Administrative Processing?

[DiZZyLoX 114]

I'll add my experience here to some of the comments in random order.

AP can mean administrative processing---like they are still shuffling papers or the visa printer ran out of toner or we got behind because two people went to Vegas and left us short handed. The DOS people came up with calling it AP meaning normal paperwork going on between the interview and printing the visa.

AP that we fear is usually called additional processing-- it means they are doing extra steps before they can approve. Additional steps not everybody has to go through.

221.g -- issued if there is a definite reason apparent at the interview that the visa can not be approved with the evidence presented. Maybe it's a document you didn't know to bring. Maybe your passport got washed and they told you it wasn't acceptable all faded out like that. In some countries (not UK) maybe they don't believe your relationship and give you a 221g saying why they won't approve a visa.

In London, if all paperwork is in.. medical is good... financials pass... the guy says "you're approved" because there's nothing missing in your paperwork or interview that could be reason he couldn't approve his part of the process. Then there are databases for US security that the fiance must clear. I know at Nick's interview the embassy computer's were down. The guy told us approved but they couldn't run "one last security check" until the computers got back up and he had no idea when that would be.

There's at least one database to clear and maybe two more optional ones an embassy can choose to use. (If I wasn't on the notebook computer I could find two links to give you) If you weren't born in the UK they could do more, if your middle name is Mohammed or your father is named Osama bin Laden, if your training (listed on the DS-157) includes special skills like munitions or chemistry of bomb making, if you frequently travel to certain countries... I'm making up these examples to speculate on things that could trigger additional processing. So if your name is exactly the same as anybody that US security has on a watch list (or even your parent's name), then they have to do "additional" processing to make sure you aren't the bad guy or the person associated with the bad guy. Sometimes they have to go so far as have a security file physically pulled by an official at another location. They have to send a request to another office for an officer to pull a paper file and rule out that you are not the person implicated. You can imagine the potential for hold-ups there.

Reason why in AP? How long will it take?

They are very secretive about national security so they aren't going to explain "we are secretly following a guy named John Doe who has been reported to... and your fiances Dad has that same name." Nobody ever gets told a reason they are in additional processing. They don't know how long it will take as I explained before about tracking it down things. Maybe a database clears you and maybe a paper file has to be reviewed in Timbuktu. It's all vague and tied up in homeland security secrecy. So you just wait it out. Congressmen can not help get reasons, or get you out of it.

On VJ, I've know a number of India and Pakistan born people in AP for 4-8 weeks a couple of years ago. A Brazillian and Nigerian were approved and issued visas immediately this year, so it's not so much about not being born in the UK anymore. Then there was treehugger in 2010 who didn't tick any of the normal reasons we speculate about and was in additional processing for 9 months before dropping off VJ. Don't know how that one turned out.

Congratulations Dizzy! It was just too soon to worry and the use of AP by DOS threw you off.

thank you!! you're such a big help! And you are SO right!!

[jingo 38]

Congrats Dizzy - I would be devastated if after all this waiting; the NOA2, the interview - to then be approved and held up EVEN further. You'd think if there was a name / identity problem it would have come up in the initial UCSIS stage. I thought thats what they're there for.

[DiZZyLoX 114]

Congrats Dizzy - I would be devastated if after all this waiting; the NOA2, the interview - to then be approved and held up EVEN further. You'd think if there was a name / identity problem it would have come up in the initial UCSIS stage. I thought thats what they're there for.

If anything it was a wake-up call because when they say no celebrating until VISA IN HAND...whew, they mean it.