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researcher123

Travel VISA after inadmissibility

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Filed: K-1 Visa Country: China
Timeline

I don't understand why CBP would put you in handcuffs for just intending to immigrate to the US. Did your poor state of mental health played a role in yourself being detained?

Medical

Thank you, I will study the details.

Asylum

Short answer, no asylum was not claimed.

Long answer: I was refused admission to the US (immigrant intent), and I was not allowed to make any calls prior to removal, but when I asked about how to be able to make a call, the CBP said there is an option to let me call a pro-bono lawyer of my choice for free. They said I must have a reasonable fear of return to qualify. I had honest mistaken beliefs (written into the Sworn Statement) based on which the CBP decided I pass the credible fear interview and can be transported to the detention facility. They said I can end the detention any time, and that I am free to make any calls, then decide to return or claim status. (Claiming legal status is not necessarily asylum. It can be any legal means of staying in the US. I did not intend to stay, but to get an advice because of refused admission, and after I got it I wanted to leave. I spent nearly 2 months in detention before I was finally allowed to return. It was not at all ending the detention when I want to, but instead it was waiting to see the immigration judge.)

Immigrant intent

The CBP asked about any Americans I might meet during my stay in the US. I suggested I can meet a friend I worked with online before, and when they asked about anyone else I might meet during my holiday, I suggested maybe I can meet some lawyer because I need to ask some questions about options for which I am eligible. After several probing questions the CBP they understood I am not trying to do anything my VISA does not allow (since I am allowed to ask legal questions), but they decided to be very strict and refused my admission, saying that I intend to immigrate.

Obviously, I was very frustrated after spending long hours on the flight to the US, having paid a lot of money for the tickets, for my hotel, and having looked forward to everything days in advance. I became really uneasy about the refusal on such inaccurate and exagerrated ground. The CBP pushed me around into their prison-like facility in handcuffs with chains around my waist and on my legs like some criminal when I only had an intent to ask questions, like any information professional perhaps would do. They are the ones who twisted it into an "immigration intent without the right document". I had a return ticket and only 6 days to stay.

Statements

Without going into detail, my sworn statement was based on honest mistaken believes. I have challenged them with critical thinking after some time in detention and realized how the only effect of those statements is that of making others write things like "seemed mentally unstable.", and of course I soon distanced myself from the beliefs and wanted to correct them. I was told I can write any corrections for the immigration judge, whom I however did not want to read this at all, and I only requested to be returned to my home country, with the justification that the information I provided feels mistaken and based on some incorrect assumptions therefore I do not have any credible fear and can be returned.

Service Center :

California Service Center

Consulate :

Hong Kong, China

Marriage (if applicable):

2014-03-31

I-130 Sent :

2015-06-10

I-130 NOA1 :

2015-06-12

I-130 Approved :

Approved sometime before August 6, 2015. I never got the approval letter from them.

NVC Received :

"NVC Welcome Letter" dated August 6, 2015

Send AOS Package :

2015-11-08

Send IV Package:

2015-11-08

Case Completed at NVC:

2015-12-02

Interview Date:

2016-01-12

Interview Result:

APPROVED!!!

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Filed: K-1 Visa Country: Wales
Timeline

After that experience why would you ever want to go back?

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

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Filed: Timeline

This situation's getting more complicated with every post.

I'd assumed the OP was turned around at the POE and on the next flight home.

I'd say it's beyond the advice of a DIY forum like this.

To complicate it less, I was turned around at the POE. Then I was offered the protective detention if I have a credible fear. I have used the detention to have my questions answered. When ending the detention I was returned on the next flight. Since I have not been admitted to the US, it is the same refusal of admission as if I got ordinarily turned around. There is no role this detention has (i.e. it is not a removal or deportation for the purpose of the immigration law. One can be removed or deported only after being admitted to the US. Those who are turned around at the POE are normally not detained. I was detained because they offered the credible fear procedure (if you have a fear of return we can put you into a voluntary detention from where you can call pro-bono lawyers,etc. and eventually claim status).

In the back of my passport is 8CFR 217.4(A)(1) which is the ESTA Visa Waiver Program, refused admission. 8CFR 217.4(A)(3) says refused admission and removal according to 8CFR 217.4(A)(1) does not count as a removal for the purpose of the act.

In my passport on a page where VISAs can be is "refused in accordance with INA section 217." and that is the VWP. Further, it says "R27000" as the exact reason. Apologies if it sounded complicated. It should is the ordinary being turned around at the POE, and before the CBP put you on the next flight they write a document with reasons for refused admission. Mine will say "intent to immigrate" and "seemed mentally unstable". I have the sworn statement from the credible fear process which normally people do not have because they did not go through the credible fear procedure. Otherwise everything is the same as for others who have on denied entry.

