Everyone going through Administrative Processing in ISLAMABAD

[FEISAL 3]

At Dos only Sarah and Jesscia are more helpful then others - I guess they are the only 1s who understand what we all are going through.

I called DOS yesterday got Anna - She did not give any other info other then its still pending

Taj -

QUOTE (FEISAL @ Sep 25 2009, 10:23 AM)

I need the number for DOS and the extension to press to get to the visa specialist.

DOS number 202 663 1225

Press 1

Then press 0

[taj'samericanwife 0]

thank you

[Naz&Omi 0]

At Dos only Sarah and Jesscia are more helpful then others - I guess they are the only 1s who understand what we all are going through.

I called DOS yesterday got Anna - She did not give any other info other then its still pending

Yea seriously.. everyone else sucks at DOS except those two! I don't get it, why are they jerks and they act like somehow we should have KNOWN not to call them that day??.. haha.. oh well, I usually try to call in the afternoons and I get Sarah or Jessica, never call in the morning.. bleh..

but yea, isn't it incredibly depressing to call them? YOu tell them your case number, and you can't help but get really hopeful.. and then wham, they come back and say "still pending".. ufff..

there really is no point in calling unless you get one of the girls who tells you what the embassy has been doing on your case, and if you're in Final Review or not.. but most of them probably wouldn't tell you that even if they knew it.. haha, I guess we're all in "rant mode" these days..

but next week's another week (starting to hate the weekends, 'cause you can't hear from the embassy then)! Hope everyone's having a good weekend though!

[Omark 3]

At Dos only Sarah and Jesscia are more helpful then others - I guess they are the only 1s who understand what we all are going through.

I called DOS yesterday got Anna - She did not give any other info other then its still pending

Yea seriously.. everyone else sucks at DOS except those two! I don't get it, why are they jerks and they act like somehow we should have KNOWN not to call them that day??.. haha.. oh well, I usually try to call in the afternoons and I get Sarah or Jessica, never call in the morning.. bleh..

but yea, isn't it incredibly depressing to call them? YOu tell them your case number, and you can't help but get really hopeful.. and then wham, they come back and say "still pending".. ufff..

there really is no point in calling unless you get one of the girls who tells you what the embassy has been doing on your case, and if you're in Final Review or not.. but most of them probably wouldn't tell you that even if they knew it.. haha, I guess we're all in "rant mode" these days..

but next week's another week (starting to hate the weekends, 'cause you can't hear from the embassy then)! Hope everyone's having a good weekend though!

I always get Anna and the last call i had was less than 40 seconds.She asked my case # and then said its pending (click) i was gonna ask a follow up question but click was 2 fast and naz&omi you took my words i exactly feel the same when wkends comes,i feel helpless on the wkend...

[MARM 7]

DOS people that have been helpful to me always: Sue, Sarah, Jessica, and one other person (non-accented female)

People who are never helpful at DOS: Anna, Heinz, and all the rest

Just remember though that the reps at DOS cannot reprimand you for calling DOS often. It is there job to answer the phones, so if one of them asks you, "didn't you call earlier today?" You just answer, "yes, and I am calling again".

We are still waiting for my fiance's visa to actually be printed. I pray that InshaAllah this coming week is our week as well as full of good news for everyone else waiting.

FEISAL: Can you add us on the list for AP? I know my fiance did not go through ISB, but he is a citizen of Pakistan and he interviewed in London, UK since he resides in London.

MARM, K-1, LND/UK, MALE, 5/12/2009 (May 12, 2009 was the interview), embassy kept his passport.

[FEISAL 3]

Marm - Sure thing

[FEISAL 3]

I really hope we hear good news for some1 soon

[taj'samericanwife 0]

i called the embassy in manila to find out exactly what is happening. they said it is just a standard procedure at the consuls to review my husbands case over. and that the maximum is 6 weeks. i hope this is true. she said that if they don't do anything by 6 weeks, no updates or if we dont hear from them...i should call back...the exact status is under review at the consul in manila...

do you think i should still call the DOS to ask what's up with our casE?

[Hopeful786 0]

I haven't seen any recent posts lately of an embassy call... .... I hope this week will be a good week for all of you waiting insha'Allah ... you are all in my dua's

[Hopeful786 0]

When I called the DOS, they didn't even ask for my case number and said my case is pending AP for documents... how did they know? They just asked when was my fiance's interview and what is his name... I called DOS a few hours after my fiance's interview.

[Naz&Omi 0]

When I called the DOS, they didn't even ask for my case number and said my case is pending AP for documents... how did they know? They just asked when was my fiance's interview and what is his name... I called DOS a few hours after my fiance's interview.

Wow... that is NOT comforting... haha.. but you DID call RIGHT after the interview, so who knows when they file the paperwork for that stuff.. Have you called them since?

