or even less than totally frustrating experience in 16 years of dealing with them!

 

The story is that since my company has chosen to stop doing biz in Asia, I am more-or-less unemployed. Covering all bases, I decided to make sure the kids would be able to go back to the States if I accepted an offer there (one is in the cards). For that, I needed to go submit immigrant visa applications for my two step-daughters. They are really nieces -- long story, but they are step-daughters in the eyes of the embassy (I was told this by the INS or whatever they now call themselves office), and this is not at all essential to this tale. Anyway, I had already been sent packet 3s for both of them. BTW, where/what were packets 1 & 2 -- no one has ever told me this And I missing something? Who knows? Communication seems to not be a strong suit.

 

The packet system is long gone, but vestiges of it remain in the language. The closest thing to what was Packet #1 is now commonly called NOA #1 - the Receipt Notice for a petition to the USCIS. The closest thing to what was Packet #2 is now commonly called NOA #2 - the Approval Notice for the petition.

 

What is called Packet #3 and Packet #4 today more closely resemble the Packets #3 and #4 of old - except that the consular section in Bangkok combines everything into the one K visa application package.

 

Grabii

[bibblies]

Ah, you see now why we British had to do that empire stuff. We got halfway around, made everywhere more or less the same country, got tired, so had a nap and when we woke up found you telling us it was a bad idea. Only now do you see... haha hahahaaa hahahaaaaa! [evil laugh continuing into the distance..]

[..]

"most of it was at the bcis office across the street from the embassy in the Sindhorn Building."

 

Been, there, done that. She was not too evil IMHO, and actually helped us out a bit (after having to return twice, of course). But not very pleasant -- I bet that a piece of coal shoved in a certain orfice would produce a diamond .

 

Cheers,

SD

[Guest]

The mere thought that some shriveled Thai cunt in the US embassy would have even 1 nanosecond of this sort of power over our lives was so totally unacceptable that my wife and I basically rearranged our whole lives so we could legally do her immigration to the US from within the US, bypassing the embassy in Bangkok entirely.

 

Although my experiences there dealing with my own stuff (not related to visas) have been positive, I can totally understand your sense of frustration. The disorder in that room where visas are handled is overwhelming, and your expectation of being treated, well, like an American on American soil being so totally shattered only amplifies it.

[ThaiHome]

"so we could legally do her immigration to the US from within the US, bypassing the embassy in Bangkok entirely. "

 

 

How did you do that? The Embassy still does the interview and visa if you file in the US. Only way I can think of is if you got your wife into the US on Non-Immigrant visa and filed for a change of status once there. Not a bad thing if you got away with it.

I certainly agree that can be difficult when you are forced to deal with some of the Thai nationals. It is too bad the Consulate staff won't rein them. I guess it is just easier for them to give the Thais that kind of power.

 

Still, as Suadum pointed out, he probably saved over year or more by being able to file with BCIS in Bangkok. He would have had to do the Consulate anyway.

TH

[Grabii]

Kh,

 

KhMarried said:

.. my wife and I basically rearranged our whole lives so we could legally do her immigration to the US from within the US, bypassing the embassy in Bangkok entirely.

 

As ThaiHome asked - how did you avoid the embassy in Bangkok entirely? In order for your wife to get into the US legally she had to get a visa of some kind (unless you were in the military and there's another route available to her that way?). Did she get a visa through a consulate in some other country?

 

KhMarried said:

Although my experiences there dealing with my own stuff (not related to visas) have been positive, I can totally understand your sense of frustration. The disorder in that room where visas are handled is overwhelming, and your expectation of being treated, well, like an American on American soil being so totally shattered only amplifies it.

 

Agreed, the Citizen Services section is a much more pleasant experience than the visa section, perhaps in large part because it doesn't get so crowded. And the visa room is a complete zoo, no arguement there. But, not that it excuses the atmosphere, note that the visa section does not serve Americans...

 

Grabii