I wonder if getting visa for Greece will help my Nepali Fiance..

[walran 24]

Greece I thought would be weak as opposed to say Sweden, lots of people pass through Greece, not many seem to want to stay.

Anyway she can apply and find out, avoid the speculation. Does not cost much.

Sweden? Five times as many people go to Greece each year (about 20 million) compared to Sweden at 5 million.

In 2014 Sweden had 51,000 leave the country vs. 121,000 that came in so a net migration of about 76,000

Greece still beats it many times over.. I think it is because it is warmer and has an ocean you can actually swim in

All kidding aside i had heard that if third worlders got EU visas and came back that might help with the US CO..

[Transborderwife 4,666]

Might is the operative word. Some don't give a flying fish where they've been

[KierenHby 899]

I'm no CO, but 3 B2 rejections could reflect adversely on the future K1.

[KierenHby 899]

In the time you've spent on the tourist visa attempts, why not get married and go the spousal visa route?

[aaron2020 11,651]

I'm no CO, but 3 B2 rejections could reflect adversely on the future K1.

Having multiple B2 rejections does not reflect adversely on a K-1. The reason for the B2 is to circumvent the K-1. It's common for people to go the K-1 route after a B2 rejection. Good thing you are not a CO.

[aaron2020 11,651]

OP seems to feel his fiancee is entitled to a visitor visa and is unfairly being denied. He's pursuing a K-1. His feelings about the immigration system does not matter since it will not change his situation. He will still need to jump through all the hoops like the rest of us.

[KierenHby 899]

I'm no CO, but 3 B2 rejections could reflect adversely on the future K1.

Having multiple B2 rejections does not reflect adversely on a K-1. The reason for the B2 is to circumvent the K-1. It's common for people to go the K-1 route after a B2 rejection. Good thing you are not a CO.

Hence, I'm not a CO

[arken 4,197]

The way you are venting your anger at US system for doing their work just because your now fiance was denied visas earlier, i highly doubt you can live in Nepal for long. You need a lot of patience to live in Nepal.

So in an over half an hour interview, you think the CO just kept staring at her cute face and told her you are too cute to go to US!!! Definitely not. The CO asked her lots of questions about her profession, why is she visiting US and will she return back and she couldn't answer the CO in a convincing way that she would return back. Her paperwork don't talk, so don't blame the CO for not looking at her paperwork, it's her fault that she could not convince the CO about ties to Nepal.

Actually it does...Prior to our getting engaged the three attempts she made they did not look at her ties to the country, her assets and real estate holdings, that her family lives there or not.. Inter-mountain Health Care a partner hospital asked for her to come for a quick work visit and still she was denied not based on anything else, not based on lack of connections or ties to Nepal but each time looks and that she was a single woman was mentioned..

She was a runner up for miss Nepal while going through med school 5-6 years ago so not totally unfortunate looking but the CO each time after a 30 minute interview where he never looked at the paperwork once said " You are too young, too pretty, you will get married in America and never come back..Total sexist #######! Well before we ever dated seriously or got engaged.

We don't really even want to live in the US for very long after we get married, I lived in Spain, Germany, Prague and prefer it 100X over anything offered in the US other than my family. She founded a charity that she works with and was just appointed Country Director for Nepal for Days for Girls and I think we will end up living in Nepal but I would like 5 years to wind down my business and get things settled so we could live more comfortably than what would be available now..

This system is broke.. In my real estate business I deal with family and friends who are foreigners and if you have about 800K in the US a visa is very very fast and very easy to get as an investor.. Citizenship can be bought with that and somehow this strikes me as not very fair or ethical.

Not to mention that while I agree on controlling immigration but without the legal and illegal immigrants this country would collapse in a year or two, five at the most..Why are we making this so hard?

"Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations, “The most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants.”

And if this statement is true, then America is headed for more economic problems. You see, the population increase in America has come to a screeching halt.

According to figures recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, population growth is crashing. During the last year, it was a depressed 0.71%, or barely 2.3 million people. This is the slowest growth since the Great Depression."