Seeing as we've already passed the 2 1/2 month mark of AP, I'm just going to start calling every day.. lol.. I have no patience, even though I don't know what they would even tell me considering we didn't leave our passport at the embassy at the interview.

And YES! It is time to hear something soon! Are me and Omarak the oldest ones in the forum (besides MARM) right now? Thank you for the duas Hopeful786! We definitely need them, I'm getting REALLY anxious! Big life changes coming up, and I was NOT counting on going through them alone!

[FEISAL 3]

Hopeful786 - yes they can track your case through Name and interview date its not a big problem

[kareem07 0]

Hopeful786 - yes they can track your case through Name and interview date its not a big problem

I know that all the people in this forum are for islamabad. My wife had her interview in Jerusalem in Augast 25th and they requested some papers and she sent the papers the next week. I emailed the embassay last week and the said that my wife case is pending AP. Is there any one that have that experience in Jerusalem?

Thanks

[L179 1]

Hey guys sorry I have been outta touch for a while.

So the story is we entered Chicago POE on Sept 20th. It was a really smooth breeze. Barely even two mins. They just took the documents given by the embassy and we were through and out. Its been a week now, and still no signs of the green card in the mail so of course the wait has not ended. But life is good.

Best of luck to all of us.

[MumtazG38 1]

WARNING:

You are about to read a VERY VERY long post/review of ISL embassy for passport renewal. Please feel free to completely ignore this post if need be, I won't mind.

Okay, just came back from our very first trip to ISL embassy yesterday (had to get my passport renewed) and the very first thing I'm doing since I got back, fell asleep at 2:00pm and finally awoke today at 7:30am is typing out this here tiny review...yeah, I was EXHAUSTED! More than 10 hour lousy road trip! lol. Not to mention how difficult it is to sit stationary in a car for very long hours at a time when you're belly is protruding out enough to knock the dashboard every time you try to re-adjust your sitting position for comfort!

Right, so....here's how it went:

We arrived at the embassy at 7:20am and proceeded to the DSS section, which was to the right side of parking. The line was so long there that people had to make their own pretend line all the way down the sidewalk, and some on the road even. But thankfully it was moving along nicely enough that we didn't get the chance to feel too miserable. Finally after waiting in the heat and sun light for quite some time we got through the first of security. There were seperate cubicles for the men and women as always with ISL embassy. The line for the men was somewhat longer than the one for the women, so I went in...got all felt up by this strange women....lol, was asked if I had my cell phone, said no...showed her my folder and passport and was allowed to move along in the line. I assume the same happened with my husband as he got out about a minute after me. Then got in line for the U.S section....which b.t.w was mainly the ONLY line there was....every place else was near to empty...and the U.S line that we got into was protruding all the way outside of the actual building right down to where the security booth's were. So we waited what felt like absolutely forever...well more like an hour and a half....to get to the rep up front. Even though, since the line was so long they told us to split into two lines and we went with the people in the new line which was under the UK section....not that doing so made it so we could get through faster...the people that were behind us prior to this in the U.S line got through much before us still. lol, imagine my fury.

Anyways, once we finally got our turn the rep asked us for our Passports, husband only brought his ID card, which was sufficient. Then he asked us for what purpose we were at the embassy today and I told him for renewal of my U.S passport. He asked why Haseeb was with me and I simply said because he's my husband...the man looked at me for a second and then wrote us some receipts/tickets for the Shuttle service and took 400.00rs from us and told us to get in line to get security checked once more before they would let us into the waiting section for the Shuttle service. After we got in line, we noticed that there was practically no line for the females and that if I wanted I could have just walked right up to the security booth and entered the waiting section long before my husband had gotten through, but since the line for gents was so long I decided to wait it out for some time with him so I wouldn't get bored. So that took another 15-20 minutes and finally we sat down in the back row of seats (the only row left WITH empty seats) and proceeded to wait for the bus...in about 10 minutes a bus did arrive but since we were seated in the last row and the bus's are 73 seaters (I believe) we didn't even get a chance to get up close to see if we could get on there were so many people in line, and 15 minutes after that same thing happened. Then we decided to immediately run up to the very first row where there were a few seats available and waited another 15 minutes for another bus to arrive. Once it did we rushed to the line, gave the guy our tickets and sat in the bus relieved. Afterwards, the bus stopped at each embassy...first the Saudi Arabia embassy 2 people got off, secondly the Korean embassy 2-3 people got off, then the Dubai embassy no one got off, then the China embassy 8-9 people got off, then the Bulgarian embassy, no one got off (please don't mind if I got the order a bit mixed up, I'm doing this from simple recollection) then I believe finally we heard the conductor say American Embassy, so we got off there in front of the embassy and had to get in line immediately to get our passports checked and what not. At that moment we noticed there were loads of people sitting at the benches at the bus stop just waiting, I assumed those were the people who weren't allowed to go in with the USC...I believe I was correct.

