The Visa Nightmare

 Dear Editor,
I don’t want to mention my name for security reasons. But I want to inform you that for the past couple of months, the consul at the US Embassy in Banjul has been denying Gambians visa to enter the US. After all, you pay for visa to the tune of D4, 960. And just a 30-second interview, you lose it. The consul will ask you three questions: What is your name? What is your job? And how long have you been married?  
And he will say: ‘I’m sorry, I cannot give you visa like that.’
He can interview twenty people in 1 hour. In those years, they interviewed one person in 5 to 10 minutes, but now they interview people in seconds. They don’t even look at your documents. They denied me visa many times, but this one is the worst.
The Gambia government should do something about it. When they reject you a visa, they should return you 75 percent of the money you paid. The visa fee is the money they use to pay their staff, the house, and developing even the US economy.
The African Union should talk about it or the embassies in Africa to pack and go for good. Gambians don’t stay in America for decades. Twice a week, a flight will be coming and going to America.
Foreign embassies in Africa have realized an easy way of making money--and that is all they are doing, because they know that no matter how many times they reject us, we will re-apply. Something has to be done about the whole visa application process. The current system is a fraud!
America is a country of immigrants. Everybody in America is an immigrant, even [President Barack] Obama is an immigrant. So I’m advising all Gambian citizens not to apply for visa until the end of this year so that the Embassy would not be able to pay their staff. And if you don’t believe, me try and apply, and you will see you will be rejected.