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"DHS has carefully developed the ESTA program to ensure that only those individuals who are ineligible to travel to the United States under the VWP or those who

"DHS has carefully developed the ESTA program to ensure that only those individuals who are ineligible to travel to the United States under the VWP or those whose travel would pose a law enforcement or security risk are refused an ESTA. While the ESTA website provides a link to the DHS Travel Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) website, there are no guarantees that a request for redress through DHS TRIP will resolve the VWP ineligibility that caused an applicant’s ESTA application to be denied. U.S. Embassies and Consulates are not able to provide details about ESTA denials or resolve the issue that caused the ESTA denial. Embassies and Consulates will process an application for a non-immigrant visa, which, if approved, will be the only way that a traveler whose ESTA application has been denied would be authorized to travel to the U.S." https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/frequently-asked-questions-about-visa-waiver-program-vwp-and-electronic-system-travel https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/frequently...

throwacurveball 9y ago
As someone who has been through this bureaucracy — DHS, consulate, TRIP, etc. — I can tell you that it's a huge pain. It's a completely opaque system. There's no way to talk to anyone directly. You can only send letters, and hope for a reply. Even seasoned immigration lawyers will have to go through this infuriatingly slow and obtuse system of sending letters and then waiting a long time to get a vague, unhelpful reply in return for some nameless functionary. In my case, there was an error in my records, and we tried to get them to expunge the offending information. But every time we clarified to them what had happened, we got a reply back basically summarizing the issue, with no solution. My lawyers had to keep doing this until they finally got a redress number and a notification that something may be happening. Meanwhile, the various government databases are not unified or even talking to each other, so all the information about the error was apparently held by the immigration office at JFK (or something like that), not centrally at DHS, which made everything a lot harder. Eventually we received a confirmation that something had been done to rectify the problem, but — in a kafkaesque twist — they refused to say what, and they could not guarantee that there would be no further problems. To this day I am still being pulled into the immigrations office for some light interrogation every time I enter the US. Which is whenever I come back, since I now live in the US. The visa application process is similarly kafkaesque and characteristically unfriendly. For example, while applying for a visa, there's absolutely no way to contact the consulate (or at least there wasn't in my home country). Forget about calling or visiting, there's no way to talk to anyone except by appointment, and appointments are only for getting an interview to submit your visa application. And what's hilarious about both the visa system and ESTA is that they don't even guarantee entry. Visas are issued by the consulate, but you can get a visa from them and still be denied entry by DHS. As a European used to my government being quite friendly and approachable, the cold-heartedness of the whole thing was quite shocking.

throwacurveball 9y ago

As someone who has been through this bureaucracy — DHS, consulate, TRIP, etc. — I can tell you that it's a huge pain. It's a completely opaque system. There's no way to talk to anyone directly. You can only send letters, and hope for a reply. Even seasoned immigration lawyers will have to go through this infuriatingly slow and obtuse system of sending letters and then waiting a long time to get a vague, unhelpful reply in return for some nameless functionary. In my case, there was an error in my records, and we tried to get them to expunge the offending information. But every time we clarified to them what had happened, we got a reply back basically summarizing the issue, with no solution. My lawyers had to keep doing this until they finally got a redress number and a notification that something may be happening. Meanwhile, the various government databases are not unified or even talking to each other, so all the information about the error was apparently held by the immigration office at JFK (or something like that), not centrally at DHS, which made everything a lot harder. Eventually we received a confirmation that something had been done to rectify the problem, but — in a kafkaesque twist — they refused to say what, and they could not guarantee that there would be no further problems. To this day I am still being pulled into the immigrations office for some light interrogation every time I enter the US. Which is whenever I come back, since I now live in the US. The visa application process is similarly kafkaesque and characteristically unfriendly. For example, while applying for a visa, there's absolutely no way to contact the consulate (or at least there wasn't in my home country). Forget about calling or visiting, there's no way to talk to anyone except by appointment, and appointments are only for getting an interview to submit your visa application. And what's hilarious about both the visa system and ESTA is that they don't even guarantee entry. Visas are issued by the consulate, but you can get a visa from them and still be denied entry by DHS. As a European used to my government being quite friendly and approachable, the cold-heartedness of the whole thing was quite shocking.