When a person is seeking a U.S. visa, the process can be overwhelming. There is a tremendous amount of documentation required, and voluminous paperwork that must be filled out with precision. This has long been the case, but the situation has become far more challenging under the administration of President Donald Trump. The president has made it very clear that he takes a profoundly dark view of immigrants coming to the United States, and though the majority of his ire has been directed against illegal immigration, his administration has been putting new measures into place to make legal immigration difficult as well. One of those new measures involves a new policy around the accuracy of visa application paperwork, and that means that it has become essential that applicants do everything in their power to avoid visa processing errors.
Where immigration officers working for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were previously required to notify applicants when there was any kind of problem (such as errors or missing documentation) on their green card or visa application, the new policy has made doing so optional. Though the change may seem small, it can have enormous consequences for a person seeking a visa: if they are unaware that there is a problem, they won’t have the opportunity to address their mistake. This can lead to the process taking longer and costing far more, and for those whose applications are specifically intended to renew existing visas, it could even lead to them being deported.
Though the agency has defended the new policy by claiming that it will eliminate frivolous applications that are purposely submitted without required paperwork in order to buy the applicant time, advocates for immigrants have indicated that the lack of detail included in the new policy means that the officers have complete discretion which is easily abused in a process that has no transparency. Among the mistakes that have been noted by officers since President Trumps’ administration took over the process was a failure to utilize a table of contents and exhibit numbers in an application; another was the failure to attach a page in the application that is generally left blank.
In the face of these challenges, it is essential that those applying for visas give themselves the benefit of a knowledgeable attorney who can help ensure that no visa processing errors are made. For information on how we can help, contact us to set up an appointment.
