Land of the free is not open to all visa applicants

Land of the free is not open to all visa applicants

By Laura Myers

WASHINGTON (AP): 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 U.S. visit
can be frustrating, sometimes taking months or 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 (INS)
and the Indonesian man's sister works at her 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
permanently in America.

"People need to show they have ties to their country --
employment, a house, family. But if they're making US$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 up to six months with an
extension.

Yet 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 home ownership. 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, 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."

Overstay

Foreigners who overstayed their visas account for 40 percent
of the estimated five million illegal immigrants in American, the
INS says.

But the situation is changing. Out of 25 million non-
immigrants admitted to the United States last year, the INS
estimates 98.5 percent returned home.

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 the next three years. The penalty
rises to 10 years for overstaying a year or more.

"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 percent 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,
some 512,000 last year, but 4 percent 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 travelers a glimpse
of the American dream isn't enough. Some 25 percent 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.