Updated Apr 8, 2008:  The Dignity Foundation that specializes in catering to Senior Citizens has picked this post to be published in their magazine Dignity Dialogue. Thank you Dignity Foundation. We are honored.

The nightmare that it was

Obtaining a visa to the USA, be it any category, has to be amongst the most tortuous, most bureaucratic of processes we have come across. Obtaining what would be termed a routine tourist/business visa (B1/B2 as the US calls it) was utterly dreadful. I remember the first time, in 1991, i got the B1 visa, i had to stand in the queue outside the embassy building in Mumbai starting at the crack of dawn. There was not even a place to sit while we waited. Later in 1996, when i got a B1, this time in Chennai, again i had to stand outside the embassy in chennai’s blazing heat. Ditto for my H1 as well. Priya Raju also had the same experiences.

Once when the embassy officials were questioned on this treatment meted out, they claimed that the Indian citizens were standing outside the embassy of their own volition and was not required by the process. Of course, they conveniently did not discuss the point that they let in only a small number of people every day for the visa process (daily quota). That is what forced everyone to start assembling in the queue to try to get into the embassy. There was no concept of an apppointment system then!

Problems at the Port of Entry

In addition to this whole bureaucratic visa regime, we got the dirty looks, aggressive questioning at the hands of the immigration officials at the port of entry almost every time we entered the USA after a holiday. These happened even when we had a legit H1 visa (work permit). These events forced us to get the Green Card (Permanent Resident Permit). I don’t even want to begin getting into the kind of multi-year form-filling bureaucratic process that it was. But once we got it, atleast the harassment at the immigration counter stopped mostly.

Now that it is little more than 2 years since we came back, we decided that our transition to India was complete and we no longer needed our Green Cards. We decided to give it up and obtain a B1/B2 tourist visa to goto the USA to meet friends and family in Priya’s case and for work reasons (business discussions/meetings) in my case.

Since Priya has stopped working and is now into volunteering, i decided to try my luck first. I went through my office immigration dept, since i figured they must have a better system in place for businesses.

The New Process

I was pleasantly surprised, when i was told that, i just needed to fill a form online at the VFS USA website.
Before i filled the form online, i needed the receipt number of the visa fee paid in advance at the HDFC Bank. Since the office had given me that info, i filled the form easily, took a print out, picked the appointment time, which surprisingly was available the following week. I had a 2.15pm appointment, and i reached the embassy at 1.45pm just to give myself some cushion and i found people waiting, who had 3pm or later appointments. I couldn’t help recalling the embassy statement that people were assembling of their own volition!

I got in, stood in a few more queues all in airconditioned comfort, met one of the embassy officials around 330PM or so, got the visa and came out. What a breeze compared to 12 years ago.

Priya Raju tries her hand

In the next 2 weeks, Priya Raju decided to undergo the same process, submitted the form online, picked the date/time. She did this on her own because she does not work for my company any more. I didn’t want Priya to stand in the hot sun even for the 30 min that I did. I did some investigation and I was told that VFS USA, the site i pointed to, was selling a 200 Rs (4 USD) lounge coupon. This coupon allows the usage of a AC lounge, with a Cafe Coffee Day sandwich/coffee thrown in and best of all, they drive the visa applicant directly to the embassy right before the interview time slot. Once the applicant finishes the process, VFS USA drives the applicant back to the lounge. Priya was able to finish the process quickly like I did, with the additional comfort of not standing in the sun. Not to mention, that the USA embassy officials were very friendly. They were cracking jokes or making light hearted banter. Things could not be better for the USA embassies.

The 200 Rs for this convenience is a steal and we wholeheartedly recommend this, especially for senior citizens who travel a lot to the USA these days. VFS USA staff were also very friendly and helpful.

Since we have traveled to many countries, i wanted to give you all some comparison points. I am only talking about tourist visas, because i don’t have comparison points for work permits issued by countries other than USA and UAE.

Here is our rankings of the tourist visa regimes (of course, this only includes the countries we have visited so far):

1. USA’s current B1/B2 regime – the current online process is head and shoulders above all the countries listed below. None of the countries below use a online based process like the USA.

2. Switzerland – we didn’t need a visa to go here since we had a USA green card. How smart of the Swiss.

3. UK – typically a day’s job without any cumbersome documentation requirements

4. Canada – same as the UK

5. Norway – same day (Schengen Visa system) process. very friendly people at the embassy.

6. Peru – same day process, while the embassy had the third worldly looks, the process was quite smooth.

7. UAE – visa on arrival. quite smooth.

8. Italy – cumbersome documentation requirements, including 3 year tax returns, documents in triplicate etc. The officials gave us back our passports after 6 days. To top it, the officials were very openly proud that they had returned it in 6 days instead of the usual 7 days!

9. Greece – cumbersome documentation requirements, including 3 year tax returns, documents in triplicate etc. The officials were keeping piles of passports stacked in the office giving me and Priya the scares. And we had to go to the embassy multiple number of times. The instructions on the web did not match the real requirements and when we objected strenously they waived off a few of the requirements.

10. Egypt – cumbersome documentation requirements, including 3 year tax returns, documents in triplicate etc. In what is the funniest visa episode so far, the Egyptians wanted an authorized leave letter from my company before they would issue the visa!

11. Ecuador – we travelled to Ecuador in 2003 christmas. Based on the tour program we needed a 10 day visa. We were shocked when they told us the strangest thing we have encountered – if we needed a 10 day visa, they can only issue it 10 days before the travel date. I am not sure i have still understood what their law was. But it was the scariest thing then – since it was Christmas time, they also had an upcoming holiday 2 days before christmas all the way to 2 days after new year. Going by the calendar then, there was only one working day when we could obtain the visa and by their process they could only give us 8 days visa. We decided to take it eventhough it meant overstaying on the visa by their own regulations! I think this is by far the strangest visa regime we have encountered. Any way, when we exited Ecuador, no one cared that we had overstayed a couple of days.

Please don’t harass the tourists

If you look at some of the regimes we describe above, it is clear that these countries harass the tourist visa applicants. Little do they realize that the tourists spend a lot of money in their countries and keep their economy booming. I would urge these countries to design processes that don’t encumber the legitimate tourists under the guise of catching miscreants. If you don’t trust your own embassy officials to catch the miscreants without making the process arduous for everyone, it reflects poorly on your country and forces passionate travellers like us to avoid coming to your country. If a lot of us decide to avoid your country, it would be a huge loss for your economy.

Now a few words to my favorite country (other than India) in the world – the USA:

1. Thank you very much for cleaning up the B1/B2 process so much and making the process pleasurable for us instead of the nightmare that it was.

2. Please consider instructing your Immigration Officials at the port of entry to be kind to the people that come in. If your real objective is to find miscreants, harassing everyone that comes in, is not the solution. You should rather use software and other sophisticated systems to filter out the miscreants for you. No one minds being asked a few questions by the immigration officials, but no other country that we have visited harassed us at the port of entry. In fact officials in other countries were extra pleasant to us. [In Ecuador, where we found their visa process to be bad, they were the most pleasant that we have seen so far.] This is doubly strange because we did go through your Government’s process and obtained the visa legitimately. Don’t you think this reflects poorly on the whole process you have set up for visas?

Readers, please chime in with your opinions, good or bad about tourist visa regimes.