Like many of you in Ottawa, and in other large cities in Canada, I had seen lines of people waiting outside US Embassies or Consulates holding packets of papers. Today I joined the line to find out for myself what people experience when they come to our Embassy for consular services. For U.S. citizens this typically means coming for passports or other documents and for non-Americans it means visas. (Generally, Canadians do not need visas to go to the U.S. So most of our consular work in Canada is for people from third countries who are here in Canada and who need US visas.) Consular services are the aspect of our work that most directly impacts people’s lives.

In responses to my blog, many of you have asked me several questions about our consular services. I wanted to see what “applicants” see. So I became an applicant for the day. I went through the security screen, which is similar to the screening at airports. I saw where people pay the required fees and where they are interviewed by the American consular officers. I even took part in a brief interview myself. Although the consular process is rigorous, the consular staff made every effort to be friendly, efficient, and thorough.

While I was in the waiting room, I saw several applicants who did not complete the process because they had not followed all of the instructions they received or had not brought with them all the necessary documents. The consular staff has asked me to remind all applicants to carefully follow the instructions they receive and to come prepared with all the information and documents requested. The staff also pointed out that we maintain a special consular services website that contains a wealth of information about passports, visas, and the other consular services that our offices offer:
http://www.consular.canada.usembassy.gov/
I was impressed by the organization of our consular operations. The consular staff process visas for applicants from over 160 countries, allowing thousands of people to visit, study, and work in the U.S. I’m glad we play our part in facilitating the travel between our two countries that is the lifeblood of our relationship.

DJ.

Tags: Canada, Consular Services, Ottawa, Passports, United States of America, Visas

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 5:06 pm and is filed under November 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.