Santo Domingo - VAC / Medical Exam Hell!!

[InsanelyOne 8]

My fiancé and I had quite a trying day yesterday as we attempted to take care of both the medical exam and the VAC appointment in the same day.

1. Medical Exam

There are two choices where to have the medical exam. For no specific reason, we chose Servicios Médicos Consulares. We arrived at 6:00 AM and there was already quite a few people (I would estimate close to 20). The facility doesn't technically open until 6:30 but they were letting people into the outdoor waiting area (equipped with chairs) and were asking people to fill out a form and sign a letter of consent. The gentleman that was organizing things was pleasant and spoke English (neither my fiancé nor I speak Spanish very well). As far as documents go, we brought everything we had just to be safe. That said, we didn't have a document that he insisted we needed. He wanted the passport and the VAC/Embassy appointment confirmation page (which we had) but he also insisted we have the letter from the NVC. The problem there is that with a K-1 visa, there is no letter from the NVC. With the K-1, the NVC just forwards the case directly to the Embassy. I told him this was for a K-1 visa and that we don't have the document. He then took the document from the woman sitting next to us and told us that was what he needed. I indicated to him that she was getting a IR-1/CR-1 and that the process is slightly different in that case. He wouldn't budge. He insisted he needed a document that had the NVC Case Number (SDOYYYYMMDDXXX) on it. We have no document. I did have an email from my lawyer with the NVC Case Number so I provided that to him. After much pleading (and a little anger on my part) he reluctantly accepted it but told us we would have to bring the document when we returned to pick up the medical results next week. Still not sure what we are going to do since the document he is asking for just doesn't exist.

What bothers me the most is that this idiot is not an agent of the US government. He's just a worker at the medical center. He has no authority to demand documents that don't even exist. All he should care about is that we have an appointment scheduled with the Embassy and we need a medical exam done.

Anyway, my fiancé was in by 7:00 and out by 9:00 and the exam itself was pleasant and efficient. The doctor spoke fluent English and was courteous and friendly. My fiancé did not have access to his vaccination records so he was required to 3 vaccinations: Influenza, MMR, Diphtheria. The vaccinations added about US$100 to the bill.

2. Now the fun part, the VAC

We got to the VAC at the Galeria 360 Mall at around 12:00 for a 12:20 appt. My fiancé was turned away because they said there was a problem with the DS-160 confirmation page. For place of birth, it included the city and country. (The DS-160 actually has city, state/province/county, and country). However, my fiancé's passport only lists the country (no city). The agent at the VAC said that she cannot accept him because the DS-160 confirmation does not match exactly with the passport. He showed her his birth certificate which shows the city but she said that didn't matter. It had to match the passport. I was still upset about the idiot at the medical center so at this point i was ready to rip this 's head off but thankfully my fiancé was much more levelheaded. The VAC agent told us we had to submit a new DS-160 that only included the country on the place of birth so it would match the passport. Now mind you, this woman is NOT an agent of the US government. The entire VAC operation is operated by Dominicans. She has no more authority to tell us we need to submit a new DS-160 than any jerk on the street. I was incredulous. I called my lawyer back in the US and she was flabbergasted. She said "It defies all logic!" The lawyer followed up with an email that I think summarized it perfectly:

"The DS-160 confirmation page is an automatic summary and I don't see how to exclude the city, unless you left it off the entire application, which would obviously mess things up otherwise -- if it even allowed you to submit it like that!"

So here we are again at the mercy of fools. There is no way we are going to start all over with a new DS-160. Our Embassy interview is already scheduled for next week.

Desperate times call for desperate measures:

So we're at an impasse. I am now willing to do anything to make this happen. It seems all this idiot is concerned about is that the place of birth doesn't exactly match what's on his passport. So we drive back to our hotel and I photoshop the DS-160 confirmation page to remove the city from the place of birth. If I do say so myself, I did an awesome job. You couldn't tell at all that the document had been manipulated. We printed the new document, took it back to the VAC and we were out of there in 15 minutes. They took one look at the document, compared it to the passport and that was it. They handed the document back to my fiancé and never looked at it again. They didn't keep it. There is no physical record of the manipulated document ever existing. Luckily I had the skill and wherewithal to take matters into my own hand but not everyone would be willing or able to do so. I feel sorry for anyone else that has been a victim of this idiocy.

Well...that's it for now. I can only hope the interview goes more smoothly.

I'd love to hear other folks experiences to see if they compare.

[InsanelyOne 8]

I did some additional research just to confirm my initial assumptions. The DS-160 requires that you enter a birth city. There is no way around it. The state/province is optional. It angers me still to think that this agent at the VAC flat out refused to allow my fiancé to get his biometric data completed because of the "error" on the DS-160 confirmation page.

What this really comes down to is the fact that the agent is unfamiliar with non-Dominican passports. Dominican passports have the city of birth on them. Trinidadian passports don't. For this sole reason she decides that we can't move forward with our visa application process. My brain just hurts thinking about it. It was my fear all along with this process. That one stupid uniformed person can totally ruin things. I should not have had to photoshop the DS-160 just to get past this dolt.

[trinaqueen 36]

Did they tell you that you needed to pay for those vaccinations? They TRIED that with us.

[InsanelyOne 8]

Did they tell you that you needed to pay for those vaccinations? They TRIED that with us.

Yep... we had to pay extra for the vaccinations (but we expected that).