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Filed: K-1 Visa Country: Wales
Timeline

What normally happens is they are allowed to withdraw their application for entry and get sent back on the next plane.

Your situation is very different, you asserted a credible fear of being returned and were held for 2 months at no doubt great expense.

I have seen some really weird B approvals, but this one if successful may take the top spot. Never going to find out without trying.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

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Filed: Timeline

I don't understand why CBP would put you in handcuffs for just intending to immigrate to the US. Did your poor state of mental health played a role in yourself being detained?

They put everybody in handcuffs and chains while moving people to/from the facility, and then for any medical, court hearing, etc. we were all again like that. I have learned the immigration detention is regardless of whether you actually are a criminal treating you like one. It happens to every asylum seeker.

Pretty much people asking for asylum are in this jail called detention faclity together with those who are getting deported for having commited felonies in the US while on VISA, etc. The facility is ran by a private company called GEO. It has been a subject to numerous complaints and criticism for many years due to sub-human conditions and its very strict army-like regime. The US government has yet to solve this issue. The facility is like in a 3rd world country.

I was there through the credible fear process, and the credible fear ceased after I have discussed the situation on the phone with a lawyer.

I was offered detention as an option to call a pro-bono lawyer and get the advise I sought. Since I needed to have my questions answered before being put on the next flight, I thought the CBP has a great idea. They thought it was a good idea too because they said I can end the detention any time if I decide to leave. The CBP said there is a form in the detention facility for voluntary departure. However, when I did what they said, then filled the form, nothing happened, nobody knew what to do to return me, only after a long time the immigration judge was due and he scheduled another hearing during which he has resolved the situation. Nobody else knew how to do it. The judge did what the "voluntary departure" form was for, and issued a final order. Day after I was on the next flight to the home country. In total it was 6 or 7 weeks of detention. None of it related to mental health.

Staff had no idea what to tell me, i.e. how much longer the detention is for. GEO, ICE, DHS hotline, all were clueless about the process and so was my embassy, the facility librarian, and everyone else I asked. The US immigration law does not mention anything about the process for my case either. Detention was definitely not designed for this. I wish the CBP let me make a call from the POE. If they would, I did not have to spend a month and a half detained.

They said usually, this facility is for asylum seekers and for immigrants who are getting deported for something illegal. Hence some of the rules may seem quite harsh if I have not done anything. I am neither a criminal nor an asylum seeker. They understood, but did not know how to follow up the process for removing me. There were flowcharts on the wall with an abstract high-level definition of the process, and none of the two flow-charts applied because my situation was different from deportation. I have arrived legally, had all documents, used the VWP, only was not admitted at POE. They were completely lost. They said normally, people are immediately returned, and because I weren't they did not know what to do next.

I was locked up without knowing anything, they were locking me up without knowing anything either. The CBP never mentioned that detention for tourists is a place like a prison and that tourists are treated like criminals.

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Filed: Citizen (apr) Country: Jordan
Timeline

Why did you have credible fear? Why were you seeking asylum? As I asked before, what is your home country?I have never heard of anyone asking for asylum from a VWP country.


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Filed: Timeline

What normally happens is they are allowed to withdraw their application for entry and get sent back on the next plane.

Your situation is very different, you asserted a credible fear of being returned and were held for 2 months at no doubt great expense.

I have seen some really weird B approvals, but this one if successful may take the top spot. Never going to find out without trying.

Thank you for this post. "I want to withdraw my application for entry" is what I told the immigration judge. An immigration lawyer advised to say it. It has worked. The waiting was for the judge.

Yes, I would like to try and see what happens. Normally, those who were turned around need to overcome their grounds for inadmissibility and then might be issued a VISA.

Intent to immigrate on a non-immigrant VISA which I did not have can hopefully be explained.

Perhaps requires strong ties to my country of residence (working in a full-time job and studying a graduate degree at an accdredited university on a stipend, renting a flat, would that suffice?) and medical (some clearance).

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Filed: Timeline

Why did you have credible fear? Why were you seeking asylum? As I asked before, what is your home country?I have never heard of anyone asking for asylum from a VWP country.

I only had a credible fear because I was mentally unwell and I needed to ask an immigration lawyer to determine whether my fear is really credible or not. The CBP interviewed me and said it was credible, but when I read the document the CBP wrote during that interview, it definitely looks irrational and not credible at all.