There is a reason that you can buy a house for nothing in the Midwest and Northeast.. How long could we stand to continue losing the equivalent of the entire population of say Oakland, Buffalo, or Boise each year? The remaining population is moving to the West Coast..

By all means protect our values.. If we think of America as a Christian nation then let in more of those than other groups but by all means let them come in if they are not criminals, on welfare, destructive to the fabric and culture of America or otherwise undesirable..

My employee in India experienced similar issues trying to get a tourist visa where they never looked at the paperwork and denied him...it"feels" to me like the system is broke....

Edited January 11, 2016 by arken

[Boiler 45,478]

Most B2's are only 5 minute interviews if that.

[aaron2020 11,651]

Most B2's are only 5 minute interviews if that.

Not when you are as good looking as the runner up to Miss Nepal. She gets 30 minutes. Miss Nepal would have gotten an hour interview.

[Boiler 45,478]

Might explain my 3 minutes.

And it was a woman interviewer.

[walran 24]

The way you are venting your anger at US system for doing their work just because your now fiance was denied visas earlier, i highly doubt you can live in Nepal for long. You need a lot of patience to live in Nepal.

So in an over half an hour interview, you think the CO just kept staring at her cute face and told her you are too cute to go to US!!! Definitely not. The CO asked her lots of questions about her profession, why is she visiting US and will she return back and she couldn't answer the CO in a convincing way that she would return back. Her paperwork don't talk, so don't blame the CO for not looking at her paperwork, it's her fault that she could not convince the CO about ties to Nepal.

I expect more out of the U.S. I hold them to a higher standard and see frequently that there seems to be no rhyme or reason why things are done the way they are done and too much left up to the discretion of the CO. I know that this month I had two students apply for student visa's from Nepal to the US and one got one instantly and the second one didn't with virtually identical applications.. How does that work? OR another friend that submitted similar visa applications yearly for 5 years and finally got a visa.

Actually I think I mentioned here somewhere that I have lived for more than 10 years outside the US.. Including the third world and North Africa makes Nepal look like the US The third world is often easier.. Baksheesh goes a long ways towards "smoothing" the process and cutting the timelines and is 3rd world acceptable.

I have translated for embassies, worked for the government and understand somewhat the mentality.. And efficiency is not a government quality. Just ask those unlucky enough to get the TSC for a K-1 as that adds 6 months to the process..

I don't think the CO's are bad people but I have an employee ( also mentioned) in India who has had similar experiences but since he isn't cute and female they spent 5 minutes with him each time "without" looking at paperwork either..Just asked him his name and said "visa denied".. I think there is a policy or something that hardly seems fair.

Now with many friends outside the US and I spend a lot of time abroad this seems to be pretty consistent excepting my friends with $$$ and the investor visa's go smoothly and fast..E-2 & EB-5's.

As far as ties I guess I think I am pretty reasonable and think that the following would have sufficed:

1- Administrator Chitwan Medical college

2- High earnings for Nepal

3- Family

4- Two residences and multiple property in Nepal worth about $600,000 ( it is owned with siblings jointly)

5- Position as director for a charity that she helped found in Nepal

6- Lived abroad in India, Greece, England for several years combined and returned

7- Medical Degree as Doctor of Modern Medicine

8- Masters in hospital administration

9- active in local charities and her church..

These show ties to Nepal, work connections, family connections, assets sufficient to live in the top 5% of the country economically, a history of living abroad in the first world and returning to Nepal.

This is hardly the forum for this but I would be fine with seeing say a $100,000 bond that would be forfeited upon the visa holder not exiting the country.

As my trips to the local DMV in many states has proven out I do think that government employees often have a bit of a power complex and use it when they can.. They are hardly the servants of the public.

Yes I am doing the K-1 as she is not a criminal, I have more than enough means to support her, have all the paperwork etc. there is no conceivable way that a visa would/could be denied but it would still be nice to not have to make the 40 hour trip it usually is each way myself With a tourist visa I would have married her, sent her back to Nepal and filed for the paperwork and we could have gone back and forth and I would have had no gripes..

