H1B Stamping Experience - PIMS Delay

I got this update from Amit on Jan 3rd, 2009 who emailed me his recent experience in Tijuana about H1B Stamping. Here is his experience in his own words. Amit, thanks for your update and helping others.

Our Visa stamping experience in Tijuana, Mexico.
Key words: Bad experience Tijuana Mexico embassy consulate H1B visa stamping PIMS delay border

Initially I was very apprehensive about my wife going to Tijuana or anywhere in MX for her H1B renewal stamp. But after reading on various sites, official and blogs and talking to a few people, I thought the stamping in Tijuana and the related processes and logistics are smooth and well streamlined. Even after going through some 25 - 30 postings about the stamping there, not a single one had anything negative about it. A few of them talked about the new PIMS verification. Please read about it and understand it.

Everything seemed allright. So she took an appointment for 18th Dec 08, a Thursday morning. We were hoping for it to be a daylong affair but it turned out to be a 5-day ordeal. Here's the summary of how things work there.

- You drive to the US border. It's around 15 - 20 mi from the San Diego.
- If you are driving, park your car on the US side of the border. To drive into Mexico, you need some special insurance.
- There are 2 revolving doors. You walk through them, along with 50 - 100 others and HOLA!!!, you are in Mx.
- There are cab drivers, yellow cabs, right at the border and they know you are there for the visa. Your first stop is Banamex and they'll take you there for 5 - 6 bucks. The bank location has changed recently, so it'll help if you take the right address. My wife was dropped at the old one and she ended up running to the new one, 15 mins before her appointment.
- After paying the fees, walk to the consulate. It's around a 10-minute walk.
- Around your appointment time, you are asked to be in a specific line. They call you in, ask for a couple of docs. May be a few questions and you are done in 5 mins.
- Make sure you are not carrying anything metallic. Cell phones are old story. My wife was asked to remove the hook on the security badge she has to wear to work to get access to various buildings. The badge was in her folder and apparently she could have caused some serious damage to the security personnel and others there.
- Unless you are missing documents or there is something special about your case, you are asked to collect your passport around 3.00 pm.
- IF, again IF, you get your passport back, you can take one of those yellow cabs back to the border for 8 - 10 bucks.
- There you get into a separate line to get a new I-94, which might take upto 2 - 3 hrs sometimes.


Coming back to our case, after her interview of 5 mins, we thought her visa was approved and all they had to do is print the stamp and return the passport. In the mean time, you can hang out at the mall opposite the banamex. It was a pretty crowded place and looked safe as well. She returned at 3.00 ish and waited till 5.00. They told her, along with a few others, that her visa wasn't stamped because, and I quote "It's stuck in the system, or the system is down. Hence it won’t print".
When I received a call from her, I booked a room at Camino Real (http://www.caminoreal.com/espanol/index.html ), It's a good hotel, a little pricey but it's less than 10 mins walking distance from the consulate and area seemed safe, atleast in day light. Though you might hear a lot of police/ambulance sirens throughout the day. For around $110, we booked a room there. The next day she called them at 9.00 and was told that it's "Still stuck in the system" and that she should call at noon. She then made a huge mistake of calling them at 11.45 instead of noon. She was reminded, firmly, that she was asked to call at noon and not 11.45 am. People are very rude, but then that's true about almost all people working in a US consulate anywhere in the world.

Nothing at noon, and nothing at 3.00 and still nothing at 5.00 pm. Every time she asked for details, all she was told is "It's stuck in the system. If you ask any more questions, they'll point to the board, which says, the whole process may take up to 24 - 48 hours. They even refused to let us talk to the officer who, they claimed, was working on her case.

We live in the SF bay area. I had already flown into San Diego and once it was clear that it wont happen even Fri evening, I went to Tijuana and extended our stay at the hotel. Since I had heard there was a lot of gang activity in Tijuana, we decided to take a cab next morning to Rosarito, which is around 30 - 60 mins by cab, (~$20 - 25). Another option was Real Del Mar, a town 15 - 30 mins drive south of Tijuana. Rosarito is a popular beach destination in summer and hence a lot safer than Tijuana.

After a forced weekend vacation, we came back Monday morning to Tijuana. We got the same answer when we called them at 9.00 am. During the weekend, we had noted down some phone numbers in the US like the INS, Visa and Passport authority etc. I managed to talk to someone (after a 12 - 15 mins hold time). This person was able to answer all our questions. He pulled up her record based on her 797-receipt number. He said that having a 797 and the morning interview at the consulate does not mean your visa is approved. The following is how it works and this is solely based on my best understanding of the limited explanation this rep gave me on the phone.
- When one applies for a visa, the consulate sends approval requests to 3 - 4 departments.
- Only after all of them have approved the request, the consulate people are able to print the visa. In her case, one of them had not approved it yet. He refused to give us the reason for the delay (some security reason) but assured us about someone in the background working on it.
- He also mentioned that if we ask for the passport back, they HAVE TO return it immediately. Though without the renewal stamp, she can only go back to the country of her citizenship, India in our case. Or wait for a few some more time in MX.
- When asked about how much time it'll take, he said he didn’t want to speculate coz it might take 5 mins, a week, a month or more. As unpleasant as it sounded, we atleast had some answers.

We started looking for tickets to India at some Internet cafe in that nearby mall. If we didn’t get the visa that day and the next, the consulate might be closed for a day or 2 for Christmas. So we prepared ourselves for the worst.
It was only around 11.50 am and we DARE NOT call them a minute before noon. Else they might use their SPECIAL powers vested in them by the INS to cause us unimaginable harm. Well, at least they seem to think that way from the way they behave. So after waiting for all the hands on the watch to get into perfect vertical alignment, and a minute more we called them again. Though this time, we heard what we wanted to. She picked up her passport and we rushed back to the border. As I said above, she got into a separate line for a new I-94, which meant we could skip the normal line, a couple of miles long. After around an hour or so, we walked back into US.

Our poor planning, and the expectation of the best case scenario, was going to hurt us further more. The car rental , which was to be for a day but had to extended to 5, cost us $200 total for that. She had parked the car at some mall very close to the border. What we didn’t know is that the cars left there overnight are towed. So we paid another $400 to get the car back. And then book one-way tickets from SD to SFO. And given the way things turned out for us, our return tickets were a LOT MORE than $60.

So here are the things we learnt from those 5 days and I hope it helps others plan it better than we did.
- For most of the people it does happen in a day, but NOT FOR everyone. Apart from my wife, I met 2 other desis who were stuck. Another guy with her got it Fri afternoon. And she also mentioned seeing another Asian girl there since Thursday. So that's almost 10 - 15% of the people who applied. Hence a contingency plan, about what to do if you are in that 15%, will help a lot.
- For precisely that reason, renting a car and parking at the border is not the best idea. There is a Jack-in-the-Box where you can park for $5 a day. May be they'll let your car be there until you are back. But the mall will definitely get it towed if it's parked there overnight.
- I don’t know if that was the main reason for the delay, but make sure your PIMS verification is done prior to your arrival at the consulate. I did call the consulate asking them to send her data for PIMS verification and she said she did. You can get some information here. http://www.murthy.com/news/n_pimsvu.html
- If possible, try taking an appointment in the earlier part of the week. That’ll reduce the chances of a spending a weekend there.


This piece was not intended to scare anyone, but just to get you better informed and help you plan a little more thoroughly that what we did.