To explain the asylum, the CBP only has 2 options. One is turn you around on VWP, other is detain you as a potential claimant of a legal status because of a credible fear or some other reason. All I wanted was to have a phone call before turning around, but they say I can only have it from the detention facility, and that is leading to the asylum seekers confusion. I never claimed an asylum, but I was detained, and the stupid process is confusing because all people who do not withdraw their request for admission are later automatically becoming asylum seekers. The good news is I withrew my request for admission and I have been making it very clear throughout the process that I got my advice on the phone, and that I have no case for admission.

One can voluntarily go in detention to call the immigration lawyer from there to ask. Then there is the "asylum seeker" confusion because it could have led to an asylum, but it depends on whether one fills the asylum form or not. I have not filled the form, and I have withdrew my request for admission. That request for admission was done by the same CBP who passed my fear as credible, and wrote a document which clearly shows to 100% of people who see it that I was mentally unwell and that it was not a credible, reliable, good reason to allow detention. It should have been denied and marked as "not credible". That would have saved me the month and a half of hell.

They always

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Filed: K-1 Visa Country: Wales
Timeline

Why did you have credible fear? Why were you seeking asylum? As I asked before, what is your home country?I have never heard of anyone asking for asylum from a VWP country.

There was that German homeschooling family.

Edited by Boiler

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

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Filed: IR-1/CR-1 Visa Country: Kenya
Timeline

I real like this site! There are people who come here with genuine problems/issues seeking answers and sure enough most get those answers.However,some have stories to tell and is sometimes hard to understand because they dont tell the whole story.I mean,how do you expect to enter the USA,or any other country for that matter by claiming you are going to the beach as well as talk to immigration lawyer!Now,after being deported you want to find out how you can apply for another visa to enter.My sympathies because sure as son rises from east and sets in the west,you will not be allowed to enter with such reasons.Am sorry,but that is the true picture.

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Filed: K-1 Visa Country: Wales
Timeline

I only had a credible fear because I was mentally unwell and I needed to ask an immigration lawyer to determine whether my fear is really credible or not. The CBP interviewed me and said it was credible, but when I read the document the CBP wrote during that interview, it definitely looks irrational and not credible at all.

To explain the asylum, the CBP only has 2 options. One is turn you around on VWP, other is detain you as a potential claimant of a legal status because of a credible fear or some other reason. All I wanted was to have a phone call before turning around, but they say I can only have it from the detention facility, and that is leading to the asylum seekers confusion. I never claimed an asylum, but I was detained, and the stupid process is confusing because all people who do not withdraw their request for admission are later automatically becoming asylum seekers. The good news is I withrew my request for admission and I have been making it very clear throughout the process that I got my advice on the phone, and that I have no case for admission.

One can voluntarily go in detention to call the immigration lawyer from there to ask. Then there is the "asylum seeker" confusion because it could have led to an asylum, but it depends on whether one fills the asylum form or not. I have not filled the form, and I have withdrew my request for admission. That request for admission was done by the same CBP who passed my fear as credible, and wrote a document which clearly shows to 100% of people who see it that I was mentally unwell and that it was not a credible, reliable, good reason to allow detention. It should have been denied and marked as "not credible". That would have saved me the month and a half of hell.

They always

Once you made the asylum claim they had no choice. They do not asses an asylum claim validity.

Quite how you explain that away as not being well I have no idea. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. You basically have to say/show you were crazy enough to make such a claim but are now recovered.

Seems a long shot.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

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Filed: Timeline

I real like this site! There are people who come here with genuine problems/issues seeking answers and sure enough most get those answers.However,some have stories to tell and is sometimes hard to understand because they dont tell the whole story.I mean,how do you expect to enter the USA,or any other country for that matter by claiming you are going to the beach as well as talk to immigration lawyer!Now,after being deported you want to find out how you can apply for another visa to enter.My sympathies because sure as son rises from east and sets in the west,you will not be allowed to enter with such reasons.Am sorry,but that is the true picture.

