England/Colombian Marriage Visas Granted in 2 Days?

[Looking4Wife 0]

My Colombian wife says that her Colombian friend is marrying a man from England. She says that after the wedding in Colombia, they will simply go to the Colombian emabassy and receive their visa in 2 days.

I told her I had never heard of anything like that. She said "England is different than the United States".

She also says she knows of an English girl who married a Colombian man. Presto, change-o, visa in 2 days (although that was in the past, not sure how long ago).

Is this Visa-2-days-after-marriage thing real? And if so, in retrospect, did we really do the right thing breaking away from the "motherland" with all that Boston Tea Party nonsense?

NOTE: I strongly suspect my wife has been grossly misinformed...?

[lucyrich 20]

My Colombian wife says that her Colombian friend is marrying a man from England. She says that after the wedding in Colombia, they will simply go to the Colombian emabassy and receive their visa in 2 days.

I told her I had never heard of anything like that. She said "England is different than the United States".

She also says she knows of an English girl who married a Colombian man. Presto, change-o, visa in 2 days (although that was in the past, not sure how long ago).

Is this Visa-2-days-after-marriage thing real? And if so, in retrospect, did we really do the right thing breaking away from the "motherland" with all that Boston Tea Party nonsense?

NOTE: I strongly suspect my wife has been grossly misinformed...?

Do you mean the British Embassy? There is no Colombian embassy in Colombia. Or did you mean they're going to the Colombian Embassy in London to get a visa to live in Colombia?

Either way, two days doesn't seem that unreasonable. I suspect that, for a typical US visa case, the total time that your file is worked on by human isn't much more than two working days. A crude estimate can be figured based on the fees charged, and the fact that Congress has said that the fees are supposed to cover the expenses. The fees for a visa wouldn't cover more than a day or three of labor at an auto mechanic's shop, and I suspect the government overhead and salary of an adjudicator means that the same money buys fewer hours work from the government than from a car dealership.

If a country had less convoluted immigration laws than the US laws (not that hard to imagine), then the hours of labor needed to process visas could be a LOT shorter.

The biggest reason visas take so long in the US is that, for almost all the time your paperwork is in the system, bureaucrats are working on applications filed before yours was filed. They only work for a couple of hours on your paperwork, but it takes many months for your paperwork to get to their desk. If a country hired enough adjudicators so that they could, on average, process applications at a rate slightly faster than the applications came in, then there wouldn't be a big backlog, and the time required to get a visa wouldn't be that much different than the time required to get a passport or a driver's license.

But there's not a lot of political pressure to speed up the US Visa process. Most people don't know or care very much, and a significant number of voters would prefer to slow things down even more.

[paisita411 0]

My Colombian wife says that her Colombian friend is marrying a man from England. She says that after the wedding in Colombia, they will simply go to the Colombian emabassy and receive their visa in 2 days.

I told her I had never heard of anything like that. She said "England is different than the United States".

She also says she knows of an English girl who married a Colombian man. Presto, change-o, visa in 2 days (although that was in the past, not sure how long ago).

Is this Visa-2-days-after-marriage thing real? And if so, in retrospect, did we really do the right thing breaking away from the "motherland" with all that Boston Tea Party nonsense?

NOTE: I strongly suspect my wife has been grossly misinformed...?

Do you mean the British Embassy? There is no Colombian embassy in Colombia. Or did you mean they're going to the Colombian Embassy in London to get a visa to live in Colombia?

Either way, two days doesn't seem that unreasonable. I suspect that, for a typical US visa case, the total time that your file is worked on by human isn't much more than two working days. A crude estimate can be figured based on the fees charged, and the fact that Congress has said that the fees are supposed to cover the expenses. The fees for a visa wouldn't cover more than a day or three of labor at an auto mechanic's shop, and I suspect the government overhead and salary of an adjudicator means that the same money buys fewer hours work from the government than from a car dealership.

If a country had less convoluted immigration laws than the US laws (not that hard to imagine), then the hours of labor needed to process visas could be a LOT shorter.

The biggest reason visas take so long in the US is that, for almost all the time your paperwork is in the system, bureaucrats are working on applications filed before yours was filed. They only work for a couple of hours on your paperwork, but it takes many months for your paperwork to get to their desk. If a country hired enough adjudicators so that they could, on average, process applications at a rate slightly faster than the applications came in, then there wouldn't be a big backlog, and the time required to get a visa wouldn't be that much different than the time required to get a passport or a driver's license.

But there's not a lot of political pressure to speed up the US Visa process. Most people don't know or care very much, and a significant number of voters would prefer to slow things down even more.

