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From India to Saudi Arabia to Armenia to the Philippines to Vietnam, the US Government is cracking down on bogus relationships — and real ones too. The events in San Bernardino a couple of years ago — when a woman who came to the US on a fiancée visa and her US citizen husband killed 14 people — triggered a government crackdown and more rigorous scrutiny of fiancée and spousal visas. Unfortunately, we are seeing how many legitimate visa applicants are being victimized — and ending up in Visa Hell as a result. Consular officers have a difficult job — trying to distinguish between a real relationship and a sham one. The visa applicant is asked a lot of questions at the interview about the US citizen petitioner, his family, employment, and meetings. Where does he live? Where do his parents live? How many people attended your wedding? When was…

The granting of parole was recently in the news. As discussed elsewhere on this site, parole is the “last chance” after other visa options have been exhausted. A sympathetic case was the recent approval for a team of girls from Afghanistan to participate in a robotics competition in the United States. Their B visa applications had been denied twice by the US Embassy in Kabul. An outcry ensued, with the President apparently intervening. DHS then issued the special parole permission for all of the girls and their coach to enter the US to compete. More details can be found in this Washington Post story. A stranger situation revolves around the case of the Russian lawyer caught up in the election collusion scandal. Apparently, she had been denied US visas, but eventually was granted parole so that she could attend court hearings in the US on behalf of a client. The…

Z contacted our firm recently with an unusual request: help him submit a new B visa application to a US consulate after he was told that his previous application was “closed." Not understanding exactly what this meant, I asked him to forward any correspondence he had received from the consulate. The correspondence stated that because more than one year had elapsed since his interview, the case had been closed administratively and that if he wanted to pursue a US visa, he would have to reapply again. A reapplication meant that he would have to submit a new DS-160 application form and pay a new visa application fee. But this was wrong — his application had been pending under Section 221(g), and the US government failed to take any action on his application. The government cannot “sit on” an application and then use that non-action to “close” a case. If that…

Another myth that we often encounter is the belief that having a green card is almost the equivalent of US citizenship. People think that with the exception of having a US passport and the right to vote, being a permanent resident confers the same rights as a US citizen. Unfortunately, that is not the case. A green card can be taken away; with very limited exception, citizenship cannot. A green card holder may be considered to have abandoned his US residence and have his green card taken away. A green card holder can have his green card taken away if he commits a crime. With the Trump Administration, this is becoming more and more of a real possibility. I was reminded of this the other day reading the story of Phillip Clay. Mr. Clay was adopted from Korea in 1983 when he was 8 years old. Because US law at…

I am often contacted by those refused visas under Section 214(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and asked: “How can this be? I have great ties to my country. Married, kids, a good job. How can they say I don’t have enough ties?” Unfortunately, many do not understand that “ties” are only a part of the 214(b) equation; another factor considered by consular officers is whether the purpose of the trip to the US corresponds to the type of visa applied for. A gentleman recently contacted me about B-1 business visa refusals under 214(b). His problem was not that he lacked ties to his home country, but that he planned to work in the United States on the visa. It sounded like he received bad advice from an incompetent attorney, and then “dug his own grave” by attempting to obtain the visa under varying pretexts. His case was sympathetic…