Hameed ul Haq’s duplex in College Station has the bare, blank walls and modest decor of a stereotypical bachelor pad. But Haq is no bachelor. Despite his three-and-a-half years of marriage, his wife has yet to step foot in their future home. The couple’s dreams of starting a family together have been foiled by an unsuspecting interloper: Pakistan’s U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.
Haq is one of thousands of spouses and other relatives of U.S. citizens stuck in what has historically been a speedy step in the visa process: the consular interview. But these routine interviews that once took a matter of weeks to schedule are now being delayed by many months, and in some cases, years.
VISA BACKLOGS: UT grad’s family followed immigration laws. Now she may be forced to self-deport.
“It’s like putting my life on hold. It’s not like we get a thousand years to live,” Haq said, “I’ve spent three years away from her, and this feels unjust and unfair that I have to pay this price of bringing my wife from a different country.”
Delays have spurred Haq and nine other U.S. citizens to sue the State Department and request expedited interviews so they can start building their lives together in the United States.
In the meantime, their marital relationship plays out in sometimes pixilated installments across the world wide web.
On a dark February morning, Haq, 33, and his wife Hareem Salman, 27, video chat from their respective bedrooms. Haq’s eyes weigh heavy as he lies down on his side on his bed, laptop flipped open, resting his head on a couple pillows. It’s quiet outside as he speaks softly to Salman in Urdu.
Salman chats with Haq energetically through the computer screen. She has just gotten off work at her university job in Karachi. It’s 5:30 p.m. and the afternoon sun lights up her bedroom in her mom’s apartment.
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer
Hameed ul Haq smiles during a video call with his wife, Hareem Salman, who lives in Pakistan waiting for her visa, at 6 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in College Station. (Yi-Chin Lee/Staff Photographer)
They’ve managed to make the 8,400 miles separating them feel closer through daily calls, Friday tea time, Netflix watch parties, love emails and online games like Scrabble and the Indian board game Ludo. One anniversary they even went on a virtual Greek mythology experience on AirBnB.
But today, no amount of video calls can make up for being there. Especially now. Haq’s father has been hospitalized in Texas after suffering a stroke.
“I’ve been in the hospital for the past two days, and I have a lot of friends who have visited, but there’s no family,” Haq said, “Family actually is the one who is most invested in this.”
Tears fall from his face as he contemplates shouldering the weight of his father’s critical illness alone.
It wasn’t supposed to take this long for Salman’s visa to be approved.
The pandemic delays put a freeze on a number of immigration processes both at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department. Salman’s visa application needed to move through both entities. The worldwide consular interviews have a backlog of about 400,000 cases, compared with 60,000 cases before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But even after the pandemic emergency lifted and U.S. embassies reopened, allowing for consular interviews to resume – the backlog at the Islamabad Embassy continued to grow. Court documents show the number of immediate relatives awaiting interviews rose from 4,686 in October 2021 to 5,794 cases in June 2022.
TIMELINE: 40 years of U.S. border policy, from Reagan and Bush to Biden
“It should not take three to five years for a U.S. citizen to petition their spouse to come to the U.S.A. and it doesn’t for most nationalities,” said immigration attorney Curtis Morrison, who is representing Haq and nine other U.S. citizens whose Pakistani spouses have faced long delays getting their consular interviews scheduled at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad
The embassy seems to be working through interviews at a fairly casual clip. The embassy issued 92 visas for immediate relatives in December 2022 while thousands remain in the backlog.
One reason for additional delays at the U.S. Islamabad Embassy appears to be new consular demands prompted by regime change in Afghanistan.
A spokesperson for the State Department said the Islamabad Embassy is providing consular services to Afghans following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and that “the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad considers the needs of Afghans who are able to travel to Pakistan when making decisions on the allocation of consular services.”
Morrison, the attorney behind the lawsuit, also attributes the delays to the prioritization of short term visas for Pakistani students and tourists coming to the U.S. rather than immigrants who plan to settle.
“You can walk into that embassy and get a visa to come study in the U.S. within a couple weeks. Tourism, maybe two weeks, maybe a month. But if you want your spouse to come here, it’s going to be a few years,” said Morrison, who suspects there are financial motives to getting tourist visas processed quickly.
More from Elizabeth Trovall: Why does Houston have so many immigrants? Here’s how the Bayou City became so diverse.
Houston-area immigration attorney Patrick Pettibon, who is not involved in the lawsuit, agreed that the Islamabad Embassy does appear to be prioritizing some cases over others.
“These backlogs are increasing in some locations despite things being more or less back to normal. So it does appear to be at least partially due to how they’re deciding to allocate resources,” he said.
His firm has considered taking legal action to speed up consular interviews.
“Unfortunately, it seems to be relatively widespread that it’s taking several months to get an interview,” he said.
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer
A photograph of Hameed ul Haq and wife, Hareem Salman, while living in Bali in November 2022. / Hameed ul Haq gets emotional while thinking about his long-distance marriage. (Yi-Chin Lee/Staff Photographer)
Haq and Salman seem better prepared than many in navigating their protracted long distance love affair.
They started their relationship online – Salman’s cousin was a good friend of Haq’s and introduced them virtually. Once they married, they assumed a life together was imminent. The delays at the Islamabad Embassy have put a real strain on their first years of marriage and their lives. Salman has even had to pass up job opportunities because she wasn’t sure the timeline for her visa.
“You’re living in this constant state of uncertainty. And Hameed and I, since we’ve been married, we’ve lived together in person with each other for less than six months,” Salman said, “It’s hardly a proper married life.”
Days after Haq’s father suffered a stroke, the family received a shred of good news: Salman has been scheduled for her consular interview in March. They may actually be living under the same roof before their four-year anniversary.
“I hope to have a happy life where I can wake up to a person, the person next to me who I love, and whatever comes up during the day, we face it together,” Haq said.
Hameed ul Haq decorates his apartment with gifts and memorabilia sent by his wife, Hareem Salman, who lives in Pakistan, on a dresser on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in College Station.
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographerlink
More Stories
USCIS canceled my green card interview.
Green card marriage: I paid a man to marry me for U.S. citizenship
I married an immigrant. It was the most difficult process of my life.