The Difference Between Visa Officers and Immigration Attorneys

We at Argo are former Visa officers and we are experts at what happens during a visa interview. We know why Visa officers make the decisions that they do (because we were them) and we can help you prepare for your visa interview.

There is a difference between what we do and what immigration attorneys do.

1. Immigration attorneys can give you legal advice.  

2. Immigration attorneys can fill out your forms for you.  

3. Immigration attorneys can file petitions on your behalf.  

4. Immigration attorneys can communicate to the Embassy or the consulate as your representative.  

You might not get much information in return from them, but they can do all these things for you.  

But there's one part of the immigration process, which is the Consular interview (or what the immigration attorneys call Consular processing or stamping), where there's not much information. The embassy is not transparent. Consulates are not transparent. They do not tell you what's happening, they do not have any obligation to share lots of information with you.  

So immigration attorneys will rely on former visa officers (that's us) and our experience having worked on the inside. Immigration attorneys know what the law says but the regulations given to the Visa officers and the directives given to them by their managers sometimes will not necessarily be different from the law but what their priorities are may differ and they also may do things that aren't in the law at all, it's just procedural. It's how they do things on the inside of the government.  

We know how this works. The entire team at Argo have done over 1 million Visa interviews! We draw on that experience having worked in 35 different Visa posts, embassies, and consulates around the world to bring that expertise and advice to you so that you can prepare to pass your visa interview.

With Argo and our team of visa officers you will learn many things.  

1. How the Visa officer will interpret certain information.

2. How you can grab the attention of a visa officer.

3. How you can let them know what your highlights are.

4. How to pass your visa interview.

You'll have a lot of documents that are prepared, maybe petitions, maybe applications, maybe letters from your attorney. But if the Visa officer doesn't even read them then they're not going to help you get your visa issued.  

As visa officers we bring our knowledge of the regulations, our knowledge of the processes and the procedures, and also our knowledge of the psychology to help you go into your visa interview and come out successfully having your Visa issued.

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