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Posted by Ivan on October 05, 2001 at 11:59:36:
http://www.poexali.com/ubb/ubbhtml/Forum14/HTML/000067.html Story from this site:
Nadia, a friend of mine, a resident of Moscow, Russia, participated in the immigration lottery program DV-2000. She asked me for help in initially sending the registration letter from my residence address in the US, because she was not sure the letter would be delivered to her residence address in Russia – the mail service often fails to deliver mail to Russia. And she used my residence address as her mailing address in the registration letter. So, I got her letter though a person coming from Moscow to USA, and sent it to National Visa Service, the authority that collects the registration letters.
Everything was fine; she was lucky to win and was selected for the interview in the US consulate in Moscow for an immigrant visa.
Nadia was scheduled an interview on July 20, 2000. US Consul General in Moscow Laura Clerici interviewed her personally. During the interview Nadia was asked to sign several samples of her signature in the presence of the Consul General. The samples she provided looked exactly like her original signature on the registration letter – my friend knows that for sure because she had a second original of her registration letter she had prepared for her records at the same time she signed the first original, which was later sent to National Visa Service.
Then the Consul General asked several questions:
– why the registration letter was mailed from the US, not from Russia;
– why it was prepared on the computer, not manually, by hand (only signature was put by hand);
– why it was mailed from my residence address;
– how far is my residence from Boston, Massachusetts; When the Consul General found out that it was within 30-40 minutes drive from Boston, she told Nadia that was wrong, she knew where my residence is because she had visited our places. Consul General told Nadia my residence is 2 hours drive from Boston, which is definitely not true.
Then the Consul General brought the samples of Nadia’s signature out of Nadia’s sight, and in a minute or so she returned with the samples, saying that the expert opinion was the signature on the letter did not belong to her.
So Nadia was denied an immigrant visa on the reason that the signature on the original registration letter was not put by her personally.
The thing is that among five families whom Nadia met at the interview waiting room, who were scheduled DV-2000 immigrant visa appointment the same day, only one got the visa, but others were refused on the same reason as Nadia. And according to their reaction, it was a complete surprise for all of them – they were sure the signature was theirs.
The reason of denial was ridiculous, because Nadia knew that she had signed the letter with her original signature, and Consul General showed that signature to Nadia during the interview process. Of course, she recognized her own signature.
Nadia tried to contact the US consulate in Moscow in order to find out the procedure – what additional proof can be submitted to prove the signature was hers. She contacted the consulate several times – by fax, email and by phone. She was never sent any reply by email, fax or phone – just nobody answered her as if she did not inquire.
So, Nadia decided to provide all possible proof she could. She collected several original documents, signed by her since 1976 (24 years ago!) until now, with the same signature she put on the registration letter, just to prove that the signature she used was her usual normal signature, prepared in her native Russian alphabet. She provided a forensic analysis for those documents by Russian specialized laboratory that confirmed those signatures were signed by her, not by anybody else.
She signed an affidavit under penalty of perjury under US law, that the signature was hers genuine.
She asked the consulate several times (by email, by fax, and personally brought her request to the consulate) to release a certified copy of her original registration letter, so that she would be able to provide her own forensic analysis of the signature on that letter – by Russian specialized laboratory. The consulate must have released the certified copy, according to Freedom of Information Act, which is recognized by US Government in general, and by the Department of State in particular. But she was neither ever answered, nor provided the copy.
She also contacted the consulate several times in order to ask the consulate to provide a qualified forensic analysis of her signature or allow Nadia to bring her own expert to the consulate for analysis. She was never answered those requests.
Finally, she was denied again, after the Consul General looked at the additional proofs Nadia submitted. And the rules of the DV-2000 program provide her a chance to get her visa only before September 30, 2000. If she does not get her visa by then for any reason, her chance is lost.
It is not possible to provide the direct proof – that the signature on the original registration letter is hers genuine, until the consulate releases the copy of the original registration letter. But the consulate neither does answer any requests nor does provide any information, which is releasable and required by the consulate to be released.
I wrote a personal letter to Laura Clerici, asking for the reason for this strange treatment of my friend. I did not get any answer