UGH... US Tourist Visas Denied ... Europe instead?!

[Katilya 3]

My husband (Mexican citizen) recently (in 2017) received his 10 year green card & after many long boring trips to my husband's tiny town in the middle of no where Mexico to see his family we thought why not try to get his parents and his 10 year old son (who is currently in process for an immigrant visa) a tourist visa! We had dreams of taking them to Disneyland in California and to LA museums and to Balboa park in San Diego... but they were all denied a visa... 😞

 

Anyway, this year we decided we needed a REAL vacation... one that didn't include laying around his mom's house in Mexico all day... and since his family was denied tourist visas to America we used our vacation fund and took everyone to Cancun and went to Xcaret park instead. It was amazing. Seriously the best vacation ever. However, I still want to take my nephew and my in laws to Disneyland. So for next year, my husband and I were thinking we'd take a two week vacation and take everyone to France so they can experience the Disney magic and see the Eiffel tower and etc.

 

Most of the cheap flights I looked at from Mexico city to Paris require a stop over in USA... which is a big no, right? Because even for a plane change they would need some type of Visa? 

 

So I found some cheap airfare online with alitalia which doesn't stop at all in the US but this particular flight has a 16 hour stop in Rome, Italy. As far as I know Mexican citizens can travel to France and Italy without a pre-approved Visa for 90 days, right? Do you think there will be any issue for them to get through immigration? I'm assuming they were denied US visas because they didn't meet income requirements and/or have enough ties to convince the officer they'd return to their country... even though my mother in law has held her job at a university in Mexico for 20 years... or maybe it was because of our son's immigrant visa process..?

 

Do you think the same thing could happen when we land in Italy/France? Could they deny my family entry since my husband and I are paying for everything? Or do you think it will be okay since we'll have round trip flight tickets and specific activities purchased?

 

Thanks for any help!

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

You are correct that they will not get transit visas if they have been refused B visas (they are pretty much the same thing for the US as US airports don’t have separated pre-immigration transit only areas).

 

Mexican citizens do not require schengen visas to visit Europe. As with any traveler I would suggest they take evidence of their return ticket and they will obviously have evidence of accommodation booked, etc. Also make sure they have travel insurance and can show evidence of that if requested, I don’t see why they would be denied entry. To state the obvious, the problem of illegal immigration/overstays to the US from Mexico far exceeds that of Europe, as is indicated by the simple fact that Mexican citizens don’t need visas for schengen Europe.