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| Israel |  Review on June 6, 2011: |
ecce
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
7/12/11
I have to edit my review of the consulate that appears below. I gave them a generous 4 stars after my interview (even though they screwed up some before the interview) but I was in a good mood when I wrote the review. But given what happened after my interview, they're going down to a 1. Please note, you just CANNOT believe ANYTHING they say, because they will come right out the next day with "oops, that was wrong." I cannot conceive of how they keep their jobs.
We were told at our interview that we were approved and we would have the visa within a week to 10 days. After 10 days we called and we were told it would be a few more days. After a few more days we were told it was printing and it would be "maybe one more day, maybe 3." We asked our congressman to send an inquiry (as my fiance was trying to avoid re-booking his flight) and they sent a rude email to the congressman's office that really took that case worker aback, and we were told to stop interfering in consulate affairs. The following day, a Friday, the day after he missed his first flight, we got an email notifying my fiance that the visa had been issued and it was with the courier service and he should confirm that he received it. We were excited. It was ready! We had it IN WRITING!
On Monday morning we expected to pick up the visa from the courier service, but no one at the courier service could find the visa. We asked the consulate what happened, and they wrote back that they were "very sorry for the confusion" but that the visa was approved but in fact had not yet been issued. And they didn't know when it would be issued.
Silence ensured. Two long weeks. We confirmed with DOS that we were in administrative processing - they saw nothing in the system about us being approved. Finally, today, 5 weeks and one day after the interview, he received the visa.
Why not just tell us at the interview it could be that long? Why tell us we were approved/ printing/ issued when it wasn't the case? Given what these visas mean to people, it's terrible service and regardless, it's a poor job done.
Original review on 6/6/11:
My fiance had his interview today at the Jerusalem consulate. In general, it was very straightforward. I (the petitioner) went with him because I had previously planned a trip to Israel so I happened to be there. However, we weren\'t sure whether they were going to let me in because of a previous review we had read, and they website doesn\'t sound welcoming to the petitioner.
The consulate is in a new location so it doesn\'t show up on a google map, but you can take the buses they suggest on their website and end up quite close. Building is very nice and new. We arrived early for our 7:45 appointment and we were the first ones there. At 8am they let us in (both of us! No questions asked). We waited about 1/2 an hour and then were called to a window to submit our documents, page by page. Then we waited about another 15 minutes and were called for the interview. The man who interviewed us was really, really nice. He talked to us for about 20 minutes. He flipped through our application page by page and pretty much asked us stuff that was straight from the page. He asked about half the questions to me and half to my fiance. Really nothing challenging at all. To me they asked: How did you meet? Where was my family living? Would they be at the wedding? Was I currently working? What was I studying? To him they asked: How long have we known each other? What did he study in the U.S.? Had he ever been stopped at the border to the U.S.? Did he currently have a tourist visa in the U.S.? What were our wedding plans? What was the origin of his family name? How old was he? (Not sure why they asked his this - maybe something about military discharge...) Had either of us been married before? At the end he said \"Your case looks good\" and made sure there was a blank page in his passport to put the visa. He said the visa would arrive in Tel Aviv with a week to 10 days. We were out of there by 9:30am. Overall, quite positive experience.
However, this consulate does not get 5 stars for 2 reasons. The first is that the acoustics are TERRIBLE - we had to ask \"what\" to almost every question he asked. There was lots of background noise and the microphones they use to talk through the glass window are really soft. It makes for some awkward moments when you\'re not sure what they are asking. Second, the letters we got from the consulate prior to the interview are TERRIBLY inconsistent and full of errors. For example, we got a letter with our packet 3 saying that we MUST pay the $350 fee IN ADVANCE at the LOCAL POST OFFICE. Then, in our packet 4 (interview date) they wrote that we MUST pay the fee AT THE CONSULATE on the interview day. I mean, really? (BTW, you pay the fee in advance at the local post office). Their instruction letters had tons of cross outs and errors, big and small, as if no one had looked at them or edited them in years. Also, just a small warning, they say to bring only ONE passport style photograph, but they need 2 (we happened to have a 2nd one). At least they are very responsive to emails (at the email address with the word \"inquiry\" in it), so if you are unclear about something before the interview it\'s definitely worth it to ask. Overall, good.
(updated on July 12, 2011)
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #7712