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| Bangkok, Thailand |  Review on April 26, 2017: |
PedroDaGr8
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
The process was truly chaotic. My fiancee is Vietnamese but interviewing at the Bangkok US Embassy, because she lives and works in Bangkok. The day before my fiancee's interview at the US Embassy, her interview appointment disappeared from the embassy website; it was wiped entirely off the schedule for that month. Surprised and unsure what to do, I posted on here if anyone had any experience with this. Nobody had encountered this happening before but the general consensus was to go to the interview anyways because we had not heard anything from the embassy. So she went to her appointment as it had been originally scheduled. Once there, they took all of her documents as if she was having her interview and there was no indication of anything wrong. She was asked the usual first round of questions when she gave the documents and then she waited 5 hours for her name to be called up for her interview. When she was called up, the officer simply said that they wanted to independently verify ALL of her official Vietnamese documents (the ones that she got directly from the Viet government) and as such there would be no interview today (his words). He gave her back her passport and a 221G with the only thing checked being "Other:" and it is filled in with "Administrative Processing of Vietnamese Documents". He refused to giver her any time frame, estimated time, or honestly any other details at all. This left us wondering how long it would take. The horror stories about 221G and Administrative Processing abound. After a couple of weeks she sent an email to the Embassy and they responded back:
Dear Sir/Madam:
Thank you for your email.
It is our pleasure to inform you that your visa has now been approved. We are working with the preparation of your visa package at the moment which takes approximately ten business days. Applicant should refrain from making any irrevocable travel arrangements until he/she receives the visa package back in hand. Once the package is ready, we will mail it to the applicant's mailing address in his/her GSS profile. All of the original documents will be returned to the applicant with this package.
The tracking number of the package will not be available until it is sent off. You are welcome to check back with us in the next ten business days for possible update.
Best Regards,
Immigrant Visa Unit
US Embassy Bangkok
This is strange, because she was literally told that she would not have the consular interview before, implying there would be an interview at a later date. Now here is where it gets even more weird: at this point, THEY DON'T HAVE HER PASSPORT! Wondering how they can process the packet without her passport, she emailed back. They responded to send it to the same address she sent her Packet 3 before. So she does this and it arrives there the day before the Songkran holiday. A couple days after the holiday she emails them and they said they are still working through the backlog from the holiday but will get to it shortly. Suddenly, two days ago (8 business days from the email) her CEAC status gets updated from Immigrant to Non-Immigrant and a new case date is submitted. Within 12 hours of this status change, her status flies through Ready-->Administrative Processing-->Issued. On top of that, checking her passport status yesterday shows that it has been submitted for shipping. Today when she came home from work her passport was there with the visa included! So they literally hit their 10 business days (if you ignore the days off for Songkran Holiday)
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #21725