9 ms·

A US Visa in 937 Days

298 points by caution 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- mlindner 6y ago
  They don't move into office until middle of January, there's 2 months left.
PaulHoule 6y ago
You did not run in trouble with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#Visa_Waiver_Program_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#Visa_Waive... right? If you are going to work meetings it seems that should be OK.
- vidarh 6y ago
  The entire thing started exactly because he was refused travel with ESTA/visa waiver back in 2017.
- microtherion 6y ago
  The initial ESTA denials DO seem connected to the visa waiver program, and yes, work meetings are allowed under that, at least in my case, where I'm working for a foreign subsidiary of a US company, and have occasional meetings at the US headquarters. I don't know whether there is/was a Mozilla Sweden, and whether the absence of one would make a difference. If you've never had to deal with the US immigration apparatus, think "Google customer service, backed with nuclear weapons".
  - Macha 6y ago
    One thing we get told very strongly when we travel to US for intra-company meetings is to be sure to describe them as business meetings, not work meetings. "Work" is basically a keyword for the customs official to give you a bad day.
    - mikelward 6y ago
      Same thing traveling to the UK or Australia. Last time I filled out the UK application, I could not find their definition of "work" or "business",
    - petercooper 6y ago
      Knowing the right words to use or not use is very useful when crossing borders (and probably when talking to powerful officials generally). One strategy is to use the least specific language you can that's still truthful. For example, I've heard of developers get turned away at the border because they began by saying they were "speaking at a conference/giving a workshop" and noting they were being paid or having their expenses covered as if that makes it more legitimate. Instead, you'd start by saying you're "attending a conference." This is something border officials encounter 1000 times a day and will rarely question further. Likewise, if you're planning to record a podcast or take some photos at a conference, you don't mention that unless asked specifically because otherwise it puts them on the track of treating you like a member of the "foreign media" and demanding the relevant visa for that when it's really not relevant for most people doing such things as a side effect of their attendance.
    - vaidhy 6y ago
      The key difference is whether you are paid in US for whatever you do. If it is a business meeting, you do not earn any income in US (your pay is in your home country). If it is work, it means that you are getting paid in US for something you are going to do here. Work visas need one of H or L categories ( or maybe something else). Business visas are the B1. The wording is ambiguous and not friendly to anyone (even to native English speakers), but that is government bureaucracy for you.
    - microtherion 6y ago
      Particularly important to remember for programmers, who probably have a natural inclination to prefer to characterize what they do as "work" rather than "meetings".
londons_explore 6y ago
Quick and unofficial poll... How many here are in the same or similar position?
- kilroy123 6y ago
  My partner is trying to get a tourism visa to go visit the US with me. They aren't even doing in person interviews at all. Who knows when she'll be able to get a visa. Interestingly, the site where you schedule an in person interview says she can go November 26th... next year
- fastball 6y ago
  I have the opposite experience in that I'm an American who has lived in the UK and have had visa issues in that direction. At some point my visa was expiring and I applied for a new one, but my application was rejected. So I left the country under my own volition. For the next two years, I visited the UK regularly (6 times total) for 2-4 week stints to see my longtime girlfriend, friends, and perform various activities related to a business I started with a friend in the UK (I had lived in the UK for 6 years). The most recent time I tried to visit the UK, I was visiting my girlfriend before Christmas for two weeks. Already had an onward flight to the US booked for two weeks after my arrival, on an airline + route I had flown quite frequently. That is to say: none of the circumstances were different than all the other times I had visited the UK in the past two years. This time, however, I was denied entry and held in detention for nearly 18 hours, having to book a same day flight back to the states (because my existing onward flight was out of a different airport and could not rebook). My only crime was that when they denied a visa application, I left when they asked me to (which is another story about how hard they actually made it for me to leave in the first place). --- On the other hand, my British girlfriend just got an ESTA to come visit me in the states. She had to stay in Mexico for two weeks as she was coming from Europe, but she's here now.
- mcherm 6y ago
  I am not - I am a US citizen. Fortunately, all the countries I have ever attempted to travel to have been extremely accommodating about providing a visa, or (in many cases) not even requiring one. I hope that generous attitude continues.
vmception 6y ago
> There’s no end in sight of the pandemic. I will of course not travel to the US or any other country until it can be deemed safe and sensible. With the "of course" I am wondering if people are really concerned about being "COVID shamed"? Aren't we at "rapid test and move on"? As in, take a test one to two days before you board a flight, take a test during or after your trip? Results in 18 - 48 hours? It is a far cry from the mess of unavailable tests and the infinite delays if you managed to get a test that was occurring back in Spring and Summer. And no, some false negatives aren't a rebuttal. All public policy measures are to get the R0 below 1 on average. The rapid tests in conjunction with the already existing measures are good enough for that. All we are doing here is skipping the need for 14 day quarantines on arrival. Granted, he is 50, and is more likely to consider himself an at risk group. I was still wondering what he really thinks. It really depends on what you are optimizing for. If you are optimizing more for not getting it, nothing has changed. If you are optimizing more for not spreading it, a lot has changed.
- mamon 6y ago
  The problem is that taking the test before air travel or right after the arrival at the destination is like playing the Russian roulette. For example in my country you can take a COVID tests but: 1. you might need to wait for results for 4-5 days, while most destinations require taking it at most 72 hours before the arrival 2. if you turn out to be asymptomatic, but test positive, then you instantly get into at least 10 day quarantine (you cannot take tests anonymously). You have no time to cancel your travel plans. Also, if you choose not do do it, but instead take test at your destination, you might get stuck in quarantine in the foreign country So I would never travel to a country that requires tests. Only those which require just written statement, or location form, and maybe temperature check.
  - vmception 6y ago
    > 1. you might need to wait for results for 4-5 days, while most destinations require taking it at most 72 hours before the arrival It is easy to get in this circumstance in the US, it is also easy to not get in this circumstance in the US. Huge range of service level. Money helps!
WatchDog 6y ago
I made a mistake filling out the ESTA, I was traveling for a job interview and ticked the box saying that I was seeking to work in the US, big mistake, instant denial. There is no one you can talk to, no way to expedite any remediation, and you can't travel to the US by boat or plane to talk to the CBP. What I ended up doing, and I don't necessarily recommend this, is flew to Canada and entered over the land border. After spending something like an hour at the border, and holding up my bus, they let me in. Supposedly I should be able to apply for an ESTA in the future, but it's not something I have tried since. I didn't get the job.
