A US Visa in 937 Days
daniel.haxx.se
daniel.haxx.se
There is no one you can talk to, no way to expedite any remediation, and you can't travel to the US by boat or plane to talk to the CBP.
What I ended up doing, and I don't necessarily recommend this, is flew to Canada and entered over the land border.
After spending something like an hour at the border, and holding up my bus, they let me in.
Supposedly I should be able to apply for an ESTA in the future, but it's not something I have tried since.
I didn't get the job.
<spoiler> a similar literal interpretation of the ESTA check list, i.e. a Norwegian police officer answering "Yes" to the question if he has ever been in contact with terrorists/terrorism, eventually causes the protagonists' witness protection bubble to be pierced through a series of unfortunate events. </spoiler>
Back in the Ebola days (5 years ago?), the Canadian border entry terminals at airport would ask:
“Have you been in contact with anyone with Ebola?, Yes or No?” and I wanted some help from them, because how the hell do I know? Can barely spell the disease, let alone explain it.
Once COVID is over...if you know someone’s first name, last name, and passport number, you can fill out an online form to ban them from visiting Australia for a mere $20!
Obviously, it's not in the interest of most countries to do that but it's really infuriating how something like ESTA was created to abuse the spirit of the reciprocal visa free agreements while sticking to the letter of the agreements.
The thing is that, other countries looked at the US and instead of making US honour the reciprocal agreements, they reciprocated by creating non-visa visas of their own. Now, Canada has eTA, Asutralia has ETA, New Zealand has NZeTA, Schengen area is rolling out ETIAS, ...
So yes, there was a brief period of time when visa waivers became non-reciprocal. Now the reciprocity has been restored, but not to what it was before, instead to a new normal. We as the citizens are worse off and the governments have more power in this new normal.
"The main reason for the approval of the ETIAS authorization is security. With the increased risk of travellers worldwide, the EU wants to ensure safe travels in its countries. " The increased risk of travellers worldwide? What increased risk... That's just using a baseless assertion and basing the entire argument on that.
I had missed that the ETIAS start date has been pushed back to end of 2022.
As an American citizen I've taken it for granted that I can book a flight to Germany when a $200 mistake fare comes up and fly, like, within 24 hours, with no immigration preapproval required. I'm not going understand how much I miss that until it's gone.
Hard to imagine there won't be bureaucratic snafus where Americans are inexplicably denied an ETIAS and will expect to apply for a paper tourist visa to visit Europe, weeks or months in advance of travel.
The annoying thing is that every visa-free country is going in this direction.
I’m sure it will trip up Americans the most when it launches.
The other issue with ETIAS is that there are a lot of dual EU/xx citizens out there travelling on their xx passport. Technically they won’t be eligible for ETIAS.
I have a lot of family born... in a country that no longer exists. Dunno if ETIAS will bark because they didn’t get their EU passport from its successor EU country.
Protip: Your House representative is likely to be more responsive than your Senator. Being up for re-election every 2 years rather than every 6, House members have more incentive to directly serve their constituents.
You can also email the prime minister and sometimes they’ll forward it to the Minister responsible and then they have to reply. Just make sure to phrase it as a non-systemic issue when it was a systemic issue they created ;)
My MP told me to get a job at McDonald's, Wal-Mart or Crappy Tire, because they have rubber-stamp approval for Permanent Residency, and that would be the best way. I'd just have to suck it up and earn minimum wage for 2 years.
Or be a student for four years. He had no idea how I was supposed to pay for that.
.. eventually though I convinced Bell and the Province I was living in to run me through the "Provincial Nominee" stream, which required TONS of paperwork to prove that no Canadian was willing or able to do the job, and therefore they needed a foreigner like me. That took 2 years of paperwork, interviews, medical tests and background checks and being saddled to that job before I finally got it.
Though I did email an MP about how Bell was trying to destroy Teksavvy and out lacklustre telecom competition (my DSL line was stuck at 1mbps...). Their office responded that our MP was a retired Bell linesman and Bell’s competitors use poorer quality lines.
I guess Bell was good to him at the expense of their customers...
... still not a citizen though. That's a LONG process!
Things are most likely different now.
And that's just to apply. The process can easily take a year or two longer. Also every day I spend outside Canada (holiday, visiting family, whatever) pushes that back.
It's a LONG process.
To be eligible to become a Canadian citizen, you must:
be a permanent resident
have lived in Canada for 3 out of the last 5 years
have filed your taxes, if you need to
pass a citizenship test
prove your language skills
Other requirements may apply.
My application in mid 2015 was denied because they received it the day after the rules changed from what you posted to what I posted.
It must have changed back in the mean time, and I've never looked into it again.
Thanks very much!
And because you said "ages ago" I suspect you and I have the same original passport.
I still think it would have been worse without the letter, and at least it helped my neighbour's spirits. She comes from a part of the world where nothing happens without a bribe, and even then it ain't very effective.
My mother recommended that we contact our local congressperson, David Price. I was extremely doubtful that anything would come of it. We had never had any contact of any kind with him or anyone who knows him before. We are not wealthy or have any special status. We wrote an email to his office, two days later his office called us to tell us that they had contacted the passport agency, and the next day fedex delivered a renewed passport that had been overnighted to us.
