Writing to the US Consulate in Lagos, NIgeria! would it help?

[BoyYoBoy 0]

Hello members, a week ago, I prepared a letter to the Honorable Joseph D. Staffort, the US Consul General in Lagos. In my letter, I am asking him for his assistance in obtaining answers pertaining my fiance's visa, Requesting an update on the status of our case, since I am not getting any clear answers through the sent and received emails. They did not even respond to my recent one. I HAVE NOT MAILED IT OUT YET, AND I WANT TO ASK FOR YOUR OPINIONS FIRST PRIOR TO SENDING IT.

My question is has anyone ever written to the US Consulate in Nigeria and received actual help, or response to their correspondence? has contacting them directly ever helped or been done? I feel even mailing it addressed to an official might not mean that the official will ever see that letter.

For the last four months my fiance's case I-129 has been in AP, at the time of his interview, he was given a letter indicating if he was not contacted within 60 days from the letter that he should contact them by email. We did twice and we got an email back word for work asking us to refrain from emailing them. They apologized for the delay and that was ALL. I have called DOS for the last two weeks, and all they are able to tell me is that it is still in process...and sometimes this takes a year...and who wants to hear that????

It is very frustrating,I know, we are not alone in this, for many of you are on the same boat which is moving with God's grace very slowly. What I want to know is, anyone has a comments or thoughts on this? maybe sending letters together "as a group" demanding answers to the prolonged AP and the delays with our paperwork? As US citizens we have rights to request answers and officials to respond.

I completely agree that our national security is an important issue and it should not be compromised. But the slow response is outrageous, and I feel it is due to lack of work done by the employees there more so than the amount of work load, which they are dealing with.

Your comments and thoughts are appreciated.

[BoyYoBoy 0]

Hello, just read your post. I and my fiancee are in a similar position. My fiancee went for her interview at US Consulate in Lagos, Nigeria on February 1st, 2012 exactly 161 days after the petition was approved by the USCIS. She had with her two bags of documents in support of our relationship including photo album of my two vists to her and her family showing her parent, siblings, brothers and sisters inlaw, her friends, her students, her kins men at our engagement ceremony, wedding ceremony of her friend which we attended together, visit to a zoo, picnic to a lake etc. She has phone records, text message records, emails, correspondences, cards, money gram receipts for money I sent to her for visa fee, medical and police reports.

We were fully prepared based on the information from VJ. The questions she was asked at the interview were mainly the basic in nature namely who is the petitioner, how she met the petitioner, petitioner's address and what he does for a living, how many times petitioner has visited her and the dates and duration of the visits, how petitioner travelled to US and how petitioner became US citizen. The CO also asked how often petitioner communicate to her all of which she answered currectly. The CO asked for the photo album and asked my fiancee to flip the pages of the album and went through all the pictures including our engagement photos. He asked for tax returns and affidavit of support which was accompanied by IRS tax transcript, pay stubs, letter of employment and bank statement. The CO never asked for phone records, text messages records, emails, correspondences, moneygram receipts or any other document at the interview, though I enclosed all these when I sent the I-129F package to the USCIS. Surprisingly, the CO gave my fiancee a paper under 221(g)t for AP but did not indicate if there is any document missing. All the CO told my fiancee was that they needed to verify some documents. It is nearly 8 weeks and I got a reply from the embassy saying that the case is still in AP.

My questions are:

1. What document could they be possibly verifying or is this just a ploy for other investigations.

2. I met my fiancee through her family friend and was in communication with her from October 2010 to January 2011 when I visited her and her family. I proposed to her on February 1st, 2011 after staying with her for about a week. I visited her again in October 2011 and spent 15 days with her during which we had our engagement ceremony. Is that a problem, though none of these was an issue at the interview which went very fine except the AP.

3. Has any one been in a similar experience and how was it finally resolved?

Edited March 27, 2012 by BoyYoBoy

[patient2010 93]

Hello, just read your post. I and my fiancee are in a similar position. My fiancee went for her interview at US Consulate in Lagos, Nigeria on February 1st, 2012 exactly 161 days after the petition was approved by the USCIS. She had with her two bags of documents in support of our relationship including photo album of my two vists to her and her family showing her parent, siblings, brothers and sisters inlaw, her friends, her students, her kins men at our engagement ceremony, wedding ceremony of her friend which we attended together, visit to a zoo, picnic to a lake etc. She has phone records, text message records, emails, correspondences, cards, money gram receipts for money I sent to her for visa fee, medical and police reports.

We were fully prepared based on the information from VJ. The questions she was asked at the interview were mainly the basic in nature namely who is the petitioner, how she met the petitioner, petitioner's address and what he does for a living, how many times petitioner has visited her and the dates and duration of the visits, how petitioner travelled to US and how petitioner became US citizen. The CO also asked how often petitioner communicate to her all of which she answered currectly. The CO asked for the photo album and asked my fiancee to flip the pages of the album and went through all the pictures including our engagement photos. He asked for tax returns and affidavit of support which was accompanied by IRS tax transcript, pay stubs, letter of employment and bank statement. The CO never asked for phone records, text messages records, emails, correspondences, moneygram receipts or any other document at the interview, though I enclosed all these when I sent the I-129F package to the USCIS. Surprisingly, the CO gave my fiancee a paper under 221(g)t for AP but did not indicate if there is any document missing. All the CO told my fiancee was that they needed to verify some documents. It is nearly 8 weeks and I got a reply from the embassy saying that the case is still in AP.

My questions are:

1. What document could they be possibly verifying or is this just a ploy for other investigations.

2. I met my fiancee through her family friend and was in communication with her from October 2010 to January 2011 when I visited her and her family. I proposed to her on February 1st, 2011 after staying with her for about a week. I visited her again in October 2011 and spent 15 days with her during which we had our engagement ceremony. Is that a problem, though none of these was an issue at the interview which went very fine except the AP.

3. Has any one been in a similar experience and how was it finally resolved?

Although I have no experience in AP but I do know that since they did not write down any missing documents on the 221g then it is possible they do home visit etc....I believe that this additional AP is really random goodluck to you

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

Nigeria is a country where there are as many forgeries presented as real document. If your home country is Nigeria ( you state you came to the US ) they may be checking that you aren't really bringing your sister/cousin ( it has been done ) Also if you got to the US based on marriage to a USC they check a bit closer. They will also check records to make sure she was never previously married or if she was that the marrige was properly terminated.