Working with Consulates
Did the consulate deny your case but you have no idea why?
Do you need to expedite your case due to health or work reasons?
Need help preparing for an upcoming consulate interview?
Cases can fall apart at the consulate interview if you are not prepared for what’s to come. It’s essential to have a competent immigration attorney if you want the process to go as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Here are just a few benefits of how our attorneys can help you in your consular processing case:
- Attorneys may make inquiries ahead of the interviews to help resolve any issues that are anticipated to come up that can be resolved ahead of time, knowing the reality that few documents, if any, are accepted during a consulate interview, which can seem rushed, fast, and give little opportunity to explain extenuating circumstances and could lead to a denial or visa refusal.
- Attorneys can file inquiries and keep consulates working on your case after your immigrant visa interview if your case was not resolved or put into administrative processing. Consulates have different rules, timelines, and procedures for making inquiries after an immigrant visa interview if a case remains unresolved. Competent immigration lawyers can get to the decision makers and narrow down the issue to help get your case resolved faster.
- Attorneys can reach out to the consulate before your interview and arrange for a private interview if you have good reason to be worried about your safety or to keep a sensitive matter confidential;
- Attorneys can reach out to the consulate or even at the National Visa Center stage to have your Immigrant Visa interview transferred to a different consulate for your spouse’s or relative’s protection during the interview process. We see this most frequently done for same-sex marriage cases where it may be dangerous for the immigrant spouse to interview in a country that outlaws homosexuality as there is little privacy where most consulate interviews occur and it would be difficult to contain the purpose of their visit.
- Attorney communication ahead of time with a consulate can also be essential to even avoid smaller issues of inconvenience that sprout up at certain consulates such as notifying the consulate that a medical has been taken so they can find the medical exam results prior to the immigrant visa interview so the application is not needlessly delayed.
- Attorneys can also be helpful in clarifying current procedures and availability for in-person filings of Immigrant Visa and expedite requests with the consulate. Certain consulates accept filings of family-based Immigrant Visas (that lead to a green card for the family member upon entry in the U.S.) directly at the consulate, bypassing the longer USCIS process in the U.S., which saves the immigrant and his or her US citizen spouse a lot of time. But the aggravation remains and needless delays if you don’t know what the specific procedures are at that consulate for acceptance of processing of those applications. An attorney can make inquiries, conduct up to date research with the consulate to make the process as painless, fast, and efficient as possible for you, crucial especially when the couple needs to move to the U.S. quickly.
At SGG, our attorneys regularly prepare our clients for consulate interviews and provide extensive guidance to our clients through the National Visa Center documentation stage, not just file the visa petition with USCIS. We provide our clients with the option of taking them through the entire process to give our clients the best chance of approval and to help alleviate some nervousness in approaching the consulate interview. Our attorneys have worked with consulates all over the world and regularly communicate with posts as well as the Department of State liaisons and Legal Advisory Opinions office. Our attorneys keep up to date on consulate processing and have been appointed to prestigious committees (including Chair of the American Immigration Lawyer’s Association National Department of State Liaison Committee) and one of our attorneys previously worked as a consular officer. We have the insight and the expertise to get results.
For more about our services and how we may help you, check out these pages on detailed issues related to consular processing that we deal with on a regular basis:
Challenging Consulate Decisions on Inadmissibility
Inquiries To Expedite Cases & Safe Third Country Processing
Preparation For Consulate Interview