- Phemist 6y ago
  Reminds me of the scene in the series "Lilyhammer", where <spoiler> a similar literal interpretation of the ESTA check list, i.e. a Norwegian police officer answering "Yes" to the question if he has ever been in contact with terrorists/terrorism, eventually causes the protagonists' witness protection bubble to be pierced through a series of unfortunate events. </spoiler>
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Heh, I could have had similar experiences that I didn’t want to push (but in hindsight, the border should have taken it as a lesson to improve for COVID). Back in the Ebola days (5 years ago?), the Canadian border entry terminals at airport would ask: “Have you been in contact with anyone with Ebola?, Yes or No?” and I wanted some help from them, because how the hell do I know? Can barely spell the disease, let alone explain it.
- MetallicCloud 6y ago
  I had a similar experience. I was flying to the US for a job interview, so I ticked the box that said I was seeking work. I was denied and missed my flight. I've been told I will never be eligible for and ESTA again. I got the job and am now on an E-3 visa, however if I ever want to visit and don't have an E-3, I need to apply for a proper tourist visa.
- tppiotrowski 6y ago
formerly_proven 6y ago
So this processes only concluded because he got a friend who got their congressman to intervene. Otherwise it would have likely gone on forever.
daxfohl 6y ago
"Why can't we have more immigrants from places like Norway?"
- EasterBegs 6y ago
  Because your country hates White people.
- honest_tovarich 6y ago
  Yeah, lol, how dare them to net give Swedish preferential treatment. I saw on twitch this weekend another case very similar with a girl from Australia. It blows my mind how white people from first world countries feel so entitled and with rights to come to the US anytime they want.
- irrational 6y ago
  Why would someone from Norway want to immigrate to the USA. That’s like immigrating from a gated community to the ghetto.
  - gustavpaul 6y ago
    Exactly why I left northern europe for the USA. I find real and metaphorocal gated communities unbearably suffocating.
Fiveplus 6y ago
Ahh yes! the Get-Your-Friend-To-Call-A-Congressman approach. Works like a charm every time ;)
- thaeli 6y ago
  This is actually how it works. The (small) silver lining is that your friend doesn't have to be anyone particularly important, they just have to be a voter who lives in their district. I've had to go through Constituent Services a few times to get USG paperwork snarls untangled - doesn't matter if they're who I voted for or not.
- lxe 6y ago
  It actually does work. If you have your family member's nonimmigrant US visa application denied, you can ask your congressperson to help out, and they sometimes do help.
  - ThinkingGuy 6y ago
    I think every Congress member has a "constituent services" office just for matters like this. We have some friends whose child's passport application had gotten lost in processing. Their congresswoman was able to intervene and help them get their passports in time for a vacation. Protip: Your House representative is likely to be more responsive than your Senator. Being up for re-election every 2 years rather than every 6, House members have more incentive to directly serve their constituents.
- StephenAmar 6y ago
  I concur. My citizenship application was stuck for 2 years. I sent an email to the office of Pelosi and 2 months later I was at the oath ceremony.
- FpUser 6y ago
  I think here in Canada we can ask MP (Member of Parlament) to do this. Not sure how effective is that though as I've never tried it personally.
screye 6y ago
Sounds properly kafkaesque. Being stuck in bureaucracy is my 2nd biggest realistic fear. (after dying while riding my bike in the US) It appears as though getting the congressperson involved might've helped. It is nice to see that people can actually get in touch with their congressperson here in the US. A sign that democracy does somewhat work as intended. Anecdotally, since Trump took office, the processing times for visa/EAD went up by 50%-ish in my peer group. Visa rejections for H1B also went up hugely among those who appear super qualified. 2 Friends' H1b was rejected for Data Science roles at a FANG despite having a CS/Comp Math major from Stanford and another having studied Information systems at another top 10 US-CS school.
- garyfirestorm 6y ago
  'we want people to come here LEGALLY in BIG NUMBERS like NEVER BEFORE' /s
  - screye 6y ago
    to be fair to both sides: He did propose a merit based H1b draw, which is stuck in processing. He also made it a lot harder for exploitative body shops like TCS/Infosys to get get approved for an H1b, making it easier for qualified unicorn/FANG-esque companies with real demand to get picked in the lottery.
dilly_li 6y ago
> I switched approach and instead applied for a tourist visa. I paid 160 USD, filled in a ridiculous amount of information about me and my past travels over the last 15 years and I visited the US embassy for an in-person interview and fingerprinting. Imagine repeat this process every year... as an international student.
- s3krit 6y ago
  The tourist visa is good for 10 years IIRC
  - fishywang 6y ago
    you can't use tourist visa to enter the US and attend college/grad school.
  - roberto 6y ago
    Each visa type has a different duration, and you can't study on a tourist visa. I've had a visa that allowed me to work for 3+ years in the US, but was valid only for 90 days. Every time I left the country I had to renew it, a process which takes an indeterminate amount of time.
  - jagrsw 6y ago
    Depends on a country, most is 10 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_United_States#/media/File:US_visa_validity_period.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_United_Stat...
- tppiotrowski 6y ago
  I’ve thought about automating this process with a Chrome extension or puppeteer.
  - kobalsky 6y ago
    that's one hell of a gamble to shave off a few minutes per year
Tepix 6y ago
The 10 year VISA he received does not imply he cannot be denied entry at the border anyway. I had a VISA like that and was almost denied entry once.
- varispeed 6y ago
  Correct. That VISA merely gives you right to be on the plane and speak to the border control after landing.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    And the chance to litigate it, since denying entry or a Visa is reviewable by court, while an ESTA is not. Most countries probably favour the government in decisions about the former, but it at least means you can force them to give up more details (e.g. FOIA).
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  What happened in your case?
- csomar 6y ago
  It is better than an ESTA, though. It has some rights attached to it. Though I wonder if the immigration agent will find it suspicious that he has a Visa when he could "simply" get an ESTA. Might hassle him on entries.
- rob74 6y ago
  A VISA (credit card) won't be of any use, you need a visa (in your passport). SCNR...
- abimaelmartell 6y ago
  I had a work visa, and almost got denied entry two times. They were questioning if i was qualified for the work i was hired to do. I already had my visa renewed two times at that point so i had been to the embassy for interview and document checking already. The CPB guy was being a jerk.
- 6y ago
brink 6y ago
Nightmare fuel. My partner is trying to get a visitor's visa to come to the US with me. I pay taxes to my government so that my government can keep my partner from visiting me. It's a great system.
- zb1plus 6y ago