I did some research and this is actually pretty common. If you want something like a phone call or letter of inquiry to a federal agency, congresspeople are generally happy to do it because it's easy to do and generates goodwill.
As to renewing a passport, I just always pay up for a service that takes care of it for me. Less risk. I once got a new passport and a China visa in 5 days, but it did cost $600.
Anyone in the US can contact their congressperson & this is the typical course of redress if one is stuck in a process run by the federal government or having some issue with the federal government. A family member did it once to get a passport application expedited for a trip, it's not unusual.
Most countries probably favour the government in decisions about the former, but it at least means you can force them to give up more details (e.g. FOIA).
There are obvious exceptions for citizen and diplomats, but that's generally how it works.
Here's an example: You decide spontaneously to travel to the UK from the US after having finishing a grueling contract. Your travel plans are a bit vague because of the short notice. You work on your CV on the flight with a view to your next job.
The border control officer finds your lack of detailed travel plans suspicious. He decides to carry out a search of your luggage and finds your CV. He claims you are coming to the UK to seek work. You protest but you have no evidence to the contrary.
You're refused entry and you will now find it difficult to enter the UK for at least 10 years. You can expect to spend 3 or more hours at the UK border each time you try to enter.
Or, alternatively, none of this happens and instead the officer has a laugh with you about disorganised trips overseas and waves you in.
These sorts of scenarios are very common. People should be aware of the peril of crossing borders and be informed and well organised.
Imagine repeat this process every year... as an international student.
I've had a visa that allowed me to work for 3+ years in the US, but was valid only for 90 days. Every time I left the country I had to renew it, a process which takes an indeterminate amount of time.
US Visas bounce around between security services (Homeland Security, FBI, DoD/NSA), immigration, and State/NVC. These other departments can flag any visa for additional scrutiny.
When excessive delays like this occur it is often a security flag, because then it has to go back to the origin agency and even the department within that originally created the flag to decide if it is a valid match to this individual (and or the facts are correct).
Keep in mind that the other departments handling this, it isn't their primary responsibility. They're dealing daily with e.g. terrorist threats, drug trafficking, or similar threats/violations. Nobody is interested in prioritizing State's visa processing (of which they receive many).
Plus the people or department who created the original match could no longer exist/work there, and now the request is bouncing between different departments with nobody wanting to take responsibility for it.
PS - Just to be clear I'm not defending this. It is a giant mess and hugely dysfunctional. But to understand why something can get stuck in "administrative processing" for years, you have to realize how deep this rabbit hole goes.
If the backlog is so long, there should be a lottery system to ensure that at least some results are timely. Alas, government processes rarely have any logic applied.
Though I agree sharing all of this in public after all of the struggle he's been through isn't the smartest idea :)!
In most of the cases we are informed during the in person interview of approval or denial, in case of approval, we have our visas stamped within a month.
Interestingly, the site where you schedule an in person interview says she can go November 26th... next year
At some point my visa was expiring and I applied for a new one, but my application was rejected. So I left the country under my own volition.
For the next two years, I visited the UK regularly (6 times total) for 2-4 week stints to see my longtime girlfriend, friends, and perform various activities related to a business I started with a friend in the UK (I had lived in the UK for 6 years).
The most recent time I tried to visit the UK, I was visiting my girlfriend before Christmas for two weeks. Already had an onward flight to the US booked for two weeks after my arrival, on an airline + route I had flown quite frequently. That is to say: none of the circumstances were different than all the other times I had visited the UK in the past two years.
This time, however, I was denied entry and held in detention for nearly 18 hours, having to book a same day flight back to the states (because my existing onward flight was out of a different airport and could not rebook).
My only crime was that when they denied a visa application, I left when they asked me to (which is another story about how hard they actually made it for me to leave in the first place).
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On the other hand, my British girlfriend just got an ESTA to come visit me in the states. She had to stay in Mexico for two weeks as she was coming from Europe, but she's here now.
It appears as though getting the congressperson involved might've helped. It is nice to see that people can actually get in touch with their congressperson here in the US. A sign that democracy does somewhat work as intended.
Anecdotally, since Trump took office, the processing times for visa/EAD went up by 50%-ish in my peer group. Visa rejections for H1B also went up hugely among those who appear super qualified. 2 Friends' H1b was rejected for Data Science roles at a FANG despite having a CS/Comp Math major from Stanford and another having studied Information systems at another top 10 US-CS school.
He did propose a merit based H1b draw, which is stuck in processing. He also made it a lot harder for exploitative body shops like TCS/Infosys to get get approved for an H1b, making it easier for qualified unicorn/FANG-esque companies with real demand to get picked in the lottery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Canadian...
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...
I’m not 100% sure how this works, but when OP renews their passport, they might need to keep their old passport because the visa is still valid, ie: travel with old and new passport. Not sure if the US works that way.
