Video tape

[HKG]

Think of the positive possibilities for the couples and the government.

[sweattrl1]

i am totaly in the dark on this post? fill me in what did i miss

[LeeFisher3]

i am totaly in the dark on this post? fill me in what did i miss

You don't wanna know, but we used to solve bigger problems in Chat in a single evening.

 

How ya been?

[HKG]

i am totaly in the dark on this post? fill me in what did i miss

 

This is not my idea, but an Immigration Attorney's his name is Angelo Paparelli. I thought it was a good idea, so I passed it along. This is what he has to say about Video Recording the interview.

 

"Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, could declare that all visa interviews by American consular officers would be video-recorded. This would help in two important ways. The federal government would capture biometric data on every interviewed applicant, thereby improving national security, and every consular officer (knowing that the interview could be viewed by superiors in Washington and by Congress) would have a (now-nonexistent) inducement to be fair in posing questions and allowing answers."

[georgeandli]

Along the lines of tape recording confessions and squad car cameras?

[IllinoisDave]

Cost prohibitive.

[georgeandli]

Come on, Dave. That's the same arguement the police used to fight having things taped. If cameras on the streets and red light cameras are okay, then why not on both sides?

[warpedbored]

I think this is a very good idea. Many of our members have written accounts of VOs that overstep their authority. Some examples, a young couple who were of legal age to marry and had no reasons to be denied were denied because the VO decided they were too young, one man's fianc¨¦e was given a blue slip then hit on by the VO, another man's wife who was recovering from breast cancer was taken into a separate room and badgered by two VOs until she was so stressed out she became ill. The list goes on and on.

[LeeFisher3]

It would be great for the reasons Carl mentioned, the only downside would be the court cases created. There would probably need to be an entire division of the Judicial established to handle the court cases during the first year and the expense of that would become extreme.

 

I seriously doubt DOS will make any move in this direction as it places their authority as reviewable and those folks don't want to be accountable to anyone.

[Daviation]

Cost prohibitive.

 

Are you kidding me?

 

Can you say $787 Billion??? Actually it is multiple trillion$, but we won't go into that here...

 

Take some of Dingy Harry's pork for the Vegas to Coast train (or any of the other billions in pork) and put it to some good use.

[rogerinca]

Come on, Dave. That's the same arguement the police used to fight having things taped. If cameras on the streets and red light cameras are okay, then why not on both sides?

 

 

I think the argument would be made and won by DOS and Dept of Homeland Security, that taping of these types of interviews and interaction between a VO and the foreign national, seeking to gain admittance to the US, could compromise the system, and provide advantage to those (professional groups) who work so hard to figure out methods to circumvent the controls in place designed to prevent visa fraud.

 

And, as I have pointed out before, when it comes to the relatively few negative stories one reads about here (or hears about second or third hand) we are only hearing that side of the story. You never hear the 'rest of the story', as might be told by those (USCIS,FBI/NVC,GUZ/DOS) that have reviewed the specific case and backgrounds/details of both the petitioner and the beneficiary.

[georgeandli]

But that is exactly why it would work, rogerinca. In the cases the VO oversteps the boundaries and mandates of the job, then let them have a additional hearing/review at the consulate with applicant, petitioner and VO with a supervisor. I'm only talking of denials. The video need never leave the consulate. Unless it was leaked from there how could it be used to circumvent the system? Maybe I'm overly sensitive about the issue. After being told I was either looking for a payday or my SO was scamming me for the green card, neither of which IMHO was acceptable, well sorry.

[HKG]

 

 

 

I think the argument would be made and won by DOS and Dept of Homeland Security, that taping of these types of interviews and interaction between a VO and the foreign national, seeking to gain admittance to the US, could compromise the system, and provide advantage to those (professional groups) who work so hard to figure out methods to circumvent the controls in place designed to prevent visa fraud.

 

And, as I have pointed out before, when it comes to the relatively few negative stories one reads about here (or hears about second or third hand) we are only hearing that side of the story. You never hear the 'rest of the story', as might be told by those (USCIS,FBI/NVC,GUZ/DOS) that have reviewed the specific case and backgrounds/details of both the petitioner and the beneficiary.

 

What you say about not hearing the otherside(USCIS,FBI/NVC,GUZ/DOS) is exactly the maddening point of this whole process, if they came about and gave the hard reason for a denial, instead of a vague and subjective one, then all involved could be at rest. What interaction is going on, in this interview that would compromise the system, are lights flashing on and off, is the person being interviewed treated like someone in Guantonomo? In finding the truth it is not the light that hurts but the darkness that is being dispersed. A video or even a tape recording would go a long way in leveling the playing field in an interview.

[georgeandli]

HKG, I'm not looking to "level" the playing field. The only thing I would hope to accomplish is to hold GUZ[DOS, whatever government entity] to the standards in the books. Their rules and regulations, nothing more nothing less. I don't have an axe to grind. In hind sight I will say if I were a VO I would have had doubts also. But that is not because I didn't read the government info. It's because I didn't research[google] and find CFL until after my NOID. If you go purely by the regulations you run the risk of not reaching an unwritten standard.

[HKG]

HKG, I'm not looking to "level" the playing field. The only thing I would hope to accomplish is to hold GUZ[DOS, whatever government entity] to the standards in the books.

 

What you are saying is what I mean by leveling the playing field and I think this is what Paparelli means when he says a video would have a (now-nonexistent) inducement to be fair in posing questions and allowing answers."