  It truly is ridiculous that we are forced at gunpoint (through taxes) to give our hard-earned money to an organization that too often actively works against our interests. I feel like the only way to ethically tax people would be have a process to enable taxpayers opt-out of funding with their tax dollars government programs they have a strong moral or personal disagreement with. For example, I would be too happy to fund schools, poverty relief efforts and infrastructure but it sickens me to think that money is being taken from my paycheck to fund pointless wars, genocidal racist thugs and immigration policy that is both racist and destructive to our economy. If financial contributions are a form of free speech, is not the forced usage of my tax dollars for these morally abhorrent equivalent to a law requiring me to purchase display an I <3 ICE bumper sticker on my car?
varispeed 6y ago
It seems to me that you got rejected because you applied for a tourist VISA, but your travels were business related. In that case I think you should have applied for a business VISA instead. Nonetheless, what happened is quite upsetting. I am not sure if I ever go to the US given how they treat tourists. For me it's not worth to be degraded in such a way only to see things that probably exist or look similar in other countries.
- vidarh 6y ago
  He didn't get rejected for a visa. He got rejected for an ESTA. Travel on visa waiver is explicitly allowed for business meetings, as long as you're not travelling for "productive work" (meetings where you receive instructions are fine).
  - varispeed 6y ago
    He was denied the right to travel. As you wrote yourself, business stuff is a grey area and perhaps something got triggered.
    - vidarh 6y ago
      Business stuff is not at all a grey area. From the ESTA application website, appropriate use includes "You plan to travel to the United States for business or pleasure." Meetings are fine. You'll note the visa he was approved for is a tourist visa. Which is also fine for the same use - given it was approved with the use of an invitation letter from his employer. You need to say something very dumb to a border guard to get denied on the basis of exceeding the allowed use of the visa waiver, but if you do, you'd get turned away then and there, not rejected at the airport the next time. "Something" certainly got triggered, but it's highly unlikely to have been about going for business meetings. My guess would be that something got messed up with his previous departure, such as e.g. failing to register that he left on time, as that is one of the things that would pretty much instantly disqualify you from future visa free travel. I almost got into trouble for that myself with visa waivers (though pre-ESTA). The main reason I wasn't denied re-entry was that I was still within the 90 day window of the previous entry, so I provably hadn't overstayed, and they could see I had about a dozen or so short stays that made it very obvious it was a mistake. But that was in person, with someone manually looking through my passport stamps - I'm not at all sure it'd have gone as well today with automated pre-flight checks.
ajay-b 6y ago
It seems with enough money you can get a U.S. visa, work permit, etc.
- alchemism 6y ago
  Charitably put, there are two definitions of ‘merit’ in merit-based entry.
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  This is true of almost any country. It's usually a loophole in the form of foreign direct investment (ie. "invest $1M+ and employ at least 5 Americans and you and your family can come here").
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Hardly unique to America, tons of countries offer "Golden Visas" where committing enough resources to the country gets you an expedited or guaranteed Visa. The exact amount and details depend on the country, with richer countries obviously costing more, but tons of countries will straight up let you buy residency or citizenship. A few examples: America - $900,000 investment for permanent residency (EB5) Ireland - €1.0 million investment (plus €2.0 million net worth) for permanent residency for your family Portugal - purchase and renovate at least €350,000 in property for residency, with an expedited path to citizenship Germany - €360,000 investment for 3 year residency with a path to citizenship after 8 years UK - £2 million investment for 3 year residency with a path to citizenship after 6 years.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    If you ever need a proof that only money matters in this world. All the rest are empty words. Kids, dont pay attention to anyone who tells you otherwise.
    - gustavpaul 6y ago
      You can also just get a "professional" job in said country and move there under the same or similar conditions. The application for an employment visa to move to Germany from South Africa took about a week to get approved.
waterside81 6y ago
I would love to know what's actually happening in these situations. Is there just a backlog of PDFs sitting on some server and there's only 2 guys going through it? Is there a command from Washington to only process N visas per day? What's literally happening here?
Xenograph 6y ago
What exactly are they doing when they put your application in "administrative processing" for years with no explanation or time estimate? What could possibly take years to process on a standard visa application? Does anyone know?
- Someone1234 6y ago
  It can get stuck between departments. US Visas bounce around between security services (Homeland Security, FBI, DoD/NSA), immigration, and State/NVC. These other departments can flag any visa for additional scrutiny. When excessive delays like this occur it is often a security flag, because then it has to go back to the origin agency and even the department within that originally created the flag to decide if it is a valid match to this individual (and or the facts are correct). Keep in mind that the other departments handling this, it isn't their primary responsibility. They're dealing daily with e.g. terrorist threats, drug trafficking, or similar threats/violations. Nobody is interested in prioritizing State's visa processing (of which they receive many). Plus the people or department who created the original match could no longer exist/work there, and now the request is bouncing between different departments with nobody wanting to take responsibility for it. PS - Just to be clear I'm not defending this. It is a giant mess and hugely dysfunctional. But to understand why something can get stuck in "administrative processing" for years, you have to realize how deep this rabbit hole goes.
  - nurgasemetey 6y ago
    I didn't see any defending. Maybe these departments are understaffed.
- csomar 6y ago
  It's like a bug ticket. Unless there is a rule (law) that they must be fixed by a certain time, they'll just become forgotten.
- rob74 6y ago
  They're probably busy processing the requests where somebody (e.g. a congressperson) intervened to get them expedited?
digianarchist 6y ago
Reading this made me glad to be Canadian as we are the only nation that doesn't require visas to enter the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Canadian_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Canadian...
- HeavenFox 6y ago
  Actually, Bermudians can as well :)
  - digianarchist 6y ago
    Forgot about Bermuda. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/citizens-of-canada-and-bermuda.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...
rshlo 6y ago
This is very strange. In Israel all citizens are required to issue a tourist visa before traveling to the US. The process is super quick. The embassy have a website that updates you on each step in the process and from applying until you get the actual visa it can take only 3 weeks. The only busy times are usually in summer months where many tourists want to issue visas, so waiting for the in person interview can be up to a month. But again, from the interview to getting the actual the visa is a matter of days.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  He’s swedish, so he enters under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative which doesn’t require a visa, but usually requires an ESTA. An ESTA is not a visa (otherwise the US could lose its reciprocal visa-free travel arrangements). The ESTA just walks, talks and quacks like a visa.
