US visa services: Anything but 'indifferent' By James F Moriarty Source: Kantipuronline.com 2006-08-17 02:30:56 A recent column on applying for a US visa ("Visa & empire of indifference" by Abhi Subedi, Aug 9, 2006) sparked a wave of letters to the editor agreeing with the author's observations and sometimes offering their own interpretations of why some applicants are denied visas. As my country's envoy to Nepal, I wish to weigh in on this discussion. First things first: The US Mission to Nepal is anything but "indifferent" to the thousands of Nepali applicants who annually seek visas to visit the United States. Our Consular section regularly conducts public outreach - through media and especially to student audiences - to explain our visa process and warn applicants to avoid paying unnecessary fees to unscrupulous "consultants" who falsely claim they can secure a US visa. Working with colleagues from the US Educational Foundation in Nepal (the Fulbright Commission), the Consular Section is holding just such a session for students in our American Center Library this today afternoon. And speaking of students, Nepal had 4,861 studying in the US in 2004-2005. This was almost an 11 percent increase over 2003-2004. According to the Institute of International Education, Nepal ranked 23rd in the world among nations sending students to study in the US. We welcome this development, and it's worth noting our consular officers in Nepal helped these young people by interviewing and issuing visas to them. During the people's movement in April, when we had to close our Consular section because of security concerns, our Mission dispatched two consular officers for several weeks to our Embassy in New Delhi to help those Nepali applicants who needed a visa urgently. There was no requirement that we do this. Our Consular chief - displaying the opposite of indifference - proposed this step as a helpful customer service, and I immediately endorsed it. Moreover, after the Consular section reopened in early May, it went into overdrive to conduct more than 1,000 interviews in a single week to ensure applicants would not face extended waits for an appointment for an interview. Interviewing and adjudicating visa applications are difficult tasks and, as the original column on this topic noted, "The reality is that no country can give [a] visa to every applicant." Our consular officers work hard to treat each applicant with fairness and respect. Yet they do so within the framework of the US Immigration and Naturalization Act, passed by our Congress. This law charges every consular officer to assume that every visa applicant is an intending immigrant - unless the applicant can convince the officer otherwise. This means that if an applicant for a student or other non-immigrant visa is actually seeking to "flee the turbulent 'motherland'," as mentioned in the original column, then the applicant is misrepresenting his or her purpose and must be denied. While every applicant can re-apply for a visa, our Consular section recommends they wait until their life circumstances have changed before doing so. Our consular officers regularly advise refused applicants what they can do to improve their chances to receive a visa in the future. If a denied applicant follows this advice and reapplies with success, we welcome this result. Still, we caution denied applicants that, in most cases, significant time and a change in one's life circumstances are required for this to happen. I can assure your readers that, when it comes to issuing visas, there is no "indifference" on our part. We seek to facilitate exchanges of all kinds between Nepal and the United States, and our issuance of US visas is central in this process. We take this responsibility seriously, and strive to make the process as transparent and fair as possible. But it is hard work. Our small Consular section - six officers - conducted more than 17,000 interviews for all types of non-immigrant visas in 2005. These numbers will likely increase in 2006. This means consular officers must work hard to come to the correct decision regarding issuance of a visa as quickly as possible. As Ambassador, I take a keen interest in our Consular section's operation. I am proud of the work of its Nepali and American staff. Day in and day out, they perform a first-rate job. Yet, like most of us, our staff know they are not perfect and welcome opportunities to improve their performance. They know mistakes can occasionally happen. This appears to have been the case in the application by Professor Subedi, long a cultural contact of our American Center, and we regret it. (The writer is the US Ambassador to Nepal.) Posted on: 2006-08-17 02:30:56