Don't feel so bad. My next door neighbor has lived in the US for 1 year on an HB-1 Work Visa. He's from Ibague...I'm from Medellin, we live next door to each other in Atlanta...I've lived in the US for 27 years and I'm a US Citizen since the age of 18....We both got married in Medellin in July, His wife was here two weeks later....I'm still HOME ALONE!!!!!!!!!

[substance 0]

Well, I have heard that many times too. Not only England, most of the European countries issue a visa for the spous of their citizen in a few dayes. Then its about 2-3 months for the permanent resident visa.

Only the US greencard takes this long. But again it also varies by each case. Japanese ppl for example, gets the greencard fastest. (1-3 months). My wifes brother went to japan to marry his fiance about 1 month before my wife came to Turkey to marry me. His wifes I130 was approved in 1 week. NVC process took little over a month. and she got the visa in total of 2 months. My wife used the same paper work for NVC(my wife and her bro both having dad co sponsor, so the same financial papers for nvc) our nvc stage took 6 months(they asked for more documents that they did for her bro) and I130 got approved in 4 months. and the total of 1 year waiting.

[Mags 112]

Well, I have heard that many times too. Not only England, most of the European countries issue a visa for the spous of their citizen in a few dayes. Then its about 2-3 months for the permanent resident visa.

Only the US greencard takes this long. But again it also varies by each case. Japanese ppl for example, gets the greencard fastest. (1-3 months). My wifes brother went to japan to marry his fiance about 1 month before my wife came to Turkey to marry me. His wifes I130 was approved in 1 week. NVC process took little over a month. and she got the visa in total of 2 months. My wife used the same paper work for NVC(my wife and her bro both having dad co sponsor, so the same financial papers for nvc) our nvc stage took 6 months(they asked for more documents that they did for her bro) and I130 got approved in 4 months. and the total of 1 year waiting.

My friend is British and she married her penpal (who she had written to for years) who was American. He came over here on a three month visitor visa (before VWP) and they got married. He went back to the USA shortly afterwards, sold his stuff and applied to the British Consulate (he's from SF) for a spouse visa for the UK.

Took 2 weeks.

[Looking4Wife 0]

Why in the world has this been moved to "Off Topic"?

My guess would be... that the IR-1/CR-1 discussion board is only for US Citizen-to-Foreigner marriages?

If that is the case, does anyone know of a discussion board where I can find people in England marrying other folks?

Thanks in advance...

[Tim and Bethanie 1]

Why in the world has this been moved to "Off Topic"?

My guess would be... that the IR-1/CR-1 discussion board is only for US Citizen-to-Foreigner marriages?

If that is the case, does anyone know of a discussion board where I can find people in England marrying other folks?

Thanks in advance...

There are british expat sites online look on google.

[no name 1]

Why in the world has this been moved to "Off Topic"?

My guess would be... that the IR-1/CR-1 discussion board is only for US Citizen-to-Foreigner marriages?

If that is the case, does anyone know of a discussion board where I can find people in England marrying other folks?

Thanks in advance...

Ummm, maybe cuz Visa Journey is ONLY for any US based immigration????

Edited November 29, 2006 by devilette

[meauxna 15]

NOTE: I strongly suspect my wife has been grossly misinformed...?

Nope, buy wifey a drink--she wins.

A spousal visa to the UK takes one day on a walk-in to a UK Consulate. Have your papers and $500 ready.

Of course, the downside is that you have to *live* in the UK <ducks>.

The other group you're looking for is britishexpats.com or uk-yankee (google, don'thave the URL)

[Looking4Wife 0]

NOTE: I strongly suspect my wife has been grossly misinformed...?

Nope, buy wifey a drink--she wins.

A spousal visa to the UK takes one day on a walk-in to a UK Consulate. Have your papers and $500 ready.

Of course, the downside is that you have to *live* in the UK <ducks>.

The other group you're looking for is britishexpats.com or uk-yankee (google, don'thave the URL)

WOW... thanks for the info, meauxna, and others who have responded.

[Looking4Wife 0]

If a country had less convoluted immigration laws than the US laws (not that hard to imagine), then the hours of labor needed to process visas could be a LOT shorter.

They only work for a couple of hours on your paperwork, but it takes many months for your paperwork to get to their desk. If a country hired enough adjudicators so that they could, on average, process applications at a rate slightly faster than the applications came in, then there wouldn't be a big backlog, and the time required to get a visa wouldn't be that much different than the time required to get a passport or a driver's license.

Well said!