Usa Visa Renewal

For all the people that think getting a visa renewal in Thailand is tough, at least you don't have to deal with "large Bahamian women with truncheons and tempers." !

This is the story of a British reporter for the BBC, who had to get his American "I-Visa" renewed:

"For the Frei family, the visa policy of the United States has been a mixed blessing.

As a foreign journalist I need to get my I-Visa renewed every five years. In order to do this I have to leave the country.

Since I will continue to do the same job for the same employer in the same city at the same salary, a wholesale family departure from the sovereign territory of the United States seemed a touch excessive.

In fact the only member of our clan who didn't need to leave the US for visa purposes is my daughter Alice. She was born here and has an American passport. We could have told her when to put out the garbage bins, collect the newspapers and pay the utility bills. But she's only three. So she came along too.

Now for the good part. In order to get a US visa renewed you need a prearranged appointment at an American embassy.

Theoretically this can be done in London, Oslo or Beijing. But for us the cheapest, quickest location to get "visaed up" happened to be the Bahamas.

The visa process is bureaucratic and cumbersome, involving at least two interviews and a separate appointment the following day to collect the visas. Allowing for flights from the US the whole process lasts at least three days. Shame!

The tedious part is the three-hour waiting time in the embassy. This demands a suspension of all cell phone activity, monastic silence and a Byzantine queuing system enforced by large Bahamian women with truncheons and tempers.

As legal aliens, we are grilled, finger-printed and retina-scanned -" (he starts going off on illegal immigration into the US at this point).

(Note: The "bolding" and "underlining" of various parts was my doing)

Whole story can be found here:

Washington diary: Seeking a visa

Sheesh, he has to leave ONCE every 5 years. The horror ! The Shame !

He'd better hope the BBC doesn't post him to LOS !