Failure to prove sufficient ties

[Dakine 26]

USCIS makes BIG bucks on denied visa applications.

Average interview takes less than 5 minutes.

So $100 xs 60=s $6,000 an hour that [1] CO pulls in!!!

OOPs 12 xs $100 ==s 1200 x 8 =s Sorry !

Missed edit on first post! Coffee hasn't kicked in yet!!

No you can see why they deny 80% . They want repeats and get them!

MANILA --- The land of milk and honey making the Philippines a land of milking cows? According to Sen. Ralph Recto, the United States Embassy in Manila collects about P2 billion ($36 million) a year from Filipinos applying for visas.

Recto, chairman of the Senate committee on ways and means, said the embassy charges a non-refundable application fee of $100 or P5,500, for a B-1 or B-2 visa.

A B-1 is issued to an individual who wants to go to the U.S. on business while a B-2 is given to one who intends to visit relatives or tourist destinations in the U.S.

All in all, Recto estimates, the embassy rakes in from P630 million ($11.5 million) to P2.06 billion annually, based on a minimum 450 visa applications a day. Recto was quoting figures cited in a resolution filed by 72 congressmen in 2003.

The solons claimed that 80 per cent of the visa fees, or P503 million ($9.2 million), represented denied applications, and asked the U.S. government to donate the amount to the school-building program of the Department of Education.

Immigration specialist Crispin Aranda gave a higher estimate of visa applicants in Manila. Quoting U.S. consular officials, Aranda said 200,000 non-immigrant visas were issued in Manila in 2002. The embassy “interviews anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 applicants a day six days a week.â€

Using the lower estimate of 1,200 U.S. visa applicants a day, Recto said, around 375,000 seek the “much-sought-after gate pass†to the States every year.

If they pay P5,500 each, then the U.S. Embassy collects about P2.064 billion a year. Of this amount, nearly P1 billion came from denied applications,†Recto said. “That building by the boulevard is really a cash register.â€

If the embassy collects only half of the estimated annual P2 billion from visa fees, it would have become the fourth-highest in nontax collection if it were a Philippine government agency, the senator observed.

This year, the Department of Finance is expected to collect as much as P48 billion ($873 million) in nontax revenues, followed by Department of Transportation and Communications, P6.5 billion; Department of Justice, P3.7 billion; Department of Agriculture, P379 million; Department of Environment and Natural Resources, P343 million; and Department of Health, P212 million.

Reviewing the data, Recto said there is merit in the lawmakers’ appeal to the US government to use part of the collection to fund social projects here: “This is not to disparage the much-ballyhooed U.S. aid to the Philippines, but it is possible that their visa collection is much bigger than what they give us in return, in the form of aid.†(MNS)

Edited June 17, 2007 by beckypua

[Ta Ta 1]

Interesting data.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Lord have mercy!

[athena_ny 1]

My sister in law has come here about five times ... never been denied entry and obviously was not denied the visa. Though, she always only brings one of her children (and this next time she will come alone), and her husband stays. Her husband is also in the Peruvian military so she did not have problem proving significant ties to Peru as they own their own house, etc.

But many other people I know from other families in Peru have been denied.