Non-Immigrant Visas

Some congressmen do not want to make it easier for people to get non-immigrant visas. A recent study by the Center for Immigration Studies explains why they feel that way.
 
One of the ongoing problems with America’s immigration policy is that it is not a single, unified policy. It is a mixture of various immigrant, nonimmigrant, and refugee policies, all operating quite separately.
 
There are many nonimmigrant visa categories, with millions of applicants and with large numbers of government officials deciding who should be admitted and who should be refused, on a case-by-case basis. Because so much depends on the perceptions of the interview officer, the results of non-immigrant visa interviews are especially difficult to predict.
 
The Center for Immigration Studies has made the following observations based on the Department of State’s worldwide visa statistics:
 

 issuing or denying tourist visas is the major headache to the government;

 

 visas for students, short-term unskilled workers (H-2A and H-2B), and religious workers are much more troublesome to State Department officials than most other categories.

 
American Consulates approved about 80% of the more than 3 million tourist visa applications they received in 2010.
 
The denial rate for Student Visa applicants is around 25%, for religious workers 12%, for L-1 multinational corporate employees 9% and for H1-B high tech workers, only 3% are denied.
 
These numbers bring us to some obvious conclusions:
 
1) the higher the number of applicants in a category, the higher the incidents of attempted fraud in that category;
 
2) the higher the income of the applicants, the higher the approval rate;
 
3) When both CIS and the Consulate screen the applications, as in fiancée and religious worker cases, there is a lower incidence of successful fraud.
 
Those who come to the United States with nonimmigrant visas and overstay their visas make up about 40-45 percent of the illegal alien population. Most of them arrived on tourist visas and many entered as students.
 
Should we expand our unskilled nonimmigrant worker programs? Should we ease the processing of F-1 students? Should we make it easier for people to get tourist visas? Should we add a bankrupt country like Greece to our Visa Waiver program as we did in 2010?
 
The main immigration problem is with those who enter the US illegally. The second biggest problem is with the non-immigrant visa holders who overstay forever.
 
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Q.1. What Immigration reforms are likely during 2012?
 
A.1. Most observers of Congress believe there will not be any major reforms during this year. Mr. Obama has made a few minor attempts to improve things for illegal aliens, but the presidential campaign focus will be on the economy.
 
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Q.2. Is the number of immigrants from Vietnam likely to increase or decrease during the coming years?
 
A.2. We expect the rate of immigration from Vietnam to remain steady during the next few years, with almost half of the applicants being the spouse or fiancée of a US citizen.
 
ROBERT MULLINS INTERNATIONAL www.rmiodp.com
Immigration Support Services-Tham Van Di Tru

9070 Bolsa Avenue, Westminster CA 92683 (714) 890-9933 
779 Story Road, Ste. 70, San Jose, CA 95122 (408) 294-3888 
6930 65th St. Ste. #105, Sacramento CA 95823 (916) 393-3388 
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