Unique situation for B1 tourist visa request.

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

11 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

Well, I'm also a US citizen, but I wasn’t always, and I don’t presume to know posters’ entire backgrounds and histories before making assumptions.

 

Actually I thought I did give you a useful response in showing your own (assuming you are in fact this third person husband) and therefore the entire family ties to Colombia, but if you think enrolling at a vocational college is better, I’m not going to spend any more time trying to convince you. Good luck.

Are you referring to the husband applying for Colombia citizenship? 

 

He is eligible for Colombian citizenship after living in Colombia for three years while married. So he has another two years or so to go I believe before he can apply for citizenship.....But he could still change his mind. hahaha

 

I think the best news is just to look at the stats for Colombia.....many more tourist visas are approved here compared to other parts of the world. 

 

I think this link might be helpful to anyone seeking a visa and trying to determine what kind of visa to apply for as the category and number of visa approvals very greatly by location. 

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics/immigrant-visa-statistics/monthly-immigrant-visa-issuances.html

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Tommy Lee Jones

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

12 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

You seem to want a magic bullet. There is none, particularly with ties to the US and previous visa denials on her record. If what you wanted to learn was some sure fire way to get her a visa, then no, nothing to be learnt here. 

I'd settle for a helpful hit. It doesn't hurt to ask....never know if someone else knows something you don't. 

 

Do past visa denials more than 5 years ago really have an impact on the odds of approval. and if so why? I persons personal situation and change quite a lot in 5 or more years. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Tommy Lee Jones

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

22 minutes ago, Tommy Lee Jones said:

Are you referring to the husband applying for Colombia citizenship? 

 

He is eligible for Colombian citizenship after living in Colombia for three years while married. So he has another two years or so to go I believe before he can apply for citizenship.....But he could still change his mind. hahaha

 

I think the best news is just to look at the stats for Colombia.....many more tourist visas are approved here compared to other parts of the world. 

 

I think this link might be helpful to anyone seeking a visa and trying to determine what kind of visa to apply for as the category and number of visa approvals very greatly by location. 

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics/immigrant-visa-statistics/monthly-immigrant-visa-issuances.html

 

No, there was an earlier post about showing his ties.

 

The link you have above is for immigrant visas. Unless the wife really is trying to immigrate, it’s not relevant to this thread. The link you actually want for your situation is the one for the B visa refusal rate. Colombia at 42% refusal rate is not the worst, sure, but it’s hardly among the best, especially when you strip out countries with security concerns. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY19.pdf
 

also understand that none of the any above discussion - other than spouse and child details, family in the US, and previous visa denials - will be on the DS160 application form. Whether or not she gets a chance to even talk about it or convince the visa officer of it is something no one can guarantee one way or the other here. You know that bit of information you dismiss - to apply and find out? That’s literally the only thing you can definitively do. 

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

26 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

No, there was an earlier post about showing his ties.

 

The link you have above is for immigrant visas. Unless the wife really is trying to immigrate, it’s not relevant to this thread. The link you actually want for your situation is the one for the B visa refusal rate. Colombia at 42% refusal rate is not the worst, sure, but it’s hardly among the best, especially when you strip out countries with security concerns. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY19.pdf
 

also understand that none of the any above discussion - other than spouse and child details, family in the US, and previous visa denials - will be on the DS160 application form. Whether or not she gets a chance to even talk about it or convince the visa officer of it is something no one can guarantee one way or the other here. You know that bit of information you dismiss - to apply and find out? That’s literally the only thing you can definitively do. 

There are a lot of links on the page ...this one shows the approved visas for all visa types 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/OCTOBER 2019 IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf

Edited May 1, 2020 by Tommy Lee Jones

[millefleur 5,035]

It's also not a matter of just rolling the dice and she has a 42% chance of denial because that's what the statistics last year were. Many individual factors (such as a USC spouse) will be taken into consideration, and that is what @Lucky Cat meant earlier when he said the IO's have discretion as to how they make their decisions. By all means, she could get an IO who will happily want to see all her supporting documents or she will get an IO who won't look at them at all. The only way for her to know is to just apply and go to the interview and see what happens.

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

11 minutes ago, Tommy Lee Jones said:

There are a lot of links on the page ...this one shows the approved visas for all visa types 

Yes. Your wife wants a visit visa. The relevant rows above are B1/B2 or B2. The others are not relevant to her case. The absolute number is meaningless too, of course a country with a bigger population is going to get more than a smaller population and don’t forget in a number of countries most nationals don’t even have to get B visas, so those will be low too. I mean... yes it’s interesting looking at all those visa types but as your wife is not applying for a work, managerial transfer, crewman, exchange worker, student, outstanding achiever, performer, religious worker ...etc visa, they’re meaningless here.

Edited May 1, 2020 by SusieQQQ

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

1 minute ago, millefleur said:

It's also not a matter of just rolling the dice and she has a 42% chance of denial because that's what the statistics last year were. Many individual factors (such as a USC spouse) will be taken into consideration, and that is what @Lucky Cat meant earlier when he said the IO's have discretion as to how they make their decisions. By all means, she could get an IO who will happily want to see all her supporting documents or she will get an IO who won't look at them at all. The only way for her to know is to just apply and go to the interview and see what happens.

