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Olga and I are still waiting in limbo since our original AOS interview last November 15th. They did not give us the AOS that day because we didn't have her vaccinations on the so-called immunization "supplemental" form. We had a civil surgeon fill out the forms and put them in sealed envelopes as requested by the INS. However, when we returned for our follow-up interview in December, we were told 2 things:

#1. Our interviewer was out sick and no one else could see us (they have no procedure in place for notifying people that their appointments could not be honored. There were several others equally p****d off.).

#2. The US Govt. had FROZEN all approvals until further notice with no explanation as to why, and the INS would not give me anything in writing to this effect, despite speaking to supervisors.

Very annoyed with the whole thing, I wrote my congressman (Peter Deutsch), and he sent a letter with my complaint (prepared by one of his clerks, I am sure) to his liason at the Miami INS on December 19th. I decided to give them some time.

I tried calling the INS in January, leaving messages for my examining
officer, which were never returned. I later found out after going through a myriad of phone numbers that she had been assigned to a "special project" and could not return any calls until she was finished, whenever that would be.

I finally did hear from her (the examining officer) early last week .She told me that they are severly backlogged and there was no way to tell when they would get to our AOS. She had all the papers and forms she needed. Nothing to do but wait...indefinitely.

I called my congressman's office 2 days ago to complain that I never got a follow-up response from them. His aide, a woman named Betty Ann, told me that typically it takes about 12 weeks to get a response from the Miami INS, and there was nothing she could do about it.

We are at our wits end, my wife is really soured on the US since this
reflects directly on our government and how they can treat people however they wish with no accountability, and I can say nothing to counter this. She is right, it's a disgrace what they get away with in Miami INS.

There's nothing we can do but wait.

Thanks for listening.

John

... in response to AOS Nightmare with Miami INS continues....., posted by JohnG on Jan 30, 2003

In Maryland, the Congresswoman's office was the best place to get help on my mother-in-law's initial visitor visa refusal.  However, one of the Senate offices also had an aide who was familiar with the issues and was willing to help.  The other one was not interested in helping, but inadvertently wound up providing very useful assistance without knowing it.

Maybe you got the uninterested one out of the way on the first try.  Try this next:

1.  Write a good, non-ranting letter explaining the problem.

2.  Call each Senator's office and find out the name(and proper spelling) and phone number of the aide who works on INS and visa issues.

3.  Call that person and explain your situation and ask them to help.  Find out what they are willing to do.

4.  If they want something in writng, make any changes that they tell you to the draft letter and fax it to them immediately after hanging up.

May not work for everybody, but it did help in our case.  Hope someone can help get your family out of the spin cycle; doesn't sound right to have to go through all that torture.

Steve M.

This help

... in response to AOS Nightmare with Miami INS continues....., posted by JohnG on Jan 30, 2003

I'm sure you'll waltz right through!