US VISAS What a great system

[donald36]

As a Brit living in Thailand with a Thai wife have usually, with good reason, dreaded visa applications --for the UK you are messed about with handling agents(who half the time dont know what they are doing) and queuing endlessly, then unless you pay a ridiculous amount of money have to do it each time you want to go ,the Spanish embassy for a Schengen visa was perhaps worse, hostile and unhelpful and uncaring as to the number of visits and amount of trouble you had to go to to get a visa to visit their crappy little country
And now the USA -naturally after 9/11 I thought this would be almost impossible but not so
You start with an on line application which was perfectly straightforward and I have limited computer skills which were tested by the successful uploading of a photo to accompany the application --this is sent on line to the Embassy ,then purchase of a pin number -again straightforward and then you make an on line interview request which gives you choices-- booked on line and 3 weeks later we turned up or i should say my wife did for the interview ,yes it took the morning but she was interviewed by an American who spoke and understood Thai ,did not need endless paperwork to prove everything --in fact all they required was the passport, but my wife did take a holiday itinerary and my passport with her ,a few sensible questions to establish she was married and had visited the UK on several occasions and then 2 days later a visa in the post which best of all is for 10 years so if and when we want to go again no visa hassle
The USA deserves to get tourists visiting ,it should not be an obstacle course and their system proves that it can be effective,and user friendly

[dirtydog]

The USA deserves to get tourists visiting

You wait till they pull you aside saying you fit the profile and stick their arms up your bum

[S Landreth]

Enjoy yourself. I suggest New York or Miami. You (or your wife) might not want to go back home after visiting.

[Carrabow]

I hope you like it and enjoy yourself. Let them know I wont be going back home any time soon as a matter of fact; ever if I can help it

[toslti]

You have yet to meet the TSA.....

[Davis Knowlton]

OP: Nice to hear a positive report. I have had to go to the Embassy twice in the past few months to get documents notarized, and their new on-line system has been terrific.

[Carrabow]

You have yet to meet the TSA.....

Yeah, BF would love that job. You get to look in all those discriminating places

[Lorenzo]

New York City gets 50 million visitors a year, three times the whole of Thailand.

About 3 weeks ago some British hag was singled out as the 50 millionth

[S Landreth]

^By New Year's Eve, New York expected to have made history by snaring more than 50 million tourists in one year, considerably surpassing a deadline that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg set early in his administration for 2015 and then moved up to the end of 2012.

nice place to visit! New York takes lead as tourism destination - latimes.com

[Carnwadrick]

Of course your wife owns her home, has a good job, maybe her own business, kids in school or college, money in the bank etc. She has been to the UK a couple of times so appears a good risk that she will return home. It sounds like it was a easy visa app. not always the case for us US residents trying to bring our Thai GF or wifes to the US, since I only had a green card (permanent US residence) it took me four years to get my wife a visa, I had to become a citizen before they granted her visa even then it took over a year.

[crocodilexp]

It sounds like it was a easy visa app. not always the case for us US residents trying to bring our Thai GF or wifes to the US, since I only had a green card (permanent US residence) it took me four years to get my wife a visa, I had to become a citizen before they granted her visa even then it took over a year.

U.S. visas & immigration policy is a horrible mess.

It's helpful to know there are two vast bureaucracies implementing it: State Department/Embassies (in charge of visas) and Department of Homeland Security/USCIS (in charge of immigration petitions).

For the K1/K3 visas (seems like that's what you did), you're stuck between both agencies, and it takes forever. I know people who had to involve yet another bureaucracy (the Federal court system) just to make papers move along between the two.

It's good to hear that straightforward tourist visa applications like OP's are... straightforward.