I agree, very lucky. I’ve thought a lot about their initial email and the following emails I’ve had since, and to be honest what they’ve said makes no sense. I’ve even spoke to other kiwis who have taken their documents the day of interview (as per official USCIS instructions) and that was not only fine but whats expected of them. One lady even forgot to take photocopies and they just photocopied them for her. Either they’ve entirely changed the process, or something weird is going on. It makes me wonder if KCC hasn’t forwarded my file to them. If they had, they’d already have the copy of my passport, birth cert, and police certificate. Us kiwis don’t actually get given a copy of an immigration police certificate, it’s emailed directly to the consulate who then forwards it to KCC. It also doesn’t make a lot of sense to expect a citizen to hand over their original hard copy passport and birth certificate to a foreign government for 2 weeks.
After a day of crying and crying and crying, I’ve asked them if I can please bring everything to the original scheduled appointment Monday morning , and we reschedule the interview then. Haven’t heard back since then so I will just turn up to my interview and just hope they allow me to progress with my visa. What an absolute nightmare huh!
I’m sorry for this horrible shock. Embassies can and do change rules year to year (has anyone interviewed in Auckland this year yet for DV?) so yes it may be new. To play devils advocate:
- there are no “official uscis instructions“ for embassies. Each embassy has its own methods and procedures. Some only want them on day of, but there are an increasing number around the world who want documents ahead of the interview.
- now - the “submit supporting documents” page
https://travel.state.gov/content/tr...ersity-visa-prepare-supporting-documents.html tells you to check each embassy for embassy specific instructions. The link to the Auckland page from there does say that the documents need to be brought to the embassy the week before the interview
https://travel.state.gov/content/tr...lements/Supplements_by_Post/ACK-Auckland.html However, this also says you can bring it any M-F 8-12 the week before - so not sure where the F 8:30am deadline comes from - and it also does not give the full DV list - so not sure if you can use this as an argument for
some leeway in meeting their requirememts
- if you look at the list they gave you, they ask for things like passport photos and originals of documents which KCC did not have and could not forward, as well as things not required by KCC. You have to submit these anyway for the visa so yes it does “make sense” that they ask them for checking beforehand.
I’m assuming they are asking these in advance either to ensure applicants are serious about interview (in the past there were often no-shows), or to properly assess all relevant factors of the case ahead of interview, or both.
ok that’s the devils advocate stuff. Not intended to be harsh. But it’s not a “no sense“ request. (To anyone reading this,
please make sure you check your own embassy page for specific instructions, which may be both different to other embassies and to itself in previous years.)
I’m also assuming you aren’t in Auckland already or could have done an emergency drive with all of that to the consulate. Hopefully you can get them to let you in Monday but if not, that you get it sorted out and get a reschedule. Luckily there is still plenty of time left in the FY and you are at a pretty quiet embassy so if you do need to reschedule, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Good luck.
