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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

I hate how hostile and incompetent the US immigration process seems to be for foreigners. It's sad to go by an embassy basically anywhere in the world, see the fortress that is the US embassy, and the huge lines and amount of documentation needed for people to get US visas. Even worse is the non-deterministic hell on actual arrival.

I'm glad I've never had immigration or customs problems anywhere, despite going to some really sketchy places (flying into Iraq as a civilian at the civilian airport with no visa a few times after the invasion...) or otherwise bending the rules ($200k in computers, including 6 big 21" CRTs, on my way to set up an office in Anguilla...).

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I'm a US citizen, and recently visited my embassy abroad. I was denied entry and told to make an appointment. The first available was about 10 days away. This was for a simple document I needed signed by them. And I was leaving this country in less than 10 days. The guard who turned me away said they used to take walk-ins but not since mid-2012.

So as far as embassies go, being a citizen doesn't help too much.

My experience with US embassies (both the one in Brussels and Dublin) has never seen them refuse entry to a US citizen and tell them to re-schedule. They usually have separate entrances as well with different procedures.

Well this was in London. It's a large embassy obviously. They do have separate entrances--we went to the US Citizens one. We were blocked from even entering the security lobby at all--the outermost door to the street was locked and the guard who cracked it open gave us a postcard with the embassy contact information to make an appointment. I called them immediately and explained I was in front of their building and could I make an "appointment" for right then, but they said I had to use the website. Which told me there was a 10-day wait.

As I said, apparently this practice was instituted just last year.

From my (albeit limited) observations I thought they never turned away citizens but obviously I was wrong. Getting appointments with the US embassy can sometimes be a challenging ordeal. They do however make allowances for emergency appointments which can be very helpful at times.

Yeah, in general they help citizens pretty well, and help citizens a lot more in dangerous places. Although to get US citizen services in Baghdad was really complex; despite it being inside a fairly secure area (the "Green Zone"), I wasn't allowed to carry inside, had to make an appointment a week in advance, etc. I ended up just making friends with people at a nearby heliport who had badges to escort me in. It turns out most of the extra security was because they had slightly better quality food than the nearby military bases, and were trying to keep military people and contractors from eating all of it.

The Embassies in Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, etc. were all excellent, however.

Whats the backstory?

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