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Dealing with the embassies and consulates during COVID is a nightmare. I was separated from my fiancée for 15 months due to consular ineptitude, mainly driven b
by bmitc 5y ago
Dealing with the embassies and consulates during COVID is a nightmare. I was separated from my fiancée for 15 months due to consular ineptitude, mainly driven by higher level government policies on COVID. They even held my fiancée's passport, a non-US one, for over a month, which prevented her using the passport to travel to other countries to get back into the U.S.
I've described it as intentional incompetence. We couldn't even sell her car due to lack of government support in terms of policies, so we were forced to pay for a car and insurance for a car we didn't want and wasn't being used.
And I would say that COVID didn't start all this, it just gave these agencies another excuse. Even my application for Global Entry has been a nightmare, where it's been practically impossible to schedule an interview. I tried getting my application reviewed sooner by contacting the department twice before traveling back from a foreign country, because if you've been conditionally approved, you can interview upon return at the airport. I had applied like seven months before this international travel. I contacted them before leaving and then another time before I was coming back. They responded saying that there's nothing they can do, that I just need to wait. Well, they conditionally approved my application literally one day after I arrived back in the U.S. Since then, it has been impossible to schedule an interview, unless you want to drive eight hours and trust the appointment will be upheld, and they don't accept walk-ins. I've basically thrown away $100.
- MandieD 5y agoAnd people Back Home wonder why I never even attempted to put my husband through the whole Green Card process. Permanent residence in Germany was an absolute breeze, and all of the Foreigners’ Offices I’ve worked with have been anywhere from acceptably competent to outright helpful.
- vaidhy 5y agoHow did you get the global entry sorted out? My application is struck for last 2 years and you cannot withdraw the application either and reapply either.
- bingohbangoh 5y agoThe United States has been _uniquely incompetent_. Early on when the world was in flux circa March 2020, my friend needed to get in touch with the US embassy because countries were shutting down so suddenly. He was in Brazil at the time. The US embassy decided that day to close early due to concern about the pandemic and that they needed the off-office-hours time to work (or something like this). They wouldn't reopen for about a week. By contrast, my friends in the old country have had zero issues getting a hold of their embassies while living abroad. All very prompt. I had a passport renewal that took a month to process in the summer 2020. Very bizarre. This whole pandemic has made me blackpilled on the US.
- consumer451 5y agoIs this at all related to the USA defunding the State Department? tone: Honest, non-snarky question. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/31/how-the-trump-administration-broke-the-state-department/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/31/how-the-trump-administr...