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One critical tool in challenging errant visa decisions of consular officers is through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). While the FOIA process with the Department of State is extremely limited in visa cases, sometimes consular officers rely on inaccurate information contained in US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) files or improperly make visa decisions based on materials contained in those files. In such cases, FOIA requests can be extremely helpful. Lawyers can assist in three aspects of Freedom of Information Act requests: 1) properly formulating and lodging requests; 2) filing lawsuits when FOIA processing is delayed; and 3) assisting in appeals of government responses to FOIA requests. The proper formulation of a request can mean the difference between a process that can take 3 months or 12 or more…

This myth has been going around for years — no doubt perpetuated by representatives of 2nd passport programs. A national of Country X has US visa problems — because of a criminal incident 20 years ago making him inadmissible to the US. He decides to obtain a passport from a European Union country by making a very substantial investment. Because he has been told that nationals of his new country are eligible for the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) — a program that allows for travel as a tourist or business visitor to the US for up to 90 days without a visa, with no visa interview required — he is under the impression that he should qualify too. Until he reads the fine print — or consults with a US immigration lawyer. Before boarding a flight to the US without a visa, citizens of VWP countries pre-register with the US…

I received a frantic call from a client recently at her naturalization interview. She was being advised by the interviewing officer that her application was going to be denied because she did not meet the residency requirements. In the run-up to the interview, the client and I had reviewed all of the relevant legal issues, including the physical presence and continuous residence requirements, and I assured her that she met the requirements for naturalization. The officer was kind enough to speak with me over the phone, but remained unpersuaded from her position that the residency requirements were not met. The client left the USCIS office and went home extremely upset, notwithstanding my attempts to calm her down and assurances that we were in the right and would be able to challenge any adverse decision. And then, two hours after the interview, something strange happened: I received an e-mail notification from…

What do zombies and petition revocations have in common? Just when you thought they have died a permanent death — never to be seen again or heard from again — they come back to life, sometimes with devastating consequences. This came to mind when a former client, Alex, contacted me about his Diversity Visa case. He won the Green Card Lottery, but when he went to the Embassy for his interview, he was told that his application would be put on hold until questions about his 1998 L-1 petition were resolved. I had represented him back in 1998, after the Embassy sent his L-1 petition back to INS because of a “fraudulent office address” and his inability to describe his subordinates at his L-1 visa interview. We were able to resolve the fraudulent office address accusation at that time — the Embassy’s investigator had gone to the wrong (!) address…

The Department of State does not publish separate statistics for student visa denials, but judging by the number of phone calls we have been recently receiving from rejected students on Section 214(b) grounds, it appears that the Culture of No has adversely impacted potential students as well. In particular, consular attention — and denials — has been riveted to certain categories of students, including: 1) those older than the age of 25; 2) those planning to attend community college in the US; 3) those from economically distressed or provincial areas of the home country; 4) “eternal” students; 5) those with planned majors at the US university deemed to be of less practical value; 6) those with significant gaps in their work history; 7) those who previously dropped out of school; and 8) financial sponsors who are not immediate relatives. Consuls have very little time to conduct a student visa interview,…