America - $900,000 investment for permanent residency (EB5)
Ireland - €1.0 million investment (plus €2.0 million net worth) for permanent residency for your family
Portugal - purchase and renovate at least €350,000 in property for residency, with an expedited path to citizenship
Germany - €360,000 investment for 3 year residency with a path to citizenship after 8 years
UK - £2 million investment for 3 year residency with a path to citizenship after 6 years.
The one exception to this rule would be medical personnel. Every country needs doctors and nurses to keep the population healthy. Their labor has direct human value that’s not entirely reflected economically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#Visa_Waive...
right? If you are going to work meetings it seems that should be OK.
If you've never had to deal with the US immigration apparatus, think "Google customer service, backed with nuclear weapons".
Last time I filled out the UK application, I could not find their definition of "work" or "business",
For example, I've heard of developers get turned away at the border because they began by saying they were "speaking at a conference/giving a workshop" and noting they were being paid or having their expenses covered as if that makes it more legitimate. Instead, you'd start by saying you're "attending a conference." This is something border officials encounter 1000 times a day and will rarely question further.
Likewise, if you're planning to record a podcast or take some photos at a conference, you don't mention that unless asked specifically because otherwise it puts them on the track of treating you like a member of the "foreign media" and demanding the relevant visa for that when it's really not relevant for most people doing such things as a side effect of their attendance.
An ESTA is not a visa (otherwise the US could lose its reciprocal visa-free travel arrangements). The ESTA just walks, talks and quacks like a visa.
Meetings are fine. You'll note the visa he was approved for is a tourist visa. Which is also fine for the same use - given it was approved with the use of an invitation letter from his employer.
You need to say something very dumb to a border guard to get denied on the basis of exceeding the allowed use of the visa waiver, but if you do, you'd get turned away then and there, not rejected at the airport the next time.
"Something" certainly got triggered, but it's highly unlikely to have been about going for business meetings.
My guess would be that something got messed up with his previous departure, such as e.g. failing to register that he left on time, as that is one of the things that would pretty much instantly disqualify you from future visa free travel. I almost got into trouble for that myself with visa waivers (though pre-ESTA). The main reason I wasn't denied re-entry was that I was still within the 90 day window of the previous entry, so I provably hadn't overstayed, and they could see I had about a dozen or so short stays that made it very obvious it was a mistake. But that was in person, with someone manually looking through my passport stamps - I'm not at all sure it'd have gone as well today with automated pre-flight checks.
With the "of course" I am wondering if people are really concerned about being "COVID shamed"?
Aren't we at "rapid test and move on"? As in, take a test one to two days before you board a flight, take a test during or after your trip? Results in 18 - 48 hours? It is a far cry from the mess of unavailable tests and the infinite delays if you managed to get a test that was occurring back in Spring and Summer.
And no, some false negatives aren't a rebuttal. All public policy measures are to get the R0 below 1 on average. The rapid tests in conjunction with the already existing measures are good enough for that. All we are doing here is skipping the need for 14 day quarantines on arrival.
Granted, he is 50, and is more likely to consider himself an at risk group. I was still wondering what he really thinks.
It really depends on what you are optimizing for. If you are optimizing more for not getting it, nothing has changed. If you are optimizing more for not spreading it, a lot has changed.
1. you might need to wait for results for 4-5 days, while most destinations require taking it at most 72 hours before the arrival
2. if you turn out to be asymptomatic, but test positive, then you instantly get into at least 10 day quarantine (you cannot take tests anonymously). You have no time to cancel your travel plans.
Also, if you choose not do do it, but instead take test at your destination, you might get stuck in quarantine in the foreign country
So I would never travel to a country that requires tests. Only those which require just written statement, or location form, and maybe temperature check.
It is easy to get in this circumstance in the US, it is also easy to not get in this circumstance in the US.
Huge range of service level. Money helps!
Its not that the consensus doesn't have its merits sometimes, it is just a unique position to be in where the infinite resources and infrastructure are available.
This is a continent sized country with states larger than most individual countries. Day to day life in the largest and densest economic centers follows decent distancing measures and lockdown restrictions.
Maybe in your country - in my country we don't even know if people will be able to visit their parents on Christmas day.
And the meeting the author wanted to attend was several years ago, so it's not like he has anything vital to do in the US any more. Why go to the hassle when the US will be there in a year or two anyway?
Personally I wouldn't take a transatlantic flight at the moment simply because I don't want to be infected on the flight itself.
I haven't seen any figures for flight infection risk, so I'm left with intuition. And my intuition says it's a small metal box with recirculating air, filled densely with people for 8+ hours, almost all of whom have not met before and won't meet again.
I wouldn't mix with people like that on the ground at the moment even with the windows open, so I'm not enthused about doing it in the air.
I personally think about the viral load, which I think isn't well researched.
My intuition is that the measures currently in play help reduce the viral load well enough. Flight attendants are decently vigilant about enforcing mask wearing or have been enough so that the threat of them enforcing it is real enough, even with the glaring exceptions for food service.
So that means exposure is likely, but too much exposure is mitigated in a variety of ways. If you want to totally avoid exposure at all, you should not fly, just as it has been.
If you want to take your chance, and focus more so on not spreading it further, trying to help keep your local R0 below 1, then I think it this is very practical.