ON "HOLD"

[SBS]

i am confused more

[Dan]

Pending:

This indicates the applicant has been submitted for the namecheck, which is now in process. No status has yet been returned by the investigating agencies, thus it is "pending". At this juncture, neither the Dept of State nor the Consulate can accurately report anything other than the case status. If the applicant's name or other data merits further investigation as deemed by the agency, this status is updated in the database by the investigating agency. This then becomes visible to Dept of State Information personnel, and is thus reflected as "On Hold".

 

"On hold"

On hold does not mean a case is pending at the Consulate in Guangzhou. To wit: "A government agency has placed a hold on the process...". It means one of the investigative agencies has cross-referenced the applicant's name or other related information to an existing case of interest, or one similar in nature, and has stopped the process at that point to verify that the person is, or is not, the one of significance to them. If not, the cross-reference check continues. Once complete by all agencies, an “NR” is entered (No Record) and the applicant’s namecheck is finished and is then forwarded to the Consulate for further visa processing.

 

Period.

 

Guangzhou visa officers may not know of the internal workings of this aspect of the process. Their job duties don't involve them at this level, nor are they required to do so. Thus, the aforementioned lack of knowledge by the visa officer is not at all out of the ordinary and is not cause for concern.

 

Yes, multiple dispositions are forwarded in a group.

 

Source: Internal within the Dept of State ..

 

Further affiant sayeth not.

[Lurker]

I'd be pleased if anyone could post a link to the original post that contained the full message.

Seems to me I've seen the letter on CFL at least twice. I clipped it from here--second post down.

 

And I think Dan's post above sounds right.

[orbitalpunk]

hi,

i have established a good relationship with a officer in GZ and he knows nothing about the "hold" status. nothing of its nature shows up on his screen when he pulls up my case. i dont know how it can be in there hands if they dont see anything remotly refering to "hold" on his screen. am i missing somthing here? is he? everthing i heard points to DOS controlling the ball, not GZ.

[orbitalpunk]

one more thing, i have spoken to Andrew simpkin and Katherin Cabral at CA and they both never mentioned its up to GZ now. just told me my case is on hold from a interagnecy and wont tell me who that agency is. and would not specify any kind of time line or cuase. end of story.

 

talk about a real pisser

[Eric&Yuhui]

Pending:

This indicates the applicant has been submitted for the namecheck, which is now in process.  No status has yet been returned by the investigating agencies, thus it is "pending".  At this juncture, neither the Dept of State nor the Consulate can accurately report anything other than the case status.  If the applicant's name or other data merits further investigation as deemed by the agency, this status is updated in the database by the investigating agency.  This then becomes visible to Dept of State Information personnel, and is thus reflected as "On Hold".

 

"On hold"

On hold does not mean a case is pending at the Consulate in Guangzhou.  To wit: "A government agency has placed a hold on the process...".  It means one of the investigative agencies has cross-referenced the applicant's name or other related information to an existing case of interest, or one similar in nature, and has stopped the process at that point to verify that the person is, or is not, the one of significance to them.  If not, the cross-reference check continues.  Once complete by all agencies, an “NR” is entered (No Record) and the applicant’s namecheck is finished and is then forwarded to the Consulate for further visa processing.

 

Period.

 

Guangzhou visa officers may not know of the internal workings of this aspect of the process.  Their job duties don't involve them at this level, nor are they required to do so.  Thus, the aforementioned lack of knowledge by the visa officer is not at all out of the ordinary and is not cause for concern.

 

Yes, multiple dispositions are forwarded in a group.

 

Source: Internal within the Dept of State ..

 

Further affiant sayeth not.

Agreed. Well said. Period.

 

Thou shall never assume......

[owenkrout]

Adams showed us the screen that he could see in the Excel spreadsheet and at that time he commented that he did not know what the "H" for on hold actually indicated. He sort of half mumbled that he was going to have to investigate that. I think that makes it real clear that the ball is not is GZ's court.

[Mick]

Adams showed us the screen that he could see in the Excel spreadsheet and at that time he commented that he did not know what the "H" for on hold actually indicated.  He sort of half mumbled that he was going to have to investigate that.  I think that makes it real clear that the ball is not is GZ's court.

Exactly! I recall the incident Owen is describing in detail. When I saw the 'H' code on the screen, I asked him more than one time what it meant and he flat out said he didn't know. Now, if the Head of the Immigration Visa Unit does not know, chances are his subordinates don't know either. It is a sorry state of affairs, but that is how it was, at least as of Feb. 10th.

[AZwolfman]

HERE IS A LIST of possible reasons that some Applications Subject to Special Clearance Requirements.

[blennon]

"On hold"

On hold does not mean a case is pending at the Consulate in Guangzhou.  To wit: "A government agency has placed a hold on the process...".  It means one of the investigative agencies has cross-referenced the applicant's name or other related information to an existing case of interest, or one similar in nature, and has stopped the process at that point to verify that the person is, or is not, the one of significance to them.  If not, the cross-reference check continues.  Once complete by all agencies, an “NR” is entered (No Record) and the applicant’s namecheck is finished and is then forwarded to the Consulate for further visa processing.

 

Period.

 

....//clipped//...

 

Further affiant sayeth not.

Agreed. Well said. Period.

 

Thou shall never assume......

Period? More like (open ended): "period, period, period"...

 

Thursday was my day to get feedback from Guangzhou on my "H" status. At the end of the last chapter in this saga, I'd just been told by DOS inquiry that the ball was clearly in Guangzhou's court and not in Washington's.

 

Here's what I heard (learned?) today: Guangzhou DID locate the memo that led to my fiancee's case status change. The memo was coded with a message (or a series of characters?) that indicates it IS on HOLD and that it IS waiting on action from Guangzhou. I'm told specifically, that the memo is coded with a "Please Resubmit Request" code.

 

However... I'm also told that my contact investigated the situtation further: Apparantly, some time in the recent past a video conference was held between Guangzhou and DOS (Could this have been more recent than the one we know was held at the end of December? I need to find out). In any case, the short of the meeting is: I'm told cases like mine are under review with an (undisclosed) agency in Washington... that, for what ever reason... the system is coding my case as a "Please Resubmit" (which is probably why Public Inquiry says "ball is in Guangzhou's court")... but that Guangzhou says they've discussed the scenerio with DOS and "everyone" agrees there is nothing to resubmit (so Guangzhou is doing nothing)... and even though it's coded as "Resubmit", I can be assured that DOS is on top of it. Good grief!! As if I can be assured of anything except more waiting.

 

My contact speculates that my fiancee has a pretty common (romanized) name and that the hold is probably due to a name match. What couldn't be explained was: If it IS a name match issue, why wasn't the hold coded as such?

 

This story is turning from a novel into a pick-a-path book... next chapter:

If DOS says "yeah, we know what GZ is talking about", turn to page 36.

If DOS says "we really are waiting for a resubmit", turn to page 1.

[Mick]

This whole thing is absolutely nuts. I don't know if it is more like a novel by Franz Kafka or Stephen King!

 

Is it possible to start a specific thread where people who are formally "on hold" could list their cases and time lines? Moderators, can this happen? It might be useful to keep track of this info.

[Eric&Yuhui]

This whole thing is absolutely nuts. I don't know if it is more like a novel by Franz Kafka or Stephen King!

 

Is it possible to start a specific thread where people who are formally "on hold" could list their cases and time lines? Moderators, can this happen? It might  be useful to keep track of this info.    

Yes , we need to do that. Absolutely..