That would be a very big mistake to say I am going to the beach and to an immigration lawyer. I was not like that. The purpose of my trip was a 6 day holiday in LA. The CBP caused that I thought of maybe visiting an immigration lawyer, and the CBP also caused that I went through the credible fear procedure. Again, the CBP caused that I have passed that procedure (they do asses validity of an asylum claim). All happened during the questioning because they asked and asked who else I could possibly meet in the US, and nothing seemed wrong with learning what I am legally entitled to by visiting a lawyer. There is so much BS, honestly. How can you say getting informed about your legal options is an illegal immigration? If I wanted to illegally immigrate I would first of all never mention anything to any CBP about it, nor would I ask any lawyer about *legal* entitlements. Seriously, I wanted information, not an illegal immigration. There is a US stereotype that everybody wants to *illegally* immigrate. Why would I need information from a lawyer if I was planning something illegal? And are all those people who *legally* immigrated supposed to do it without any advice from an immigration lawyer, just on their own? Do you see the difference between an intent to illegaly immigrate and getting information about legal immigration? The system is so strict that any immigration-related word or topic makes the paranoid CBP believe you are longing to be an undocumented garbage collector, or apple picker. Good luck with that thinking. I had no idea they suspect everyone and they are so paranoid, mean, uninformed. But again, I had only my holiday in plan, and it was the CBP who made me think deeply about who I could possibly meet during that holiday.

And more importantly, whoever suggests that I as a special occupation worker, an engineer, a scientist, a senior experienced professional residing in the UK want to live some low life as an undocumented cleaner, or something, is really crazy. Just imagine how ridiculous it sounds that I would exchange my high life standards for the lowest possible to live somewhere undocumented. It is completely and utterly a nonsense, and an irrational fear. And if you consider that I might have been wanting to get informed for the purpose of immigrating *legally* in the future as an expert who is in a high demand, why would you have a problem with it and ruin my holiday, block my visits of the country forever, and cause a living hell to me? Seriously, if there is an intent to legally immigrate in the future, you should not confuse it with some Mexican stereotype of illegal immigration to have a low life as someone undocumented.

Further, if I had the intent to illegally immigrate, I would definitely read first in a forum from people who have done it and I would have prepared for an illegal immigration. I have a Master's Degree and am one year away from a PhD because I am such an idiot that I want to illegally immigrate to be a cleaner somewhere with lowest class people. Yes, that makes sense, people like me are going to visit the US to give up all their hard earned skills, education, experience, career, life standards, opportunities, everything just to sweep roads and pick up apples for $1/h. Is that what you think I came to do to the US? What is wrong with *legal* immigration? I am such a terrible criminal for coming for holidays and intending to learn new information that you have to forever ban me from any future travel to the country, regardless of how similar the UK is and how many companies I worked for are cooperating with the US HQ every day.

Edited by researcher123
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I am so sorry to say this brother but reading all your posts one after the next I believe that you are still "unwell" and should perhaps focus your energies into getting the help you need and postpone your travel plans to the US.

I am very familiar with the B1-B2 VISA process and can say without a doubt that your interview with the Vise Consul at the Embassy will go in the same direction as the interview with the CBP officer.

The way you answer questions and tell your story speaks to your mental state. I hope you take this as respectful advice from an honest but blunt person.

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Filed: Timeline

I am so sorry to say this brother but reading all your posts one after the next I believe that you are still "unwell" and should perhaps focus your energies into getting the help you need and postpone your travel plans to the US.

I am very familiar with the B1-B2 VISA process and can say without a doubt that your interview with the Vise Consul at the Embassy will go in the same direction as the interview with the CBP officer.

The way you answer questions and tell your story speaks to your mental state. I hope you take this as respectful advice from an honest but blunt person.

I am certain you will accept my apology, and have some understanding I have to write about the worst and most stressful event in my life. I was for almost two months in a dark and dreary prison-like facility, and I would feel for you if you had a similar disaster in your life that you would have to explain to someone and overcome it.

That how I felt being locked up indefinitely without knowing when I can be released is by many humanists likened to torture, and the sub-humane conditions of the detention facility are likewise that.

If you are so bothered by the way I write, can you please show me how you write about the most terrible thing that happend in your life? I think you are abusing the "you are unwell" rhetoric as a weapon, and that is very lethal. Psychopaths often like to abuse and push people around to get drugged until they are nearly knocked out, while making profit on every drug sold, and they are deceiving victims and their families, by calling the drugging "help". I think you should get "help you need" such as in particular taste your own medicine before preaching it onto others. You would need high doses until your psychopathy and misbehavior trying to control others stops.

"The way you do X speaks of your mental health" is an abusive and deceitful rhetoric. You have no idea what mental health is, and the way I do X has nothing to do with with it. I will be waiting to see you writing about the most terrible thing that happened to you in your life. You should be tortured with neuroleptics to get better and more understanding of mental health. If it works for others, it must work for you, and you need treatment because of your rhetoric.

Edited by researcher123
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Filed: F-2A Visa Country: Philippines
Timeline

Just go ahead and apply. There's nothing more VJ can do to appease you or better your situation. Come back with the results, good or bad.

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