Im a German citizen living in Mexico. Since I have been to Iran I no longer qualify for ESTA and had to apply for a visa at the embassy here in Mexico City to visit the USA.
My visa has been in processing for 2y now and I have not received any response other than "still in processing, we will be in touch". What do you recommend? Is there anything I can do to accelerate this? Or withdraw the application and apply from Germany?
My ESTA was revoked (unilaterally and with no reason ever given). I waited on a B1/B2 in Administrative Processing for basically 12 months - all of 2019.
It's a frustrating process because there is literally no information available when the application enters this state, although my suspicion is that this is because nothing is being done.
Anyway it might have been longer but eventually the company's legal team collected statements from all the people this had happened to and they were submitted to one of the US Senators in the state where the company is based. My visa was issued shortly afterwards.
Not sure what message you can take from this except perhaps that the whole system is crazy (arguably even corrupt?)
(To head off the first question: No I don't have any criminal record, and there is no reason anyone has come up with as to why the ESTA was revoked.)
I've seen such delays. Unfortunately, there's very little that can be done but as a first/next step, I would ask a Congressional office for assistance/to inquire with the Consulate.
"Under the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, travelers in the following categories must obtain a visa prior to traveling to the United States as they are no longer eligible to travel under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP):
Nationals of VWP countries who have traveled to or been present in Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen on or after March 1, 2011 (with limited exceptions for travel for diplomatic or military purposes in the service of a VWP country).
Nationals of VWP countries who are also nationals of Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria."
You have to travel on a B1/B2 visa if you were in Iran/Iraq/Syria after 2011. I was affected by this but in the end it's more of a admin headache than anything else. The B1/B2 visa are pretty easy and are valid for 10 years.
2 passports only help for situations in which they really only check entry/exit stamps in your passport. In this case, when applying for ESTA, you explicitly have to declare that you haven't been to the above-mentioned countries and therefore qualify. If you tick the wrong box, its quite possible that they
i) either reject your ESTA application
ii) or reject entry to the country on arrival
and in both cases that significantly dampens your chances of ever getting an ESTA/Visa again.
How would that work? Surely, if they knew you'd lied they'd refuse your visa so you couldn't travel to USA. If they didn't know they would, possibly, give a visa; how would they later find out you'd lied if they didn't know in the first instance? Do they go and re-check visa applications? Do they lie and give visas to people just so they can lock them up for falsely acquiring a visa??
Didn't the current First Lady falsely immigrate, lying about work or something, so it can't be that much of an issue to lie in your paperwork or she would have gone to prison??
Like almost all crimes, they wouldn't care to prosecute most people. Tax avoidance is a crime. What percentage of people who lie on their tax returns get prosecuted anyway?
But if you are one of the unlucky few whom they decide to prosecute, you will have a bad time. Read the articles about Sirous Asgari. I don't have any good articles which tells the whole saga, but use this as the starting point and search more on the internet: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/iran-scientist...
Recap of the saga:
An Iranian university professor (who had previously studied in the US and has ties to the US) requested a US visa. It was granted. Hew was arrested as soon as he entered the US. He was charged with wire fraud, visa fraud, and stealing trade secrets. After a lengthy trial, 2 years later, he was cleared of any charges and acquitted. But then ICE took him into custody because they had revoked his visa and he was in the US without a valid visa (please note that he had no choice in this, as he was forbidden from leaving the US while the trial was proceeding and he was taken into custody again immediately after the trial concluded. Real catch-22). Then he spent a couple of months in ICE custody and his frequent requests to be sent back to Iran was denied. He got infected with COVID-19 during this time. And finally in June, he was deported to Iran.
And this is the case of someone who was innocent. Imagine what would have happened if he were actually guilty. They gave him a visa so they could arrest him and charge him with visa fraud (among other things). Even when he was acquitted, he spent more time in jail because they retroactively revoked his visa. And most important of all, none of this even made front page. This is not one of those WTF cases that are so rare you might as well ignore them. Following the news on this over the years, the tone was always "yeah, nothing special about this case."
That's kind of a modus operandi for law enforcement in general. If they can't get you on a major crime, they are more than willing to vigorously enforce minor crimes to the fullest extent of the law.
Thank you so much for doing this!
Im a German citizen living in Mexico. Since I have been to Iran I no longer qualify for ESTA and had to apply for a visa at the embassy here in Mexico City to visit the USA. My visa has been in processing for 2y now and I have not received any response other than "still in processing, we will be in touch". What do you recommend? Is there anything I can do to accelerate this? Or withdraw the application and apply from Germany?
Thanks a lot!!