Consular Efficiency

Guest post by Jade Stocks, rising 2L from Chapman University, Fowler School of Law

The American consulate in Tijuana stands atop a hill on the outskirts of town, overlooking the rest of the city.  The grounds – updated from lush grass to drought friendly succulents and rocks several years ago – are beautiful and meticulously maintained.  Every aesthetic element inside and out is designed to project a positive image of America- clean, simple, elegant and efficient. 

But efficiency is the theme that runs through the entire consulate, not just the landscaping.  With officers conducting between 400 and 1,000 appointments for non-immigrant visas each day (111,000 so far this year), streamlining is key.  Interviews are generally finished in 90 seconds to two minutes – five minutes for the most complicated cases.  Each applicant is initially treated with the presumption that they intend to immigrate to the United States.  They have these 90 seconds to meet the burden of proof required to show otherwise. 

Officers are given broad discretion over what questions to ask to determine whether to approve a visa request, but a supervisor reviews 20% of decisions at random to make sure her staff’s decisions are consistent with each other – they don’t want two people in the same situation to be given two different decisions.  Generally, however, the line of questioning involves determining what their travel plans are and whether they have strong ties in Mexico that would indicate the likelihood of them returning home. 

All of this in aid of the most efficient visa processing possible.

-posted by KitJ on behalf of Jade Stocks