US Consulate Office to Open in C/gena

[DCNUPE/Eddie]

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but next month the US State Department is opening up an Conculate office in C/gena. Different from B/quilla. It will be a full service office helping US Citizens. More to come.....

BTW, I'm here in Bellevue, WA on business for a few days, anybody else here. Givme a holla.

[TBOND]

Thanks for the info eddie! Good yo know..

[Bala]

09 March 2009

You can read more about the U.S. Ambassador's announcement about the opening of the U.S. Consulate in Cartagena here in El Heraldo.

http://www.elheraldo.com.co/ELHERALD...?CodSeccion=26

Apparantly, this has been in the works for over a year, a personal project of Ambassador Brownfield. One major purpose of the Consulate in Cartagena, Colombia's tourist hub, is to support, fortify and expand trade between the U.S. and Colombia, in keeping with the proposed Colombia Free Trade Agreement still pending in the U.S.

Some cautionary points.

As of today, despite the wording of the report in El Heraldo, this Consular office is still in the process of opening. It NOT operational, as of now, in any sense of the word. It is NOT listed on the U.S. Embassy (Bogota) website, and my State Dept. sources advise me that there is no physical address for it now.

Eventually, this Consulate reportedly will handle about 50% of services offered at the Embassy in Bogota, including most U.S. citizen services and even U.S. visa processing.

However, I think all this will take some time, possibly April or longer before it begins any operations. Frankly, I also suspect that the U.S. visa processing will be limited to Tourist Visas and other temporary non-immigrant visas. People doing processing for K-1, K-3 and resident visas should not get too excited about getting a visa appointment in Cartagena anytime soon, if ever.

Feel free to share this information with anyone. GB