My first month
of work has been tiring. Very tiring, but also very exciting. However, I have gotten to do
some really awesome things that make the job a great fit for me.
In the last two
weeks:
- I got to help a
fellow Minnesotan get home for an emergency despite having an expired
passport.
- I got to watch
several families go through the final steps in their adoption from China.
- I got to help stop
people traveling under fraudulent pretenses from getting a visa to the
US.
- I got to play an
essential role in the non-immigrant visa process by collecting
biometrics of almost 100 people per hour for hours a day.
In reality, my job
involves many different things. I am a Consular Assistant, which
means I get to, well, assist in the consular section. To explain what
that entails, there are a few things you need to know first. There
are four parts to the consular section here in Guangzhou (not every
U.S. Embassy/Consulate has all four). The consular section
here is comprised of: 1) Non-Immigrant Visas, 2) Immigrant Visas, 3)
American Citizen Services, and 4) Fraud Prevention. Right now, I work
in three of the four sections.
I start my days in
American Citizen Services (ACS). The ACS section helps Americans
overseas. Some services offered include: Passports (i.e. adding more
visa pages if you are almost out and issuing Emergency Passports for
those who had theirs lost/stolen or expired and have an immediate
need to travel), Death of a U.S. Citizen abroad (they are the ones
who notify next-of-kin), Marriage in China (to marry a Chinese
person, you need an affidavit stating you are single), Consular
Report of Birth Abroad (if a U.S. Citizen child is born overseas,
this document states they are a U.S. Citizen), Notarial Services, and
Emergency Assistance (Prison visits are a common one). While all of
these services are approved and processed by Officers, I get to
assist with some of these services, which is really exciting.
After two hours in
ACS, I move down to Non-Immigrant Visas (NIV) for biometrics
collection, ie: fingerprinting. Every person (with a few age
exceptions) who is applying to a visa to travel to America gets
fingerprinted. Fingerprinting must be done my a cleared American. In
Guangzhou, we process hundreds of thousands of visa applicants each
year, so that is a lot of fingerprints to take! Each day I spend four
hours saying, “left hand”, “right hand”, “two thumbs”,
and a few other phrases in Chinese. A lot of people find
fingerprinting boring, but I enjoy it. It is a chance to interact
with people and to practice my Chinese. I often turn it into a game
and try to guess people's ages before they show up on the screen or
make up stories about what I think they might be doing for work or
why they might want to travel to America. While I don't get to find
out most of that information, it is fun to guess.
I end my day in the
Fraud Prevention Unit, helping with some of their databases, it is all very interesting work.
Quite a few people
have asked PM and I how it is working together and to be honest, we
enjoy it. Very rarely are we in the same area, and never are we
working next to each other interacting, but it always makes me smile
when I am moving from one section to another and I get to see him for
a couple seconds. I think I can speak for both of us when I say that
we also really like that both of us are getting to know more people
at the Consulate. I have met some people he hasn't yet and visa
versa, but to us, the Foreign Service isn't PM's job, it is our life
and it feels really good to be even more a part of that. I hope this
is the first of many jobs at the U.S. missions abroad.