  - Macha 6y ago
    Note that their is a distinction. While arguably even the ESTA is too much paperwork compared to what US citizens going the other way under these visa-free agreements face, it's a short form you fill out online that gets automatically approved within 12 hours for 95% of cases. It's when you get denied for this system (and yes, this can be for arbitrary reasons which they won't disclose), that things go wrong. It would not surprise me if the logic went "owns domain haxx + curl is used in hacker tools (and many many more legitimate uses, but some agent doesn't care)", "possible hacker", "put on list that causes ESTA denials".
justin_oaks 6y ago
This reminds me of the articles I read about COVID-19 tests that took 19 days for results to come back. If it takes that long to get results back, the results are pretty much useless. Sure, in the end he got a visa, but his original travel plans are long gone. If the backlog is so long, there should be a lottery system to ensure that at least some results are timely. Alas, government processes rarely have any logic applied.
mherdeg 6y ago
This is grim and might portend reciprocal issues. I had missed that the ETIAS start date has been pushed back to end of 2022. As an American citizen I've taken it for granted that I can book a flight to Germany when a $200 mistake fare comes up and fly, like, within 24 hours, with no immigration preapproval required. I'm not going understand how much I miss that until it's gone. Hard to imagine there won't be bureaucratic snafus where Americans are inexplicably denied an ETIAS and will expect to apply for a paper tourist visa to visit Europe, weeks or months in advance of travel.
- dhdhhdd 6y ago
  How do you find such mistake flights?
  - mfkp 6y ago
    https://scottscheapflights.com/ https://scottscheapflights.com/ is a good source
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Each ETIAS will be 5 EUR and good for 5y. Edit: current plans is 3 years for 7 EUR. and it expires with your passport. It hasn’t launched and price has doubled! The annoying thing is that every visa-free country is going in this direction. I’m sure it will trip up Americans the most when it launches. The other issue with ETIAS is that there are a lot of dual EU/xx citizens out there travelling on their xx passport. Technically they won’t be eligible for ETIAS. I have a lot of family born... in a country that no longer exists. Dunno if ETIAS will bark because they didn’t get their EU passport from its successor EU country.
rwmj 6y ago
This happened to me as well, but I "only" had to wait a year (and it only got fixed once we got a US Senator involved). Full story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942466
Scoundreller 6y ago
While the US visa is $160, it means you get to save on a pile of $14 ESTA applications :) I’m not 100% sure how this works, but when OP renews their passport, they might need to keep their old passport because the visa is still valid, ie: travel with old and new passport. Not sure if the US works that way.
- rwmj 6y ago
  You can use the visa in the old passport but it must not be damaged. Some countries will punch a whole right through the old passport to invalidate it (thus damaging the still-valid visas), so you have to persuade them not to do that.
nicolas_t 6y ago
I think US citizens should lose the Visa-free travel arrangements in most countries. It's supposed to be reciprocal but the ESTA is a Visa, it walks, talks and quacks like one. If it's denied, there's no real recourse and the process is completely opaque... Obviously, it's not in the interest of most countries to do that but it's really infuriating how something like ESTA was created to abuse the spirit of the reciprocal visa free agreements while sticking to the letter of the agreements.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  I think the EU created ETIAS as a direct response to ESTA
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > It's supposed to be reciprocal but the ESTA is a Visa The thing is that, other countries looked at the US and instead of making US honour the reciprocal agreements, they reciprocated by creating non-visa visas of their own. Now, Canada has eTA, Asutralia has ETA, New Zealand has NZeTA, Schengen area is rolling out ETIAS, ... So yes, there was a brief period of time when visa waivers became non-reciprocal. Now the reciprocity has been restored, but not to what it was before, instead to a new normal. We as the citizens are worse off and the governments have more power in this new normal.
  - nicolas_t 6y ago
    Yes and that's a real shame. Visa free was nice while it lasted... As a European, I'm appalled at the bullshit justification shown on https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/ https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/ "The main reason for the approval of the ETIAS authorization is security. With the increased risk of travellers worldwide, the EU wants to ensure safe travels in its countries. " The increased risk of travellers worldwide? What increased risk... That's just using a baseless assertion and basing the entire argument on that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
talal7860 6y ago
As a third world citizen, where we always have to apply for US visa to visit, this is highly unusual. In most of the cases we are informed during the in person interview of approval or denial, in case of approval, we have our visas stamped within a month.
ovi256 6y ago
A tourism visa does not allow work in the US. He really shouldn't head to an all hands meeting on a tourist visa. The CBP officer will ask his purpose of travel and he'll have to lie about it, after putting it in public writing. This is a mess that he should fix ASAP.
- syoussry 6y ago
  ESTA is tourism + business trip. Arguably a one time all-hands meeting is a business trip. Though I agree sharing all of this in public after all of the struggle he's been through isn't the smartest idea :)!
- abimaelmartell 6y ago
  If is the same as for Mexican citizens, the tourist visa is B1/B2, which allows you to do business during your travel. I used to attend company meetings all the time, i just handed a letter to the CBP officer with all the details for my visit, signed by the company's representatives on both sides of the border. It's actually pretty common.
- I_AM_A_SMURF 6y ago
  Business meetings are explicitly allowed under ESTA rules. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/business.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/business...
  - marcod 6y ago
    Exactly, you can work in the US, you just can't get paid in the US.
  - ovi256 6y ago
    I don't know if ESTA is still involved, he explicitly said his ESTA applications were denied in 2017 and that's why he applied for a "tourist visa" and I don't think ESTA applies to that in any way. But he's a smart enough guy to read the limitations of tourist visa, I wish him the best and I hope I'm wrong.
jeffrallen 6y ago
That is a country that is not interested in innovators. Good luck with that, USA. The economy is not based on sheer brute force anymore.
usr1106 6y ago
I visited the US 12 times if I count correctly. It was nice, but I seriously hope I'll never be tempted again. How deep can you sink to deal with such a defunct state? Others deserve my money more. If you travel often it's inevitable that some day you fill in some contradicting details just because you don't remember everything, you make a stupid mistake or you interpret some field differently than a couple of years ago. Their algorithms will conclude you are giving false information and the result can be seen in this blog post.

