Update On Visa Application

I know that it must appear that this site has been abandoned, but that truly is not the case. There just hasn't been much to report on.

As you will recall from my last post, at the end of December I mailed in the $380 fee for visa form DS-230, which I believe is the last form before the visa interview in Manila. Actually, I sent the bill to my dad in the US, who already had the money order ready and waiting, since it has to be drawn on a US bank.

Unfortunately, the post office here was closed for the entire first week of January. Then there is the standard delivery time for overseas mail. I finally got an email from my dad on January 16th saying that he had received the mail and would be sending everything out the following day.

Then last week, on the 25th, we got a letter in the mail from the National Visa Center in New Hampshire (although it was post marked in Manila). I was so excited because I thought that it was the forms, and was even amazed at how quickly they arrived. To my surprise, it was a letter to inform us that the $380 fee had not arrived. The letter was post marked January 19th, so it was obviously sent about the same time the fee was received by them, so it was just in passing, although I did call just to confirm that they had received it. Kind of funny really. I could have taken my sweet time mailing in that fee - there is no time constraint, yet here they are bugging me about it already. You'd think the national economy depended on my $380.

I am still quite bugged about the way they do this though. First they mail a bill, then I mail in a payment, then they send the forms, which I mail back, all of which takes more than a month. I know how much the fee is and the form is available online - wouldn't it be more efficient if I just send everything together at once, since it all goes to the same address anyway? But they say do not do this because it causes a delay. Geez, they already delay it enough, how confusing could that possibly make it? It's such a waste of time and money (in terms of extra printing and postage), and just generally inefficient. What ever happened to the paperwork reduction act?

Then today I got an email from them. It was to inform me that they have mailed out a notice that my Form I-129 F Fiance petition has been approved, and to follow the instructions on the form. That's great, but this also doesn't make sense to me. The purpose of the 129F fiance petition is so that your wife can get in the country while you wait for your 130 spousal petition to be processed. But if I am already paying for the form DS-230, then that means that my Form I-130 is almost complete, ruling the 129F obsolete. What was the purpose in submitting that other than to bill me an extra $170?????

One thing I have learned is that this entire visa process is a joke, an inefficient one, and that whoever is in charge of this has no idea what they are doing other than to over charge citizens and make it a headache for them, rather than rewarding them for not being your average border jumper. It provides an incentive for illegal entry, if anything, which I would have probably opted for rather than going through these headaches. 5 years ago this process took less than a month - now it takes more than a year, all in the name of national security, but without providing extra security. The entire homeland security department should be dismantled, and the immigration system reformatted into an efficient system without the beurocratic bullshit.

Ok, that's enough of a rant. Whew.