News from Armenia: US Citizens are no longer required to obtain a visa for entry to Armenia!

News from Armenia: US Citizens are no longer required to obtain a visa for entry to Armenia! Hopscotch Adoptions' Armenian Travel Guide has been updated to reflect this change.  If you have been notified of impending travel prior to April 30, be sure to ask for the updated guide.

Attention: Visa Fee Increase

Source: http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/fees/fees-visa-services.html#permanent

Visa processing fees being changed to $325.00?  A pretty big jump in price from $230.00.  Just trying to confirm.

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Important Adoption Notice: Delay in Passport and Visa processing times continue

July 28, 2014

“As of July 27, the Department of State has made continued progress on restoring our system to full functionality. As we restore our ability to print visas, we are prioritizing immigrant cases, including adoptions visas. System engineers are performing maintenance to address the problems we encountered. As system performance improves, we will continue to process visas at U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide. We are committed to resolving the problem as soon as possible. Additional updates will be posted to travel.state.gov as more information becomes available.”

U.S. Database Glitch Delays Passport, Visa Processing

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/24/334886736/u-s-database-glitch-delays-passport-visa-processing

By Scott Neuman

The U.S. State Department's global database for processing visas and passports is experiencing problems that could cause delays for millions of people around the world who are awaiting travel documents.

The Associated Press writes:

"Unspecified glitches in the department's Consular Consolidated Database have resulted in 'significant performance issues, including outages' in the processing of applications for passports, visas and reports of Americans born abroad since Saturday, spokeswoman Marie Harf said. She said the problem is worldwide and not specific to any particular country, citizenship document, or visa category."

" 'We apologize to applicants and recognize this may cause hardship to applicants waiting on visas and passports. We are working to correct the issue as quickly as possible,' she said."

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