sara_auc

Many of you know that my fiance had to send back his signed DS156-K to the embassy and they were supposed to issue his visa "forthwith".

His DS-156K has been back at the embassy since Monday, 4/26. Yesterday I wrote the embassy to see if they had issued the visa yet. I have several e-mails from them saying they would process it as SOON as the DS-156k application was received.

For example:
--- "Consular, Cairo X"
wrote:
> Dear Madam,
>
> As soon as we receive Mr. Hamdy's application, we
> will process his visa
> case.
>
> Regards,
>
> Consular Staff


Today, May 4th, I get this response from the embassy:

Dear Madam,

The Consular Officer has yet to review the DS-156K form that Mr. Hamdi
mailed, but once he does, he will either issue his visa or contact him
for
additional requirements.

Regards,

Consular Staff

He had his interview April 13th, and they said at that time he would receive the visa in a week. Now it is already May 4th and nothing has even been looked at yet. One thing you can say about Cairo is that they are consistently unreliable.

Good luck.

Rete

Well I do hope that you e-mailed them in return and gave them the shipping information, i.e. carrier, date sent, date received, signature of person receiving it, so that they can check their mailroom for Mr. Hamdy's DS-156K.

Rete

sara_auc

Rete, they have the DS-156k. The Consular just hasn't looked at it yet.

Mrtravelkay

sara_auc wrote:

    > Originally posted by Rete
    >
    >>Well I do hope that you e-
    >
    > mailed them in return and gave them the shipping information, i.e.
    > carrier, date sent, date received, signature of person receiving it, so
    > that they can check their mailroom for Mr. Hamdy's DS-156K.
    >
    >>Rete
    >
    >
    >
    > Rete, they have the DS-156k. The Consular just hasn't looked
    > at it yet.

Why didn't they have it at the interview?

sara_auc

All the papers were complete at the interview. The Consular Officer just forgot to have my fiance sign the DS-156K in front of her, so they had to send it back to him to sign. He sent it back over a week ago, but they have not issued visa yet, not even looked at it.

egipto26

hi sara_auc,
my husband and i also applied for his visa through the cairo consulate (an immigrant visa). he is already in the usa. i know what you mean about the cairo consulate. we also mailed them something before our interview then when we were there for the interview they said they never got my husband's documents. We insisted that we did mail them and showed them our TNT receipt and they searched some more and then they found it that same day.

anyway, just keep writing to find out what is going on. when my husband had his interview they told him they will mail him the visa in a week OR it may take longer due to a security check/administrative processing in Wash., DC. It turns out he had to wait for a security check for a few months.
anyway good luck with everything and i'm sure it is frustrating now but hopefully you will get good news soon.

sara_auc

Thank you for your message. I don't know anything about security check because they never told him that he needed it. And that seems like it is more for the K-3 immigrant visa than the K-1 non-immigrant visa, though I could be wrong. The embassy just said he did a good job in his interview and he would have the visa in one week and then they sent him the DS-156K to sign because they forgot to have him sign it at the interview. They told me by e-mail that everything was complete, and they would issue the visa forthwith as soon as that form was received. Perhaps they are lying or perhaps they are just unbelievably busy. They haven't said anything about administrative review. The process has already been nine months for us, and not because of any paper work we did wrong or because of any suspicions they had. My fiance passed the interview with flying colors. We knew each other for almost a year before we even applied. Basically, it has taken nine months because of two mistakes the embassy has made and the fact that my fiance lives very far away from the embassy. Mailing things back and forth took up a lot of time. If there are any more delays, I will buy a plane ticket to go visit him since it has been seven months since we have seen each other!

Nonayourbeeswax

Hello Sara_auc,

I've had some experience with the Cairo Consulate. Usually they do send the
visa quickly (by TNT). Did you fill out and pay for the TNT courier before
you left?

They doesn't handle unusual circumstances very well, this maybe the case
with your fiancée having to send in his DS156K instead of signing it while
he was there.

Also I've noticed that there responses to e-mail tend to be the "canned"
variety, and you have to e-mail several times to get an actual response with
some substance.

Are you able to go to the Embassy in person and talk to one of the consular?
This helped me, though I did have to be insistent on talking to one.

Good luck!
"sara_auc" <member23410@british_expats.com> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Originally posted by egipto26
    > > hi sara_auc,
    > > my husband
    > and i also applied for his visa through the cairo consulate (an
    > immigrant visa). he is already in the usa. i know what you mean about
    > the cairo consulate. we also mailed them something before our interview
    > then when we were there for the interview they said they never got my
    > husband's documents. We insisted that we did mail them and showed them
    > our TNT receipt and they searched some more and then they found it that
    > same day.
    > >
    > > anyway, just keep writing to find out
    > what is going on. when my husband had his interview they told him they
    > will mail him the visa in a week OR it may take longer due to a security
    > check/administrative processing in Wash., DC. It turns out he had to
    > wait for a security check for a few months.
    > > anyway good luck with
    > everything and i'm sure it is frustrating now but hopefully you will get
    > good news soon.
    > Thank you for your message. I don't know
    > anything about security check because they never told him that he needed
    > it. And that seems like it is more for the K-3 immigrant visa than the
    > K-1 non-immigrant visa, though I could be wrong. The embassy just said
    > he did a good job in his interview and he would have the visa in one
    > week and then they sent him the DS-156K to sign because they forgot to
    > have him sign it at the interview. They told me by e-mail that
    > everything was complete, and they would issue the visa forthwith as soon
    > as that form was received. Perhaps they are lying or perhaps they are
    > just unbelievably busy. They haven't said anything about administrative
    > review. The process has already been nine months for us, and not because
    > of any paper work we did wrong or because of any suspicions they had. My
    > fiance passed the interview with flying colors. We knew each other for
    > almost a year before we even applied. Basically, it has taken nine
    > months because of two mistakes the embassy has made and the fact that my
    > fiance lives very far away from the embassy. Mailing things back and
    > forth took up a lot of time. If there are any more delays, I will buy a
    > plane ticket to go visit him since it has been seven months since we
    > have seen each other!
    > --
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Hebapotamus42

Nonayourbeeswax,

You mean they actually let you into the consulate to ask a question and you were able to speak to an actual consular officer? What section of the consulate was this, the American citizen services section or another area? I'm going to be in Cairo in a couple of days so maybe it'll be worth a shot for me to stop by.