Agreed—would love more work visas! Way more impactful. Would love lots more people to work on that as well.
So far what I have done:
3 months ago, talked to a couple friends at the embassy (peers, not super high up) to understand what the root issue is. They basically said it is a staffing issue, and my sense is that it isn’t a high priority. When other mutual friends have asked how to get a visa. In at least one case, when another mutual friend asked, an embassy friend gave tips on how to do the expedited process. You wouldn’t get these tips if you don’t have a friend at the embassy
haven’t involved them much since as they don’t have power over this, and I don’t want to make it personal
over the past few months, corresponded with the consular section of the US embassy in Nairobi expressing my frustration and asking who I could talk to to understand the issue. got pat responses—eventually they said “To keep both applicants and our staff safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of appointments for all of these categories is much lower than normal.” which is infuriating BS
A few months ago I contacted both my Senators (Iowa) through their online contact forms, asking if they could direct me to anyone. No response
Contacted a journalist friend to see if this was a newsworthy thing that any outlet might pick up. She said potentially, but didn’t know anyone specifically who would write on it.
I submitted tips online to Kenyan newspapers The Standard and The Daily Nation, African news source The Continent, and the NYT, WSJ, Foreign Affairs. Don’t expect anything to come of these
This week I emailed Dana L Banks (NSC Senior Director for Africa—got her contact through a of mine friend in Kenya in Democrats Abroad), on the issue. She actually responded! She volunteered that this is an Africa-wide issue (already seemed that way to me but nice I guess to hear they’re thinking of it that way). She Forwarded it to Maureen Farrell (Director for Horn of Africa—NSC)
I have found it very hard to find organizational information about the NSC online—don’t really know how important these people are)
While writing this comment I got a response from Maureen Farrell! They “share my concerns” and gave me the contact of someone at the US State Dept Kenya Desk. I’ll email her and follow up.
Next steps
write to Mr. Eric W. Kneedler as Weaver suggested below
follow up with new contact at Kenya Desk in state dept
maybe submit a op-ed proposal to Africa Quartz if I want to write an op-ed myself
maybe find some more people to tweet at either in state department or people who work in immigration policy and might have leverage to do something on this
Would love any feedback / further advice on this!
Wow, this is a lot of work! It’s so far out of my skillset so I can’t give you direct advice.
But what I would be interested in seeing some time from now (maybe 2-3 months, or when you feel you’ve frustrated the options for communication) is a post-mortem, detailing which of these steps did/didn’t pan out and why, what the final results were, and how you would replicate this with other embassies (if you got any results).
As an Israeli I’d be interested in doing this for any country, but I reckon US embassies are good enough to start with.
I’m happy to give more detail if it’s helpful! I don’t really think anything I did was particularly impactful due to not understanding the system well enough, and due to “advocacy from Americans” being less of a limiting factor than “political capital within the embassy”
Agreed—would love more work visas! Way more impactful. Would love lots more people to work on that as well.
So far what I have done:
3 months ago, talked to a couple friends at the embassy (peers, not super high up) to understand what the root issue is. They basically said it is a staffing issue, and my sense is that it isn’t a high priority. When other mutual friends have asked how to get a visa. In at least one case, when another mutual friend asked, an embassy friend gave tips on how to do the expedited process. You wouldn’t get these tips if you don’t have a friend at the embassy
haven’t involved them much since as they don’t have power over this, and I don’t want to make it personal
over the past few months, corresponded with the consular section of the US embassy in Nairobi expressing my frustration and asking who I could talk to to understand the issue. got pat responses—eventually they said “To keep both applicants and our staff safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of appointments for all of these categories is much lower than normal.” which is infuriating BS
A few months ago I contacted both my Senators (Iowa) through their online contact forms, asking if they could direct me to anyone. No response
This week I wrote a blog post (I have extremely limited reach, post has gotten 33 views) explaining the situation
Tweeted this blog post at the US embassy, no response
Contacted a journalist friend to see if this was a newsworthy thing that any outlet might pick up. She said potentially, but didn’t know anyone specifically who would write on it.
I submitted tips online to Kenyan newspapers The Standard and The Daily Nation, African news source The Continent, and the NYT, WSJ, Foreign Affairs. Don’t expect anything to come of these
This week I emailed Dana L Banks (NSC Senior Director for Africa—got her contact through a of mine friend in Kenya in Democrats Abroad), on the issue. She actually responded! She volunteered that this is an Africa-wide issue (already seemed that way to me but nice I guess to hear they’re thinking of it that way). She Forwarded it to Maureen Farrell (Director for Horn of Africa—NSC)
I have found it very hard to find organizational information about the NSC online—don’t really know how important these people are)
While writing this comment I got a response from Maureen Farrell! They “share my concerns” and gave me the contact of someone at the US State Dept Kenya Desk. I’ll email her and follow up.
Next steps
write to Mr. Eric W. Kneedler as Weaver suggested below
follow up with new contact at Kenya Desk in state dept
maybe submit a op-ed proposal to Africa Quartz if I want to write an op-ed myself
maybe find some more people to tweet at either in state department or people who work in immigration policy and might have leverage to do something on this
Would love any feedback / further advice on this!
Wow, this is a lot of work! It’s so far out of my skillset so I can’t give you direct advice.
But what I would be interested in seeing some time from now (maybe 2-3 months, or when you feel you’ve frustrated the options for communication) is a post-mortem, detailing which of these steps did/didn’t pan out and why, what the final results were, and how you would replicate this with other embassies (if you got any results).
As an Israeli I’d be interested in doing this for any country, but I reckon US embassies are good enough to start with.
Hi Guy, I wrote up an update here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ee4q4RhbjZTG9DKZ8/update-on-pestering-embassies-to-reduce-non-policy-barriers
I’m happy to give more detail if it’s helpful! I don’t really think anything I did was particularly impactful due to not understanding the system well enough, and due to “advocacy from Americans” being less of a limiting factor than “political capital within the embassy”