I hear about Nepal being hard but money smooths everything everywhere and it doesn't take much in Nepal.. I lived for a year in a tent in the military and have never had a problem with living in the 3rd world as a lot of my charity work is done from a tent in inhospitable places.. in April I was working in the Annapurna when there was a snow storm, I got pneumonia and coughed so hard my retinas detached ( along with a mild but still severe case of dysentery) I merely flew to Mumbai and had them re-attached (best eye doctors I have ever used) and that didn't stop me from returning a few months later and then again next month.. I know what tough living is.. At least for an American, no fuel, hot water, no heating.. I can handle it..

[HFM181818 750]

Another self appointed 'expert' on visa matters....really? COs receive significant training in visa interviewing skills and immigration law. They are the experts, not someone who doesn't think the 'system' is fair. That's why there are interviews...to determine the bona fides of a particular applicant. The 'fact' that allegedly two people applied for student visas with the same paperwork means nothing...each of those individuals had to answer questions, etc, that shed light on their intentions, from the perspective of the CO, not some businessman who travels a lot.

You were not in attendance during those interviews, you don't know what answers they gave, did they lie, were they trying to use the student visa for some other purpose, etc. It never ceases to amaze me how much other people who have never been a CO, probably could never be (the screening process is incredibly challenging and only about 1-2% of the 30,000 initial applicants are chosen....and this is from a pool of applicants who are well educated and quite intelligent. But of course, armchair COs abound, each believing they know more than the very people doing the job......

Edited January 11, 2016 by HFM181818

[JFH 12,190]

I expect more out of the U.S. I hold them to a higher standard and see frequently that there seems to be no rhyme or reason why things are done the way they are done and too much left up to the discretion of the CO. I know that this month I had two students apply for student visa's from Nepal to the US and one got one instantly and the second one didn't with virtually identical applications.. How does that work? OR another friend that submitted similar visa applications yearly for 5 years and finally got a visa.

Actually I think I mentioned here somewhere that I have lived for more than 10 years outside the US.. Including the third world and North Africa makes Nepal look like the US The third world is often easier.. Baksheesh goes a long ways towards "smoothing" the process and cutting the timelines and is 3rd world acceptable.

I have translated for embassies, worked for the government and understand somewhat the mentality.. And efficiency is not a government quality. Just ask those unlucky enough to get the TSC for a K-1 as that adds 6 months to the process..

I don't think the CO's are bad people but I have an employee ( also mentioned) in India who has had similar experiences but since he isn't cute and female they spent 5 minutes with him each time "without" looking at paperwork either..Just asked him his name and said "visa denied".. I think there is a policy or something that hardly seems fair.

Now with many friends outside the US and I spend a lot of time abroad this seems to be pretty consistent excepting my friends with $$$ and the investor visa's go smoothly and fast..E-2 & EB-5's.

As far as ties I guess I think I am pretty reasonable and think that the following would have sufficed:

1- Administrator Chitwan Medical college

2- High earnings for Nepal

3- Family

4- Two residences and multiple property in Nepal worth about $600,000 ( it is owned with siblings jointly)

5- Position as director for a charity that she helped found in Nepal

6- Lived abroad in India, Greece, England for several years combined and returned

7- Medical Degree as Doctor of Modern Medicine

8- Masters in hospital administration

9- active in local charities and her church..

These show ties to Nepal, work connections, family connections, assets sufficient to live in the top 5% of the country economically, a history of living abroad in the first world and returning to Nepal.

This is hardly the forum for this but I would be fine with seeing say a $100,000 bond that would be forfeited upon the visa holder not exiting the country.

As my trips to the local DMV in many states has proven out I do think that government employees often have a bit of a power complex and use it when they can.. They are hardly the servants of the public.

Yes I am doing the K-1 as she is not a criminal, I have more than enough means to support her, have all the paperwork etc. there is no conceivable way that a visa would/could be denied but it would still be nice to not have to make the 40 hour trip it usually is each way myself With a tourist visa I would have married her, sent her back to Nepal and filed for the paperwork and we could have gone back and forth and I would have had no gripes..