298 points by caution 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mlindner 6y ago
They don't move into office until middle of January, there's 2 months left.

PaulHoule 6y ago

You did not run in trouble with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#Visa_Waiver_Program_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#Visa_Waive... right? If you are going to work meetings it seems that should be OK.

vidarh 6y ago
The entire thing started exactly because he was refused travel with ESTA/visa waiver back in 2017.
microtherion 6y ago
The initial ESTA denials DO seem connected to the visa waiver program, and yes, work meetings are allowed under that, at least in my case, where I'm working for a foreign subsidiary of a US company, and have occasional meetings at the US headquarters. I don't know whether there is/was a Mozilla Sweden, and whether the absence of one would make a difference. If you've never had to deal with the US immigration apparatus, think "Google customer service, backed with nuclear weapons".
- Macha 6y ago
  One thing we get told very strongly when we travel to US for intra-company meetings is to be sure to describe them as business meetings, not work meetings. "Work" is basically a keyword for the customs official to give you a bad day.
  - mikelward 6y ago
    Same thing traveling to the UK or Australia. Last time I filled out the UK application, I could not find their definition of "work" or "business",
  - petercooper 6y ago
    Knowing the right words to use or not use is very useful when crossing borders (and probably when talking to powerful officials generally). One strategy is to use the least specific language you can that's still truthful. For example, I've heard of developers get turned away at the border because they began by saying they were "speaking at a conference/giving a workshop" and noting they were being paid or having their expenses covered as if that makes it more legitimate. Instead, you'd start by saying you're "attending a conference." This is something border officials encounter 1000 times a day and will rarely question further. Likewise, if you're planning to record a podcast or take some photos at a conference, you don't mention that unless asked specifically because otherwise it puts them on the track of treating you like a member of the "foreign media" and demanding the relevant visa for that when it's really not relevant for most people doing such things as a side effect of their attendance.
  - vaidhy 6y ago
    The key difference is whether you are paid in US for whatever you do. If it is a business meeting, you do not earn any income in US (your pay is in your home country). If it is work, it means that you are getting paid in US for something you are going to do here. Work visas need one of H or L categories ( or maybe something else). Business visas are the B1. The wording is ambiguous and not friendly to anyone (even to native English speakers), but that is government bureaucracy for you.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    Particularly important to remember for programmers, who probably have a natural inclination to prefer to characterize what they do as "work" rather than "meetings".

londons_explore 6y ago

Quick and unofficial poll... How many here are in the same or similar position?

kilroy123 6y ago
My partner is trying to get a tourism visa to go visit the US with me. They aren't even doing in person interviews at all. Who knows when she'll be able to get a visa. Interestingly, the site where you schedule an in person interview says she can go November 26th... next year
fastball 6y ago
I have the opposite experience in that I'm an American who has lived in the UK and have had visa issues in that direction. At some point my visa was expiring and I applied for a new one, but my application was rejected. So I left the country under my own volition. For the next two years, I visited the UK regularly (6 times total) for 2-4 week stints to see my longtime girlfriend, friends, and perform various activities related to a business I started with a friend in the UK (I had lived in the UK for 6 years). The most recent time I tried to visit the UK, I was visiting my girlfriend before Christmas for two weeks. Already had an onward flight to the US booked for two weeks after my arrival, on an airline + route I had flown quite frequently. That is to say: none of the circumstances were different than all the other times I had visited the UK in the past two years. This time, however, I was denied entry and held in detention for nearly 18 hours, having to book a same day flight back to the states (because my existing onward flight was out of a different airport and could not rebook). My only crime was that when they denied a visa application, I left when they asked me to (which is another story about how hard they actually made it for me to leave in the first place). --- On the other hand, my British girlfriend just got an ESTA to come visit me in the states. She had to stay in Mexico for two weeks as she was coming from Europe, but she's here now.
mcherm 6y ago
I am not - I am a US citizen. Fortunately, all the countries I have ever attempted to travel to have been extremely accommodating about providing a visa, or (in many cases) not even requiring one. I hope that generous attitude continues.

vmception 6y ago

> There’s no end in sight of the pandemic. I will of course not travel to the US or any other country until it can be deemed safe and sensible. With the "of course" I am wondering if people are really concerned about being "COVID shamed"? Aren't we at "rapid test and move on"? As in, take a test one to two days before you board a flight, take a test during or after your trip? Results in 18 - 48 hours? It is a far cry from the mess of unavailable tests and the infinite delays if you managed to get a test that was occurring back in Spring and Summer. And no, some false negatives aren't a rebuttal. All public policy measures are to get the R0 below 1 on average. The rapid tests in conjunction with the already existing measures are good enough for that. All we are doing here is skipping the need for 14 day quarantines on arrival. Granted, he is 50, and is more likely to consider himself an at risk group. I was still wondering what he really thinks. It really depends on what you are optimizing for. If you are optimizing more for not getting it, nothing has changed. If you are optimizing more for not spreading it, a lot has changed.

mamon 6y ago
The problem is that taking the test before air travel or right after the arrival at the destination is like playing the Russian roulette. For example in my country you can take a COVID tests but: 1. you might need to wait for results for 4-5 days, while most destinations require taking it at most 72 hours before the arrival 2. if you turn out to be asymptomatic, but test positive, then you instantly get into at least 10 day quarantine (you cannot take tests anonymously). You have no time to cancel your travel plans. Also, if you choose not do do it, but instead take test at your destination, you might get stuck in quarantine in the foreign country So I would never travel to a country that requires tests. Only those which require just written statement, or location form, and maybe temperature check.
- vmception 6y ago
  > 1. you might need to wait for results for 4-5 days, while most destinations require taking it at most 72 hours before the arrival It is easy to get in this circumstance in the US, it is also easy to not get in this circumstance in the US. Huge range of service level. Money helps!

WatchDog 6y ago

I made a mistake filling out the ESTA, I was traveling for a job interview and ticked the box saying that I was seeking to work in the US, big mistake, instant denial. There is no one you can talk to, no way to expedite any remediation, and you can't travel to the US by boat or plane to talk to the CBP. What I ended up doing, and I don't necessarily recommend this, is flew to Canada and entered over the land border. After spending something like an hour at the border, and holding up my bus, they let me in. Supposedly I should be able to apply for an ESTA in the future, but it's not something I have tried since. I didn't get the job.

