Advice needed: Unfair denial case

[Ricky2007]

On 3/14/07, my mom-in-law ("Mom") got denied for visiting visa to the U.S. Here is her situation. She was denied twice in 2001 as a widow, which I mentioned in the invitation letter. This time, VO reviewed her doc for about 20 min, but only asked a few questions.
1. What is your trip purpose? My mom responsed to visit my daughter and son-in-law. Plus do some shopping of brandname items.
2. Have they been back? Ans: Yes, last July they came back for a short visit.
3. Do they have any children? Ans: Yes. (VO frowned his eyes.)
4. How many childred do they have? Ans: One. [My mom then brought out the U.S. passport of my daughter and showed it to the VO. She also explained that we asked her to take care of my daughter in China. My daughter is 13 months old now. My mom also explained that we did not put out daughter's name of I-134 form because under U.S. law, a child has to stay with their parent for more than 6 months in any calendar year to qualify for a "dependent" as listed on the form. My daughter was send back home at age 5 months old.] Both of my wife and I work in a big hospital in U.S. full time and have no time to go back together any more.
VO then rejected my mom's application by saying "You do not meet the criteria to go to U.S."

We are very angry for there are several reasons:
1. This denial not only deprived my mom's fair chance to reunite with us, but also broke our hope to see our daughter for a couple of months during the summer (to avoid diaper rash and have many immunization shots).
2. My mom showed VO her real estate deed of trust, stock holdings, and monthly pension (needed to be in China to collect).
3. We have no intention to have her over stay. In fact, her life back in China is not any worse than here. We just want to see our daughter for 3-4 months every year during the summer and reward my mom for taking care of my daughter.

What avenue can I go to complain this VO who unfairly rejected my mom's visa? Will it help to complain? Any suggestion to deal with the overly "smart" VO?

--A U.S. Marine veteran

[Raj_Raj]

Ricky, Its quite unfortunate. But we cannot complain about this to anyone. Visa OFficers decision is final. According the VO , their point of view is yr mom will become a baby sitter once she is in US and she will never go back. Thats their opinion. But give some gap(say 2,3 months) and apply her visa again. Next time write a letter explaining strong reasons why she would go back. That might help. Good luck.

[Ricky2007]

Unfair denial

I found out there is a way to complain. I emailed the NIV division and they gave me a fax number and asked me to send the complaint to Consular Section Chief's attention. I am going to fax over 8 pages of documents to support my case. They should get back to me in 4-7 working days. Will let you guys know what's going on. I really think U.S. Visa approval system stops a lot of innocent people from reuniting with their family, due to their VO's conditioned mind setting, i.e., assume everyone as a lier first.

[vibhai]

Are you sending this fax to your in law's home country U.S.consulate?

[cxg015700]

I am very sorry to hear this. My parents too were denied a visa four times and we are very frustrated at this unfair decision. I wish we could all file a petition asking them if need be to track the case to ensure the person returns rather than denying visas for genuine cases.

Good luck - I hope your fax letter helps. Did you fax it to the Consulate General directly?

[Ricky2007]

Complaint Fax #

I have not sent the complaint yet as I was looking for a copy of my honorable discharge certificate from Marine Corps. Just found it now. Anyway, I am going to fax the package to the Consular Section Chief in Shanghai, China. The number they gave me was: 86-21-6217-2072. You just need to go to your local conulate's site and search on Visa. Go to google.com and search for "U.S. Consulate [local foreign city name]" There is a section named "Non-Immigration Visa"" and the email address is in there, e.g., [email protected]. I imagine in India they have something similar like that, could be [email protected] or alike.

I served the country by fighting in the Gulf War and did not expect to be mistreated by the government like this!!!