Once our turn came in like 2-3 minutes the security guy asked what my purpose was I told him I needed to renew my passport, then he looked at my passport and then said that my husband would have to wait outside at the bus stop unless I go inside to room 1 and request for him to be let in and then if he was given the green light he would let him in. So I walked across the road and got in another very short line for another security check. The one for ladies was inside a room/office so that's where I went. Got checked by a security wand, got my passport looked at once more and then was told to stay within the blue line. So I walked all the way down the blue line...which was COMPLETELY empty..not a sole but me. Although I will mention that at that time there was barely anyone in any of the other lines either. There were 3 colored lines which needed to be walked down to get to be allowed to go into the waiting areas. One yellow, I believe that was the non-immigrant line, one was red the Immigrant line and the last one blue, citizen services line. So once I got to the end of the blue line I waited until the security card told me to proceed to the security section inside the embassy which had a manual lock on the door which was opened by security personal from the inside who could see everyone on the outside. Once I entered that area I was told to give them my folder and passport to be scanned through the huge machine(like at an airport for luggage) and told to walk through the detector. After that they handed me my stuff and asked me why I was there, I told them to renew my passport...they told me to go inside and fill out the green slip and deposit that. So I opened the door, saw the waiting room and saw where they had all of the colored slips. At that time they only had two types of slips there, one being the green slips...and another, I really can't remember which color to be honest. But there were only two types. So I filled out my green slip...and afterwards not knowing what to do I asked a security guard where was I supposed to go to deposit this slip and he said enter through the door all the way down the waiting room...and then if room 1's door is open I would enter it and deposit my slip and then find a seat outside that room and wait till they called my name. So that is what I did. Then a few minutes after that they called my name and I went to room 1, closed the door behind me and saw a older pakistani man with a bald spot and a blonde american women (somewhat on the larger side...) behind him looking over his shoulder. Once I got there the man asked me what I was there for and I told him to renew my passport. He asked me if I had filled out a DS-11 or DS-82 form and I said yes, a DS-11...then he asked me to hand him that with my passport. So I did, after that he said that I would need to first go to desk 5 and pay the fee and then come back. So I took the receipt he gave me for the fee and went to desk 5 and gave that to him. The guy calculated the total on a computer and then handed me two receipts after I paid him. I went back to room 1....had to wait a few minutes because the door was closed and someone was in there with them. Then proceeded inside the room, this time the man was not sitting there but the blonde lady was...she was EXTREMELY nice...I liked her alot..lol. She I gave her the receipts and then she asked whether I was going back to new york(where I was born) I said actually yes I was, but this time I plan to leave with my husband. She smiled and said well that's great. Then she asked me to sign the form ds-11 so I did. Then she handed me back 1 receipt and told me that I should be able to come back and pickup my passport in two weeks (interview is in 2 weeks and 3 days anyways) and that when the passport will be ready they would call me and that I need not call them...even though she handed me a contact number either way just in case I needed to.

After that she boded me good luck with everything and I left through the exit door and back to my husband. We waited for the bus to arrive which took about 15-20 minutes and then got on and were taken back to the DSS area where all of the reps and separate sections were for U.S and India and the rest, then we exited and entered the parking lot and left the embassy.

My questions:

Anyone experienced with interview at ISL embassy....if you could PLEASE tell me the differences between what I had to do with the passport renewal and what we will be doing at the interview I would be very grateful. I just want to get as full of an impact of the interview to better prepare myself.

With the waiting rooms....where would I be waiting with my husband...would it be inside the same room all the way at the end of the first waiting room where the green slips were or would we be waiting at the outer waiting room where the green slips were right outside of the security office?

With the timing.....how early should we get at the DSS area if our interview appointment will be at 8:00am on Oct 16th? This time around we got there at 7:20 and it took us over 2 hours at the DSS just to get on the bus and reach the embassy. Plus Another 10-15 minutes to actually get inside the embassy into the waiting rooms.??

Where should we be going after the security office (w/ the big scan machine and detector). And will we need to fill out any slips...which ones?

Will the security guy let me go with my husband? The guy at the bus stop wouldn't even let my husband cross the road with me....so I'm just wondering whether they'll have an issue with me saying I'm there to attend the interview with my husband? Will they let me go? Once inside, where will husband and I get out interview....would that be room 1 with the door? Will I be allowed inside with him? How would we hand them all of our evidence like our photo albums....the windows only have so much room underneath them to hand things to the reps.....I really don't think a large wedding or family album will fit there...not nearly!!!

Thanks for the help...and reading through all of the above mumbo jumbo...lol.