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Contact Your Immigration Attorney BEFORE Contacting the US Embassy

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing case processing. We are discussing it during the current restricted situation pertaining to the lockdowns associated with COVID-19 and we are talking about folks who have legal counsel; they have retained an attorney, they are processing their case and for lack of a better term, they go behind their Attorney's back and contact one of the organs of the Immigration process directly. 

For purposes of this video, we are talking about the US Embassy. I am going to go ahead and do it from the standpoint of processing through the US Embassy here in Bangkok, Thailand because we deal with most of our cases out of this Embassy although we deal with other cases for example in Singapore, Cambodia, not so much Laos and Myanmar at present, but we do deal with a fair number of cases in Singapore and Cambodia, occasionally Vietnam but Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore we deal with cases around these areas frequently. I will often find a situation wherein, well I shouldn't say often it just happens occasionally although it is becoming more frequent as people are getting frustrated associated with the wait times that are manifesting themselves in the post-COVID restrictions era and the sort of government apparatus as it is operating as we are moving forward. Things are just not moving overly fast, people are getting frustrated. On top of that it is compounding it because they are going on the internet and they are seeing one person managed to sort of slip something through in one Embassy and managed to get something done; I shouldn't say slip something through but their circumstances warranted a different course of action in their case and other people surmise that that may apply to them when in fact factually their cases are very different. Long story short, folks read the internet or they are looking at processing times and anecdotal evidence from times past and they are conflating that with the situation we are currently dealing with. 

Let me be clear, I understand folks. The interviews were canceled back in March especially here at Bangkok and yes they have started rescheduling them. We have gotten cases through since the rescheduling has been completed. Now they are rescheduling, now the question is "When are they going to start scheduling "new cases"?" New cases coming off National Visa Center. That as of the time of this video remains to be seen. 

The thing to take away from this video, if you go around your Attorney's back for lack of better term, you can do yourself a lot of damage or your case a lot of damage and you may do it inadvertently. You may say something that you may think could have a positive impact on your case but it may have an inadvertently negative impact on your case. Meanwhile, and I have seen this actually happen rather frequently with correspondence where we are dealing directly with the petitioner, usually the American petitioner that is corresponding directly to the Embassy, they think they are saying something positive when in fact "no" and in these cases it is usually been somebody who did this without consulting me first and they said something in a piece of correspondence to the Embassy and the Embassy really latched on to that. Now in most situations, it wasn't something that ultimately caused a denial, it didn't ultimately totally ruin the situation for the case, but it did place at least me on my back foot where I had to go and deal with the Embassy and explain this is what this person meant when they were saying whatever it was that they said. I understand that that can be misconstrued but this is what was being communicated. It is not the negative way that it could be perceived. 

The reason I bring up this video, the reason I am making this video, folks I understand you are getting frustrated out there. Things are moving as quick as they are probably going to move at least under the current foreseeable circumstances. We will be making videos on this channel as the situation progresses but if you have an attorney, if you have a legal professional other than myself this goes for them too. If you have an attorney contact your attorney before contacting an organ of the Immigration apparatus directly. I think you will save yourself a lot of grief and a lot of problems by doing that because failure to do so could result in inadvertently detrimental consequences for your case.