>"my current work visa application had been complicated due to a filing mistake"

Making a mistake is not an acceptable excuse for these people (even Brad Feld experienced this [1]).

Having been in the "backroom" twice I can attest how stressful it is and like many other stories, the lack of information is quite scary indeed. In my case, it was just a secondary screening triggered by me having had a student visa in 2006, a similar type of visa that the Boston bomber had had [2]. The officer told me that anyone who had held a student visa in the past 10 years had to go through this, so I'd imagine a fair few people here must have had the same experience.

[1] http://www.feld.com/archives/2013/03/the-joy-of-being-detain...

[2] http://blog.ogletreedeakins.com/dhs-orders-verification-of-f...