Phemist 6y ago
Reminds me of the scene in the series "Lilyhammer", where <spoiler> a similar literal interpretation of the ESTA check list, i.e. a Norwegian police officer answering "Yes" to the question if he has ever been in contact with terrorists/terrorism, eventually causes the protagonists' witness protection bubble to be pierced through a series of unfortunate events. </spoiler>
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Heh, I could have had similar experiences that I didn’t want to push (but in hindsight, the border should have taken it as a lesson to improve for COVID). Back in the Ebola days (5 years ago?), the Canadian border entry terminals at airport would ask: “Have you been in contact with anyone with Ebola?, Yes or No?” and I wanted some help from them, because how the hell do I know? Can barely spell the disease, let alone explain it.
MetallicCloud 6y ago
I had a similar experience. I was flying to the US for a job interview, so I ticked the box that said I was seeking work. I was denied and missed my flight. I've been told I will never be eligible for and ESTA again. I got the job and am now on an E-3 visa, however if I ever want to visit and don't have an E-3, I need to apply for a proper tourist visa.
tppiotrowski 6y ago

formerly_proven 6y ago

So this processes only concluded because he got a friend who got their congressman to intervene. Otherwise it would have likely gone on forever.

daxfohl 6y ago

"Why can't we have more immigrants from places like Norway?"

EasterBegs 6y ago
Because your country hates White people.
honest_tovarich 6y ago
Yeah, lol, how dare them to net give Swedish preferential treatment. I saw on twitch this weekend another case very similar with a girl from Australia. It blows my mind how white people from first world countries feel so entitled and with rights to come to the US anytime they want.
irrational 6y ago
Why would someone from Norway want to immigrate to the USA. That’s like immigrating from a gated community to the ghetto.
- gustavpaul 6y ago
  Exactly why I left northern europe for the USA. I find real and metaphorocal gated communities unbearably suffocating.

Fiveplus 6y ago

Ahh yes! the Get-Your-Friend-To-Call-A-Congressman approach. Works like a charm every time ;)

thaeli 6y ago
This is actually how it works. The (small) silver lining is that your friend doesn't have to be anyone particularly important, they just have to be a voter who lives in their district. I've had to go through Constituent Services a few times to get USG paperwork snarls untangled - doesn't matter if they're who I voted for or not.
lxe 6y ago
It actually does work. If you have your family member's nonimmigrant US visa application denied, you can ask your congressperson to help out, and they sometimes do help.
- ThinkingGuy 6y ago
  I think every Congress member has a "constituent services" office just for matters like this. We have some friends whose child's passport application had gotten lost in processing. Their congresswoman was able to intervene and help them get their passports in time for a vacation. Protip: Your House representative is likely to be more responsive than your Senator. Being up for re-election every 2 years rather than every 6, House members have more incentive to directly serve their constituents.
StephenAmar 6y ago
I concur. My citizenship application was stuck for 2 years. I sent an email to the office of Pelosi and 2 months later I was at the oath ceremony.
FpUser 6y ago
I think here in Canada we can ask MP (Member of Parlament) to do this. Not sure how effective is that though as I've never tried it personally.

screye 6y ago

Sounds properly kafkaesque. Being stuck in bureaucracy is my 2nd biggest realistic fear. (after dying while riding my bike in the US) It appears as though getting the congressperson involved might've helped. It is nice to see that people can actually get in touch with their congressperson here in the US. A sign that democracy does somewhat work as intended. Anecdotally, since Trump took office, the processing times for visa/EAD went up by 50%-ish in my peer group. Visa rejections for H1B also went up hugely among those who appear super qualified. 2 Friends' H1b was rejected for Data Science roles at a FANG despite having a CS/Comp Math major from Stanford and another having studied Information systems at another top 10 US-CS school.

garyfirestorm 6y ago
'we want people to come here LEGALLY in BIG NUMBERS like NEVER BEFORE' /s
- screye 6y ago
  to be fair to both sides: He did propose a merit based H1b draw, which is stuck in processing. He also made it a lot harder for exploitative body shops like TCS/Infosys to get get approved for an H1b, making it easier for qualified unicorn/FANG-esque companies with real demand to get picked in the lottery.

dilly_li 6y ago

> I switched approach and instead applied for a tourist visa. I paid 160 USD, filled in a ridiculous amount of information about me and my past travels over the last 15 years and I visited the US embassy for an in-person interview and fingerprinting. Imagine repeat this process every year... as an international student.

s3krit 6y ago
The tourist visa is good for 10 years IIRC
- fishywang 6y ago
  you can't use tourist visa to enter the US and attend college/grad school.
- roberto 6y ago
  Each visa type has a different duration, and you can't study on a tourist visa. I've had a visa that allowed me to work for 3+ years in the US, but was valid only for 90 days. Every time I left the country I had to renew it, a process which takes an indeterminate amount of time.
- jagrsw 6y ago
  Depends on a country, most is 10 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_United_States#/media/File:US_visa_validity_period.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_United_Stat...
tppiotrowski 6y ago
I’ve thought about automating this process with a Chrome extension or puppeteer.
- kobalsky 6y ago
  that's one hell of a gamble to shave off a few minutes per year

Tepix 6y ago

The 10 year VISA he received does not imply he cannot be denied entry at the border anyway. I had a VISA like that and was almost denied entry once.

varispeed 6y ago
Correct. That VISA merely gives you right to be on the plane and speak to the border control after landing.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  And the chance to litigate it, since denying entry or a Visa is reviewable by court, while an ESTA is not. Most countries probably favour the government in decisions about the former, but it at least means you can force them to give up more details (e.g. FOIA).
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
What happened in your case?
csomar 6y ago
It is better than an ESTA, though. It has some rights attached to it. Though I wonder if the immigration agent will find it suspicious that he has a Visa when he could "simply" get an ESTA. Might hassle him on entries.
rob74 6y ago
A VISA (credit card) won't be of any use, you need a visa (in your passport). SCNR...
abimaelmartell 6y ago
I had a work visa, and almost got denied entry two times. They were questioning if i was qualified for the work i was hired to do. I already had my visa renewed two times at that point so i had been to the embassy for interview and document checking already. The CPB guy was being a jerk.
6y ago

brink 6y ago

Nightmare fuel. My partner is trying to get a visitor's visa to come to the US with me. I pay taxes to my government so that my government can keep my partner from visiting me. It's a great system.