Seems to me the odds of approval or denial are influenced by the country you are applying in.

As I noted in the link above. Many more tourist visas being issued in Colombia compared to other parts of the world.

 

Well I'll advise her to bring all the documentation she can about her spouse but there are very few questions about a spouse on the DS 160 application.

My hope is the her having filed a joint US income tax with her spouse and her putting her ITIN on the application ....will give them more information about her spouse before the interview.

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/OCTOBER 2019 IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

4 minutes ago, Tommy Lee Jones said:

Many more tourist visas being issued in Colombia compared to other parts of the world.

So the refusal rate is meaningless in your eyes? Ok then... I really can’t add anything more here. Good luck.

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

9 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

Yes. Your wife wants a visit visa. The relevant rows above are B1/B2 or B2. The others are not relevant to her case. The absolute number is meaningless too, of course a country with a bigger population is going to get more than a smaller population and don’t forget in a number of countries most nationals don’t even have to get B visas, so those will be low too. I mean... yes it’s interesting looking at all those visa types but as your wife is not applying for a work, managerial transfer, crewman, exchange worker, student, outstanding achiever, performer, religious worker ...etc visa, they’re meaningless here.

Yes only the tourist visa approvals are relevant so I'm only looking at the B1/B2 visa numbers 

 

Colombia only has a population of about 51 million people 

And the numbers of tourist visa approvals compared to other countries is quite large 

So I do think it demonstrate s a correlation between country and approval odds 

[millefleur 5,035]

6 minutes ago, Tommy Lee Jones said:

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/OCTOBER 2019 IV Issuances by Post and Visa Class.pdf

This link is for "IV" issuances which means "immigrant visas" - so, not relevant to this situation at all. 

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

30 minutes ago, millefleur said:

This link is for "IV" issuances which means "immigrant visas" - so, not relevant to this situation at all. 

Bad link 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyNIVIssuances/OCTOBER 2019 NIV Issuances by Nationality and Visa Class.pdf

 

This shows the non-immigrant visa approvals for the month of Oct. 2019. 

 

Which shows 19385  B1/B2 approvals for Colombia Oct 2019.

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

37 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

So the refusal rate is meaningless in your eyes? Ok then... I really can’t add anything more here. Good luck.

Where are the country refusal rates?  worldwide refusal rates aren’t of much interest to me. 

I can look at a countries population and number of approved tourist visas and see that there is a great disparity between countries .....but obviously if you can find the per country refusal rates that would be very helpful as well. 

[millefleur 5,035]

3 hours ago, millefleur said:

 

Also, Colombia had a denial rate of 41.93% for B visas in fiscal year 2019. Just to get an idea of the overall denial rate in her country.

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY19.pdf

1 hour ago, SusieQQQ said:

 

The link you have above is for immigrant visas. Unless the wife really is trying to immigrate, it’s not relevant to this thread. The link you actually want for your situation is the one for the B visa refusal rate. Colombia at 42% refusal rate is not the worst, sure, but it’s hardly among the best, especially when you strip out countries with security concerns. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY19.pdf

10 minutes ago, Tommy Lee Jones said:

Where are the country refusal rates?  worldwide refusal rates aren’t of much interest to me. 

It was posted twice earlier in the thread, see above. ~42% refusal rate for Colombia, that means 42% if applicants who applied were denied. 

 

[geowrian 22,335]

15 minutes ago, Tommy Lee Jones said:

Where are the country refusal rates?  worldwide refusal rates aren’t of much interest to me. 

I can look at a countries population and number of approved tourist visas and see that there is a great disparity between countries .....but obviously if you can find the per country refusal rates that would be very helpful as well. 

It was posted above. Here it is again:

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY19.pdf

 

That link is the most recent B visa adjusted refusal rate. This only covers B visas.

By "adjusted" it means it only covers unique individuals within that fiscal year. So if somebody applies 3 times in a year and gets denied all 3 times, that person is only counted once as a denial. If they apply 3 times and are approved on the last one, they are counted only as an approval (no denial).

So the rate is actually deflated in you consider all visa applications...more visas are actually refused than the percentage shown.

Edited May 1, 2020 by geowrian

[Tommy Lee Jones 4]

3 minutes ago, geowrian said:

It was posted above. Here it is again:

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY19.pdf

 

That link is the most recent B visa adjusted refusal rate. This only covers B visas.

By "adjusted" it means it only covers unique individuals within that fiscal year. So if somebody applies 3 times in a year and gets denied all 3 times, that person is only counted once as a denial. If they apply 3 times and are approved on the last one, they are counted only as an approval (no denial).

So the rate is actually deflated in you consider all visa applications...more visas are actually refused than the percentage shown.

 

6 minutes ago, millefleur said:

It was posted twice earlier in the thread, see above. ~42% refusal rate for Colombia, that means 42% if applicants who applied were denied. 

 

Which also means 58 percent were approved with a surprisingly high number of people applying for tourist visas considering the average Colombian makes the equivalent of $6180 dollars per year. The average American makes 10 times that. I would say that this woman is in the top 10 percent of all Colombians as far as wealth and marital income.