Picture this; you apply for the United States B-1/B-2 visa and book your appointment for an interview. On the day of the interview, you wake up very early at dawn, determined not to miss your slot.
You have prepared for months and watched multiple videos on how to ace a US visa interview. But you’re also nervous. During your interview, everything goes well and you are told that you have passed and will be getting a visa.
The visa officer then requests you to leave your passport behind for stamping with the promise that you will get it back within five days. You leave the US embassy in excitement. In your mind, you can already picture yourself buying suitcases and packing for the land of milk and honey. Alas, you even tell a few people to make plans to escort you to the airport. You’re headed for the States.
A few days later, just like the visa officer had promised, an envelope containing your passport is sent back to you. When you open the envelope you are almost shocked to death. The passport has no visa!
Instead, it has been returned with a pink slip informing you that your visa application has been rejected. They won’t be giving you a visa to the US.
This may look like a bad dream, but it is the exact nightmare that one Kenyan is currently living. Their predicament was shared by one of their family members who sought help on what to do from other Kenyans in a travel group.
“Who has ever gone through this and how did you handle it? My relative went for USA visit visa interview last week and he was approved, given the slip and asked to leave his passport.
He was instructed to collect it within 3-5 working days at DHL. He has picked the parcel at DHL today and it came with a pink slip that visa not approved. How do we handle this as now he has both approved and not-approved slips. Is this normal and how can we seek clarification?” the Kenyan posed.
Here is how a few Kenyans responded:
They found out something that rescinded the approval. Unfortunately, they never give clear reasons. They leave you guessing. – Kenia Esther
A visa is only approved when the ceac status shows “approved”. All visa applications go through Administrative Processing which can be anything from 1 hour, weeks, months or even a year. They must have come across something during the administrative process and decided to refuse them the visa. They can reapply as soon as the circumstances that led to the refusal, change. – Faith
Nairobi US embassy visa officer’s mood, luck determines who gets visa
Its happens all the time. In fact on the blue slip it’s indicated that you should not make any specific travel arrangements until you receive your VISA. – Chrispin
I know one who has a job visa but inactive SEVIS and DS 2019. He cannot travel to US because the visa took long and the job was Rescinded. Too painful. – Flozy
Does the passport have the visa in any of the pages or is it just the pink slip alone? An approval slip does not translate to a visa. You can only say you were really approved if your passport returns with the visa pasted on it. – Rose
Their security checks did not clear that’s why they got a rejection after approval. – Samuel
They might have done more background check and found that he didn’t qualify for the visa. – Christine