My cousin’s visa interview at the embassy took forever

The waiting room at the embassy is surprisingly quiet

I remember going to the U.S. Embassy with my cousin last spring. She was trying to get a visa for an internship program she found through an agency that promised direct placements in California. The whole atmosphere inside was just heavy, you know? It wasn’t the kind of place where you could strike up a conversation with someone else waiting in the chairs. Everyone was clutching their folders like their lives depended on it, looking straight ahead at the monitors displaying numbers. My cousin, who had spent about 500,000 KRW on document preparation services and various application fees alone, kept smoothing out her dress every thirty seconds. She had been nervous for weeks, reading up on how others got denied for minor, stupid reasons. Watching the clock tick from 9:00 AM to nearly 2:00 PM felt like a slow drain on our energy.

The document folder was way too thick

She brought this massive, accordion-style folder filled with bank statements, proof of enrollment, and even some old letters from her university professor. It felt excessive, but the forum posts she’d been reading for months kept insisting that you can never have too much paperwork. Ironically, the interviewer barely glanced at the bulk of it. It was like she had prepared for a final exam that the teacher decided not to grade. We spent so much time printing and organizing things that ended up being just dead weight. I kept thinking about the time I went to Guam years ago; back then, it felt so much simpler, almost like a vacation. Now, the paperwork has become its own industry. You see agencies everywhere at those study abroad fairs, making it sound like it’s just a standard process, but standing there, it felt anything but standard.

Why the immigration laws feel so unpredictable

There was this lingering sense of unease throughout the whole experience. You hear stories about people who lived in the U.S. for decades, essentially building their whole lives there, only to be caught in some shift in immigration policy or a change in administration. It’s like the rules aren’t just written in stone; they’re written in pencil and someone is constantly erasing and redrawing them. My cousin isn’t even looking for permanent residency yet, but she was worried that one wrong answer about her ‘intent to return’ would flag her file for good. We had lunch afterward at a place nearby—it cost about 15,000 KRW for a mediocre katsu set—and we barely talked. We were both just thinking about how fragile the whole plan felt, anchored by a tiny sticker they might or might not put in her passport.

The process feels disconnected from reality

What bothered me the most wasn’t even the waiting, but the feeling that the person behind the glass didn’t really care about her specific situation. I’ve seen people online compare it to a lottery, and honestly, that’s exactly what it feels like. You go through all these motions, pay the fees, and follow the instructions to the letter, but it all comes down to the mood of the officer that day. My cousin is still waiting to hear back about some secondary check they mentioned. She told me yesterday that she’s looking at other countries now, just in case this whole thing falls through. It’s strange to think that such a massive part of your life path can be redirected by a bureaucratic hiccup that you have zero control over.

Thinking back on the cost of certainty

It makes me wonder if people realize how much of their life is put on hold while waiting for these systems to churn out an answer. We spent almost 10,000 KRW just on parking for that day, and that feels like nothing compared to the months of anxiety. I look at friends who moved abroad years ago and it seems like they got in before the doors closed a little tighter. Maybe it was always like this, and we just didn’t pay attention. I’m still not sure if she’ll actually go. She’s started looking at jobs locally, which is probably more practical, but I can see that she hasn’t fully let go of the idea. It’s just an uncomfortable place to be, stuck between staying and hoping for a letter that might not come.