Foreign Visitors Miss U.S. Welcome Mat

Everybody has a story: The Indonesian couple who canceled a U.S. vacation when only the wife got a visa, the Australian barred from the land of the free because he didn’t have a job, the elderly Indian woman who needed a lawyer to see her new American grandchild.

Getting a tourist or business visa for even a short visit to the United States can be frustrating--sometimes taking months, even years, if granted at all--especially for travelers coming from developing countries.

It doesn’t help if you know someone. The Australian’s cousin works for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Indonesian man’s sister works at her country’s embassy in Washington.

“My brother has a job. He’s in his 50s. What’s he going to do here?” asked Aleida Palenewen, an information officer at the Indonesian Embassy. “He just wanted to see me.”

U.S. diplomats gave Palenewen this advice: “If your relatives or friends have money, tell them to go to Europe. It’s too much trouble to come here.”

The temporary U.S. visa system is based on a law that views every applicant as a likely immigrant and that puts the burden of proof on foreign travelers to show they don’t plan to stay in America permanently.

“People need to show they have ties to their country: employment, a house, family. But if they’re making $10 a month selling clothes, they aren’t likely to return [home],” said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “America is a very desirable place.”

U.S. officials say there’s no income requirement for a tourist or business visa, which allows stays of as long as six months with an extension.

But those who apply for temporary U.S. visas in consulates and embassies around the world often are asked for financial documents, such as proof of income and homeownership. And critics say consular officers use profiles to reject applicants: young, single, unemployed women are seen as husband hunters, for example, and unattached young men are viewed as looking to get on the road to a better life.

Attorney Michael Maggio, who teaches immigration law at the American University in Washington, said some consular officers have a “three-suit rule” to weed out poor applicants who are high risk of staying permanently in the United States. If a person is wearing a different suit in his passport and visa photos and in line, then he has enough money for a nice wardrobe, he said.

“They also look at addresses,” he said. “The consular officers know who lives in the Beverly Hills and on the Park Avenues of Bombay.”

Foreigners who overstay their visas account for 40% of the estimated 5 million illegal immigrants in America, the INS says.

But the situation is improving. Of the 25 million foreign travelers admitted to the United States last year, 98.5% returned home, the INS estimates.

The 1996 immigration law that went into effect April 1 cracks down on those who don’t leave when their visas run out. Visitors who overstay their visas by six months will be barred from entering the United States for three years. Those who overstay their visas by a year or more are barred for 10 years.

“They have tough rules for a reason,” said Elaine Komis, an INS spokeswoman. “Sometimes, though, I guess it can feel unfair.”

Komis said one of her cousins from Australia had no trouble visiting America with his father when the 28-year-old had a job at home, but once he became unemployed, he was denied a visa for a second U.S. visit, she said.

Now, however, Australia is among 25 countries in a waiver program that lets citizens from those countries enter the United States without a visa. The pilot project started in 1988. To qualify, countries must have a visa denial rate of 2% or less--something European countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom easily meet.

So far, increasingly prosperous Asian nations haven’t made the grade. More U.S. visas go to South Korea than any other country--512,000 last year alone--but 4% of applicants were refused, the State Department says.

“They make you feel you have to beg,” businessman Bahm Hyo-ryol grumbled as he stood in a visa line outside the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.

As the global economy creates growing middle classes, the State Department is moving to keep up with more casual travelers. The agency computerized its visa application process and offers 10-year visas for frequent visitors.

Persistence sometimes pays off.

Vic Goel, a Washington immigration attorney, helped an Indian couple bring to America the man’s mother so she could be present when his first child was born. The grandmother had been refused a visa twice.

Goel wrote a letter to the U.S. Consulate in New Delhi, arguing that most of her family lived in India, she had leased the same house for 50 years, didn’t speak English “and her life would be miserable in the U.S.” She got a visa and a chance to hold her grandchild in her arms.

“It’s so subjective,” Goel said of the visa process. “The problem is, it ends up to be discriminatory. People can’t visit America because they live in a country whose standard of living isn’t as good as ours.”

Still, there’s no question that for many visitors, one glimpse of the American dream isn’t enough. One-fourth of the 340,000 immigrants admitted as permanent residents to the United States in 1995 originally came in on tourist or business visas, the INS says.