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I have a job offer (as researcher) from a lab in France. The offer was made on the 17th of Jan 2014 and I received the documentation (convention d'accueil) on the 17th of March 2014. I went ahead with my visa interview at the French Consulate General at Chicago on the 24th of March 2014. My job starts in a week's time and I have not yet received my visa!

I have tracked my visa status online and all it shows so far is "under processing". I have even contacted the Consulate via email and the only reply I have received (and I don't blame them for it) is "we will let you know when your visa is ready".

My prospective employer is a little worried about it since there has been a 3-4 month delay in the project starting -- it was to start in January 2014 but will not do so until I get there or (gulp!) they hire someone who can be there in a week!

I suppose the reason for my consternation is obvious. What are my options as far as the immigration/visa side of things go?

I am an Indian citizen on F1/OPT in the USA right now and my OPT period ends 13th of August 2014.

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  • Could I ask you what is your research field ?
    – smonff
    Commented Apr 26, 2014 at 9:13
  • @smonff Mechanical Engineering, Applied mathematics, fluid dynamics.
    – dearN
    Commented Apr 26, 2014 at 13:39
  • I am currently in a similar situation. I have a post-doctoral position in a lab in France. Received convention d'accueil on the 29th of April. Applied for visa on the 30th of April. I am still waiting for the visa to get processed. I can track it online though, which always says "still under processing, check at a later date". Incidentally my start dates for the job were in the first week of May. Kind of getting annoyed with the embassy (at DC), which responds to none of my emails. Any pointers/help would be appreciated.
    – user6747
    Commented Jun 20, 2015 at 0:51

1 Answer 1

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As much as I hate answering my own question, I approached a solution to this problem by two methods:

  • I emailed the French Consulate at Chicago and let them know of my tribulation.This yielded no result at all.
  • I emailed my prospective employer and let them know of this delay. They let me know that they had "expedited" the process. However, no details were released to me. What I can say is that my prospective employer is a major research establishment in France and wields significant clout. This may have had something to do with my receiving my visa a week before my job started!
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    Thanks for sharing your experience. In my experience in France, communication is the key to avoid barriers (and there are always complex rulings here). And only communication medium is French.
    – hB0
    Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 7:20
  • @hB0 Yes, tell me about it! ;)
    – dearN
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 8:16

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