re: "So what do I do, again?"

Japansen at White Waters & Black ("Adventures in Diplomacy aka Life in the Foreign Service") made an excellent explanation.

Money quote(s):

"The Foreign Service is the diplomatic arm of the US government. We live and work abroad, representing the interests of the US and its business and providing support for American citizens overseas. We are a service corp (sic), similar to the military. We are members of the Department of State and are most recognizable by the Secretary of State and the myriad ambassadors that represent the President at missions overseas. Historically about 2/3 of US ambassadors have been career foreign service officers with political appointees comprising the rest. We work at embassies and consulates. There is only one embassy in any country; consulates primarily provide consular services but also have reporting sections as well."

True, true. There are sometimes more than one U.S. mission (complete to ambassador) located geographically in a particular country (e.g., Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland) but those are diplomatic missions to international organizations and the like, not embassies to another sovereign state.

"Consular officers execute the consular duties of embassies and consulates. They adjudicate visa applications and provide services to American citizens overseas. These services include replacing lost passports, registering new citizen births, and assisting in cases of distress, often involving arrests or deaths. On the visa side, there are two basic types, immigrant and non-immigrant visas. Immigrant visa interviews are much more exhaustive and have different standards of adjudication..... There are almost as many classes of immigrant visas as there are letters of the alphabet, depending on the purpose of travel. US law establishes the criteria for qualification for everything from diplomats and government workers to visitors to students to religious workers to refugees and victims of violence.

My job then is to review each non-immigrant applicant and interview them to determine if they meet the criteria established by US law. Fundamentally consular officers need to establish that applicants are bona fide non-immigrants and aren’t just intending to stay in the US once they get there. We have to make sure that the appropriate visa is applied for and that they meet the criteria for eligibility.The biggest challenge is the volume."

&

" There aren’t all that many of us, about 8000 Officers and 5500 Specialists. The Department of State is one of the smallest in the government, with a budget about 1/20 of the Department of Defense."

(8/8)