[Ricky2007]

Response from Consular General's Office

They responsed to me yesterday, saying under 214(b) the burden to prove we have strong tie is on our side. They mentioned that most of the information is from me (son-in-law), not much on my wife (the daughter). Also, we mentioned that we went back last year but did not include such evidence in the interview. Don't you think these *******s are being nit-picking? If we have new evidence to support the case, we can reapply since the denial is not permanent. Anyway, it sounds bureaucratic.

I am going to try again and fight for my rights!!!

[Raj_Raj]

Best of Luck

We cant help it Ricky. They do what ever they feel right.

Anyways Good Luck. Keep us posted.

Raj

[lupitamartinezz]

Question?

Are you an American Citizen?

[Ricky2007]

Yes, I am U.S. Citizen. In their eyes, the integrity of the sponsor does not play a big role. Even if I have served in U.S.Marine Corps for 6 years. 214(b) is basically a rule that says you are guilty until proven innocent, based on the subjective judgement from those VO.

[s_kon]

My Parents visa got rejected 2nd time today. My husband sponsored their visa. The reason is that both kids (son and daughter) are in the US and they will not go back.

My parents offered to show the documents related to property, bank statements, pension statements but the officer was not interested in seeing the paper work.
The first question the officer(vo) asked was "How many children do you have?" My parents answered 2 - 1 daughter, 1 unmarried son.
Next question(vo): How long have they been in the US?
Answer: daughter xx yrs, son xx yrs.
(vo) What does your daughter do?
Answer: she works at xx company.
(vo) Has your son applied for GC?
Answer: I don't know. He is on H1.

After that question, the one thing the officer kept repeating was "I'm not convinced you'll come back". How can one prove the intention is to only visit when the officer has already made a decision to refuse?!?!?! My parents would like to stay for 2 months or less to attend our house warming. We have presented everything truly and yet they got refused.

[cxg015700]

s_kon:
My parents also were denied 4 times saying both kids are here. I hope some kind officer from the Consulate is reading these posts so they know how unfair it is and most cases are genuine.

Ricky: You can apply for your parents GC if you are an American citizen, rather than waiting for their whim and fancies of granting a visa.

[Ricky2007]

Visa Rejection

There is no doubt that many people are abusing the tourist visa by overstaying! At the same time, the system or VO is rejecting far more genuine cases than the true cheaters!!! You have heard a lot of angry voice from innocent people here. I mean, from a scientific point of view, the false positive rate is high, i.e., there are many people with no intention to overstay got rejected wrongfully. If god has a way to analyse the righteousness of the rejection, he will probably find that out of 1000 people who got rejected, only less than 100 people truely deserved so. The rest 900 or so got falsely judged by VO due to their policy of 214(b), where the burden is on the applicant to prove innocent before changing the assumed guilty intention. Unfortunately, there is no other way to prove that one is likely to return to their own country, such as a bond. I think if they put out $1,000,000 bond to guarantee a return, that will definetely stop the cheaters from applying and benefit those who really want to go for genuine reason.

Just my 2 cents and frustration.

[peace]

Over the years there have been changes in laws that should have deterred
people from overstaying or staying illegally.

*Like the 1997 law, that invites 3 and 10 yr entry bars on overstays of 180 days or more. It even makes AOS difficult for illegals by marrying a US citizen.

*Change from visitor to student is not easy after 9/11.

Despite this , misinformed people determined to live in the US take the
visitor visa route. Just this month, the US embassy in New Delhi reported
seeing a large jump in % of unqualified people applying or applying with unauthentic documents.

I guess they could make the visitor visa at par with Visa Waiver Program
(VWP) where absolutely no change of status or adjustment of status is allowed and post it outside all visitor visa sections for everyone to know.

[cxg015700]

I understand and I don't blame the VOs. I like the idea proposed here like a bond of 1M and rules that DO NOT let visitor's visa be converted to any other status. That would really get rid of 90% of fraud cases.

But you also have to empathize with genuine cases- all we are trying to say is give everyone a fair chance and do not let other cases bias and the best way to do this is to implement some of the rules suggested by peace.