zb1plus 6y ago
It truly is ridiculous that we are forced at gunpoint (through taxes) to give our hard-earned money to an organization that too often actively works against our interests. I feel like the only way to ethically tax people would be have a process to enable taxpayers opt-out of funding with their tax dollars government programs they have a strong moral or personal disagreement with. For example, I would be too happy to fund schools, poverty relief efforts and infrastructure but it sickens me to think that money is being taken from my paycheck to fund pointless wars, genocidal racist thugs and immigration policy that is both racist and destructive to our economy. If financial contributions are a form of free speech, is not the forced usage of my tax dollars for these morally abhorrent equivalent to a law requiring me to purchase display an I <3 ICE bumper sticker on my car?

varispeed 6y ago

It seems to me that you got rejected because you applied for a tourist VISA, but your travels were business related. In that case I think you should have applied for a business VISA instead. Nonetheless, what happened is quite upsetting. I am not sure if I ever go to the US given how they treat tourists. For me it's not worth to be degraded in such a way only to see things that probably exist or look similar in other countries.

vidarh 6y ago
He didn't get rejected for a visa. He got rejected for an ESTA. Travel on visa waiver is explicitly allowed for business meetings, as long as you're not travelling for "productive work" (meetings where you receive instructions are fine).
- varispeed 6y ago
  He was denied the right to travel. As you wrote yourself, business stuff is a grey area and perhaps something got triggered.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    Business stuff is not at all a grey area. From the ESTA application website, appropriate use includes "You plan to travel to the United States for business or pleasure." Meetings are fine. You'll note the visa he was approved for is a tourist visa. Which is also fine for the same use - given it was approved with the use of an invitation letter from his employer. You need to say something very dumb to a border guard to get denied on the basis of exceeding the allowed use of the visa waiver, but if you do, you'd get turned away then and there, not rejected at the airport the next time. "Something" certainly got triggered, but it's highly unlikely to have been about going for business meetings. My guess would be that something got messed up with his previous departure, such as e.g. failing to register that he left on time, as that is one of the things that would pretty much instantly disqualify you from future visa free travel. I almost got into trouble for that myself with visa waivers (though pre-ESTA). The main reason I wasn't denied re-entry was that I was still within the 90 day window of the previous entry, so I provably hadn't overstayed, and they could see I had about a dozen or so short stays that made it very obvious it was a mistake. But that was in person, with someone manually looking through my passport stamps - I'm not at all sure it'd have gone as well today with automated pre-flight checks.

ajay-b 6y ago

It seems with enough money you can get a U.S. visa, work permit, etc.

alchemism 6y ago
Charitably put, there are two definitions of ‘merit’ in merit-based entry.
ciarannolan 6y ago
This is true of almost any country. It's usually a loophole in the form of foreign direct investment (ie. "invest $1M+ and employ at least 5 Americans and you and your family can come here").
ashtonkem 6y ago
Hardly unique to America, tons of countries offer "Golden Visas" where committing enough resources to the country gets you an expedited or guaranteed Visa. The exact amount and details depend on the country, with richer countries obviously costing more, but tons of countries will straight up let you buy residency or citizenship. A few examples: America - $900,000 investment for permanent residency (EB5) Ireland - €1.0 million investment (plus €2.0 million net worth) for permanent residency for your family Portugal - purchase and renovate at least €350,000 in property for residency, with an expedited path to citizenship Germany - €360,000 investment for 3 year residency with a path to citizenship after 8 years UK - £2 million investment for 3 year residency with a path to citizenship after 6 years.
- cambalache 6y ago
  If you ever need a proof that only money matters in this world. All the rest are empty words. Kids, dont pay attention to anyone who tells you otherwise.
  - gustavpaul 6y ago
    You can also just get a "professional" job in said country and move there under the same or similar conditions. The application for an employment visa to move to Germany from South Africa took about a week to get approved.

waterside81 6y ago

I would love to know what's actually happening in these situations. Is there just a backlog of PDFs sitting on some server and there's only 2 guys going through it? Is there a command from Washington to only process N visas per day? What's literally happening here?

Xenograph 6y ago

What exactly are they doing when they put your application in "administrative processing" for years with no explanation or time estimate? What could possibly take years to process on a standard visa application? Does anyone know?

Someone1234 6y ago
It can get stuck between departments. US Visas bounce around between security services (Homeland Security, FBI, DoD/NSA), immigration, and State/NVC. These other departments can flag any visa for additional scrutiny. When excessive delays like this occur it is often a security flag, because then it has to go back to the origin agency and even the department within that originally created the flag to decide if it is a valid match to this individual (and or the facts are correct). Keep in mind that the other departments handling this, it isn't their primary responsibility. They're dealing daily with e.g. terrorist threats, drug trafficking, or similar threats/violations. Nobody is interested in prioritizing State's visa processing (of which they receive many). Plus the people or department who created the original match could no longer exist/work there, and now the request is bouncing between different departments with nobody wanting to take responsibility for it. PS - Just to be clear I'm not defending this. It is a giant mess and hugely dysfunctional. But to understand why something can get stuck in "administrative processing" for years, you have to realize how deep this rabbit hole goes.
- nurgasemetey 6y ago
  I didn't see any defending. Maybe these departments are understaffed.
csomar 6y ago
It's like a bug ticket. Unless there is a rule (law) that they must be fixed by a certain time, they'll just become forgotten.
rob74 6y ago
They're probably busy processing the requests where somebody (e.g. a congressperson) intervened to get them expedited?

digianarchist 6y ago

Reading this made me glad to be Canadian as we are the only nation that doesn't require visas to enter the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Canadian_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Canadian...

HeavenFox 6y ago
Actually, Bermudians can as well :)
- digianarchist 6y ago
  Forgot about Bermuda. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/citizens-of-canada-and-bermuda.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...

rshlo 6y ago

This is very strange. In Israel all citizens are required to issue a tourist visa before traveling to the US. The process is super quick. The embassy have a website that updates you on each step in the process and from applying until you get the actual visa it can take only 3 weeks. The only busy times are usually in summer months where many tourists want to issue visas, so waiting for the in person interview can be up to a month. But again, from the interview to getting the actual the visa is a matter of days.

