This guide comes as an advice to those that ignore details in the DV process. Never ignore Embassy DV Instructions, you should know that by doing simple mistakes, simply by ignoring things can be very detrimental.
How a Woman Almost Missed Her Green Card Visa
Recently, someone shared her interview on the internet. She spoke very well of how by doing very slight mistake on one of the documents, ended her being put to 221G visa refusal, that is administrative processing for more than eight months.
She was put under 221G for more than eight months. She did the interview in January and was put to AP until September the 22nd, 2023. This is what happened.
She is a single lady with kids and she applied a single and was selected and she won. Then she filled the DS-260 form, including the details of her kids and submitted.
In the process of waiting for the second notification letter (2NL), she gathered information and she came to realize that she will need a consent letter for the kids from their father.
She had a low case number, so she was expecting the interview very early in the fiscal year.
She got the information that she needed the consent letter and she went ahead to organize for one. She liased with the father of her kids and the father was so willing. They went ahead to the court and they signed the consent letter prepared by a lawyer. The lawyer prepared the letter and then presented to the father to sign that he consents the kids to immigrate with the lady.
She has this document together with other documents. The second notification letter comes and then she scheduled for the interview in the month of January 2023, and then she goes ahead for the medical examination, pays all the fees required in the medical examinations. Then she proceeds to the interview on the interview date.
During the interview, she goes through the processes with the consular officer, and then she gets the visa refusal, 221G.
She is told that your interview is successful, but there is some problem with this document, the consent letter.
On the consent letter, the lawyer, instead of putting, immigrating with the kids, the lawyer had put traveling with the kids. There’s a difference between those two terms.
There is traveling, meaning moving with the kids from one country to the other freely, going to and back from the country, that is traveling. Immigrating means moving with the kids out of the country to go and relocate to a new country and live there.
In other words, to immigrate is to come and live in that country, that new country. So there was that mistake. The lawyer put traveling with instead of immigrating with.
The consular officer at the embassy pointed out that mistake and then told the lady that we will put you to 221G visa refusal and presented the yellow document circling that statement saying “the consent letter”.
Then she was told to go and get the consent letter corrected and that’s what she did. Within three days, she had corrected the consent letter and then sent it back to the embassy through the DHL.
After some time, she wrote to the embassy to confirm whether they had received the consent letter, and the embassy responded that they had received and they are now doing the administrative processing. They are going through the document. But this did not happen so soon. It did not happen so quickly. It was not fast.
They processed this document not for one month or two months or three months, not even for six months or seven. It was over eight months, and this lady was almost giving up because she had written to the embassy follow-up emails many times. Sending the follow-up email regarding the two-to-one visa refusal, but she was not successful.
She did the interview on January, and she waited for up to September towards the end of the fiscal year, 22nd of September, just few days to the end of that year.
Remember, that this year, DV-2023, it ended so early, even before the 30th of September. You can imagine the tension that she was in because of that slight error.
Lesson to Know
The simple details that you need to do and to follow to the letter, if you ignore, you have yourself to blame. Because this lady followed all the procedures to get the document, but only a slight mistake almost cost her the visa.
So every simple instruction given, if the embassy request you for the affidavit of support and you don’t have and you end up being put to 221G, you never know how long that case might take to be solved.
In fact, there are 221G visa refusals that are dealt with within a week or two weeks. But there are others that take months. Others, the fiscal year ends even without processing them, and those individuals, they end up not getting their visas just due to simple mistakes, ignoring the instructions.
So the point here is, avoid at all costs being thrown into AP processing. Avoid at all costs the 221G visa refusal. Don’t dare, because you don’t know how long your case might take if you are put to 221G visa refusal.
That was just a narration to clearly outline that there are things that you might ignore and seems to you very simple, but might end up denying you your visa. You need to be cautious.
It would be better you be over prepared than being less prepared and be thrown on 221G visa refusal.
Question: can you denied a visa if you lack to proof or produce police clearance certificate?
Answer: Yes indeed, you certainly will be denied because it’s one of the required documents.
Thank you for reading this guide, I wish you all the best. Please get prepared.
DISCLAIMER: This post and content is designed for general information only and is NOT legal advice. This site is not offering any Diversity Visa and is not the official site for DV Lottery program. The information presented in this post should not be construed to be formal legal advice.