KIMONE THOMPSON, Observer staff reporter thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com
Thursday, July 24, 2008

Visa applicants outside the United States Embassy in Liguanea, Kingston. (Observer file photo)

SEVERAL Jamaicans applying for non-immigrant United States visas have been waiting for up to four months - roughly 120 days - to secure inter-view appointments, raising new questions about the security of the embassy's online non-immigrant visa (NIV) system.

The typical wait time to schedule interviews is six weeks or 45 days, according to the State Department's website, but in recent months, Jamaicans have been waiting for months on end without being able to secure spots. Part of the problem, based on information gathered from travel agents and individual applicants, is that the embassy only makes dates
available in small batches at a time.

"For the past three months, we have not done any (appointments)," general manager of Great Vacations Ltd, Paula Carnegie, told the Observer.

"The dates haven't been opening up, then all of a sudden, you look and they are filled and we're on the system constantly so we don't know how. We've never had this experience before," she said from her office in Ocho Rios.
It's frustrating her clients, she said, but from the looks of things, the frustration might last a while longer - at least until the embassy figures out exactly what is wrong and tightens the security features of the NIV system.

A source told the Observer that dates were only being made available to visa applicants in small increments in an attempt to lock persons with ulterior motives out of the system.
"It appears that the system is being hacked into and that dates are being sold," the source said.

And what apparently got the consular officers suspicious was the fact that, according to the source, "a lot of people weren't showing up for their appointments".

Though it may seem far-fetched in terms of the high-level security measures employed by the embassy, hacking is a very real possibility, says a Kingston-based IT expert who used to work with the US Customs Department.

"A system is only foolproof until somebody breaks it," he said. "Unless I look at their system I couldn't say for sure what the weaknesses are. It depends on what they are using to encrypt the passwords. It could also be a flaw in the code or a weakness with the database server... and if they outsource it would be harder to maintain the quality."

The embassy itself, just over a year ago, issued a release saying it was investigating a manipulation of the online appointment system and warned visa applicants against paying individuals to secure early dates. It said then that a growing number of online appointments had false information and said that they were created just to secure a place in its interview schedule.

And earlier this year, the embassy posted a similar warning on its website warning the public against using so-called "visa-fixers" to obtain fraudulent
visa appointments and other visa scams.
"A growing number of applicants present fraudulent appointment letters obtained from "visa-fixers" who operate illegally. These fictitious appointments cause problems not only for the person who buys these services, but also for every bonafide applicant by slowing down the interview process," it said.
But for bona fide applicants like a St Catherine man with whom the Observer spoke last week, the wait and the constant checking for available dates has become unbearable. He said he has been trying since March of this year to secure an appointment at the US Embassy, but has not succeeded up to now.

"I used to check every day until I get frustrated," he said.
"It's very hard nowadays to get dates," a clerk in the Visa Care Centre at Paymaster Ltd added. It was also her experience, she said, that as soon as the embassy made appointment dates available, they were booked out.

"They open the dates by 6:30 or 7:00 in the mornings and we're not here yet. By the time we get here [9:00 am], they are gone and I know that there are travel agents and Internet users who also use it, so it's difficult for us," she said.
Paymaster has the contract to collect visa fees on behalf of the embassy. They, like some travel agencies and independent consultancies, also offer to fill up visa forms for a fee which they retain.

Unlike most people, however, Cheryll Tulloch-Meatley of Cheryll's Travel Docs and Recruitment Centre, was one of those lucky persons who managed to get a date last week. She told the Observer that last Wednesday she was able to schedule a client for an interview on Friday because her staff was "constantly" searching the system.

"We have to be real vigilant because they (US visas) are
so much in demand," she said, adding that someone had perhaps cancelled his online appointment, making the
date available.

The Observer made random visits to the embassy's non-immigrant visa (NIV) ap-pointment site every day for the past week to try and schedule dates, but all the slots up to the end of August were taken and there were no openings for September.

The public affairs office has assured, however, that the consular section of the embassy would be doing all it could to speed up the interview process.

"The consular section at the embassy is working at full capacity and scheduling
as many interviews as possible via the current appointment system," head of the section, Patricia Attkisson, told the Observer.

According to figures she supplied, the embassy sees an average of 900 persons per day, have conducted 79,128 non-immigrant visa interviews so far this fiscal year (October 1, 2007 - September 31, 2008), and have issued almost 40,000 non-immigrant visas of all types.