Scoundreller 6y ago
He’s swedish, so he enters under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative which doesn’t require a visa, but usually requires an ESTA. An ESTA is not a visa (otherwise the US could lose its reciprocal visa-free travel arrangements). The ESTA just walks, talks and quacks like a visa.
- Macha 6y ago
  Note that their is a distinction. While arguably even the ESTA is too much paperwork compared to what US citizens going the other way under these visa-free agreements face, it's a short form you fill out online that gets automatically approved within 12 hours for 95% of cases. It's when you get denied for this system (and yes, this can be for arbitrary reasons which they won't disclose), that things go wrong. It would not surprise me if the logic went "owns domain haxx + curl is used in hacker tools (and many many more legitimate uses, but some agent doesn't care)", "possible hacker", "put on list that causes ESTA denials".

justin_oaks 6y ago

This reminds me of the articles I read about COVID-19 tests that took 19 days for results to come back. If it takes that long to get results back, the results are pretty much useless. Sure, in the end he got a visa, but his original travel plans are long gone. If the backlog is so long, there should be a lottery system to ensure that at least some results are timely. Alas, government processes rarely have any logic applied.

mherdeg 6y ago

This is grim and might portend reciprocal issues. I had missed that the ETIAS start date has been pushed back to end of 2022. As an American citizen I've taken it for granted that I can book a flight to Germany when a $200 mistake fare comes up and fly, like, within 24 hours, with no immigration preapproval required. I'm not going understand how much I miss that until it's gone. Hard to imagine there won't be bureaucratic snafus where Americans are inexplicably denied an ETIAS and will expect to apply for a paper tourist visa to visit Europe, weeks or months in advance of travel.

dhdhhdd 6y ago
How do you find such mistake flights?
- mfkp 6y ago
  https://scottscheapflights.com/ https://scottscheapflights.com/ is a good source
Scoundreller 6y ago
Each ETIAS will be 5 EUR and good for 5y. Edit: current plans is 3 years for 7 EUR. and it expires with your passport. It hasn’t launched and price has doubled! The annoying thing is that every visa-free country is going in this direction. I’m sure it will trip up Americans the most when it launches. The other issue with ETIAS is that there are a lot of dual EU/xx citizens out there travelling on their xx passport. Technically they won’t be eligible for ETIAS. I have a lot of family born... in a country that no longer exists. Dunno if ETIAS will bark because they didn’t get their EU passport from its successor EU country.

rwmj 6y ago

This happened to me as well, but I "only" had to wait a year (and it only got fixed once we got a US Senator involved). Full story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942466

Scoundreller 6y ago

While the US visa is $160, it means you get to save on a pile of $14 ESTA applications :) I’m not 100% sure how this works, but when OP renews their passport, they might need to keep their old passport because the visa is still valid, ie: travel with old and new passport. Not sure if the US works that way.

rwmj 6y ago
You can use the visa in the old passport but it must not be damaged. Some countries will punch a whole right through the old passport to invalidate it (thus damaging the still-valid visas), so you have to persuade them not to do that.

nicolas_t 6y ago

I think US citizens should lose the Visa-free travel arrangements in most countries. It's supposed to be reciprocal but the ESTA is a Visa, it walks, talks and quacks like one. If it's denied, there's no real recourse and the process is completely opaque... Obviously, it's not in the interest of most countries to do that but it's really infuriating how something like ESTA was created to abuse the spirit of the reciprocal visa free agreements while sticking to the letter of the agreements.

Rebelgecko 6y ago
I think the EU created ETIAS as a direct response to ESTA
smnrchrds 6y ago
> It's supposed to be reciprocal but the ESTA is a Visa The thing is that, other countries looked at the US and instead of making US honour the reciprocal agreements, they reciprocated by creating non-visa visas of their own. Now, Canada has eTA, Asutralia has ETA, New Zealand has NZeTA, Schengen area is rolling out ETIAS, ... So yes, there was a brief period of time when visa waivers became non-reciprocal. Now the reciprocity has been restored, but not to what it was before, instead to a new normal. We as the citizens are worse off and the governments have more power in this new normal.
- nicolas_t 6y ago
  Yes and that's a real shame. Visa free was nice while it lasted... As a European, I'm appalled at the bullshit justification shown on https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/ https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/ "The main reason for the approval of the ETIAS authorization is security. With the increased risk of travellers worldwide, the EU wants to ensure safe travels in its countries. " The increased risk of travellers worldwide? What increased risk... That's just using a baseless assertion and basing the entire argument on that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

talal7860 6y ago

As a third world citizen, where we always have to apply for US visa to visit, this is highly unusual. In most of the cases we are informed during the in person interview of approval or denial, in case of approval, we have our visas stamped within a month.

ovi256 6y ago

A tourism visa does not allow work in the US. He really shouldn't head to an all hands meeting on a tourist visa. The CBP officer will ask his purpose of travel and he'll have to lie about it, after putting it in public writing. This is a mess that he should fix ASAP.

syoussry 6y ago
ESTA is tourism + business trip. Arguably a one time all-hands meeting is a business trip. Though I agree sharing all of this in public after all of the struggle he's been through isn't the smartest idea :)!
abimaelmartell 6y ago
If is the same as for Mexican citizens, the tourist visa is B1/B2, which allows you to do business during your travel. I used to attend company meetings all the time, i just handed a letter to the CBP officer with all the details for my visit, signed by the company's representatives on both sides of the border. It's actually pretty common.
I_AM_A_SMURF 6y ago
Business meetings are explicitly allowed under ESTA rules. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/business.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/business...
- marcod 6y ago
  Exactly, you can work in the US, you just can't get paid in the US.
- ovi256 6y ago
  I don't know if ESTA is still involved, he explicitly said his ESTA applications were denied in 2017 and that's why he applied for a "tourist visa" and I don't think ESTA applies to that in any way. But he's a smart enough guy to read the limitations of tourist visa, I wish him the best and I hope I'm wrong.

jeffrallen 6y ago

That is a country that is not interested in innovators. Good luck with that, USA. The economy is not based on sheer brute force anymore.

usr1106 6y ago

I visited the US 12 times if I count correctly. It was nice, but I seriously hope I'll never be tempted again. How deep can you sink to deal with such a defunct state? Others deserve my money more. If you travel often it's inevitable that some day you fill in some contradicting details just because you don't remember everything, you make a stupid mistake or you interpret some field differently than a couple of years ago. Their algorithms will conclude you are giving false information and the result can be seen in this blog post.