I hear about Nepal being hard but money smooths everything everywhere and it doesn't take much in Nepal.. I lived for a year in a tent in the military and have never had a problem with living in the 3rd world as a lot of my charity work is done from a tent in inhospitable places.. in April I was working in the Annapurna when there was a snow storm, I got pneumonia and coughed so hard my retinas detached ( along with a mild but still severe case of dysentery) I merely flew to Mumbai and had them re-attached (best eye doctors I have ever used) and that didn't stop me from returning a few months later and then again next month.. I know what tough living is.. At least for an American, no fuel, hot water, no heating.. I can handle it..

Maybe you just need to be a little more humble. Both of you. You almost sound as if you believe your girlfriend has a right to a visa, purely because she is rich and educated. With an attitude like that, you will be disappointed at some point in your life. Maybe this is it. I don't think the COs are looking at wealth or qualifications. Or looks, despite your claims of her being a beauty queen. If she even had half the sense of entitlement and was half as pompous as you at her interview, that could be your answer. You are asking for permission for her to be allowed into a country that is not her own and where she (currently) has no right of entry. Just as I do each time I arrive at the border. I, however, realise what a privilege it is to be admitted into the country (even for a brief visit and despite being married to one of its citizens) and approach the situation in that way. Your girlfriend is not doing them a favour, they owe her nothing. She is asking for a privilege. You'd both do well to remember that.

[walran 24]

Another self appointed 'expert' on visa matters....really? COs receive significant training in visa interviewing skills and immigration law. They are the experts, not someone who doesn't think the 'system' is fair. That's why there are interviews...to determine the bona fides of a particular applicant. The 'fact' that allegedly two people applied for student visas with the same paperwork means nothing...each of those individuals had to answer questions, etc, that shed light on their intentions, from the perspective of the CO, not some businessman who travels a lot.

You were not in attendance during those interviews, you don't know what answers they gave, did they lie, were they trying to use the student visa for some other purpose, etc. It never ceases to amaze me how much other people who have never been a CO, probably could never be (the screening process is incredibly challenging and only about 1-2% of the 30,000 initial applicants are chosen....and this is from a pool of applicants who are well educated and quite intelligent. But of course, armchair COs abound, each believing they know more than the very people doing the job......

Very condescending I think..

If you admit to being a CO or a "self appointed expert" yourself and then you can enlighten the rest of us? I only claimed to have an opinion... Yes, I translated for the consular office in Spain and Germany, have lived with friends at various embassies around the world and drawn a government check but have never been a CO.. They are not experts in immigration law..They have received some training (7 weeks covering a lot of information not just immigration) by the Foreign Service Institute.. About the same as realtors vs. attorneys.

You are making a lot of assumptions.. My own assumption is that the immigration process is if not broken then seriously flawed.. That is my personal opinion as to which I believe I am entitled and more so as a US citizen, having served my country as a soldier, actually worked for her government and lived under numerous regimes.. I have stated my reasons why clearly and concisely with as much information as I thought relevant.

Those two students mentioned previously are members of my church, our close friends, have attended for years and are working with a charity who's founders I am connected with through friendship and association at church as well that helps them go to school in the US.. I think that I/we have a really good idea of what was said( actually a play by play), the background of the individuals, what was filed etc,. They have "both" been students in Nepal for several years at the university and unsurprisingly the shorter heavier, less attractive one (arguably) with glasses was admitted.

You are right I wasn't there, I could have missed something.. but as I have had this experience with other employees and friends from Spain, India, Venezuela over the last ten years or more and the only ones that get in easily are seemingly those who bought a visa with the investor visa program or as refugees... This is of course all based on my personal experience too..

I don't feel entitled, not that arrogant either, other than I confess a lack of patience for systems I don't understand that lack transparency and arbitrary decisions. Yes as an American myself I expect certain things from "my" government..

As for my fiance She is much more humble than I am and only wants to come to the US to be with me having no desire whatsoever to be a US citizen....ever! She has this year 2015 "after" the last visa attempt in 2014 chosen to give up her property and inheritance to a charity, scorned a diamond ring for a simple and cheap band and any other accouterments of wealth that I could have offered her while she works with slum children to feed & educate them and help women in Nepal. Call me arrogant and I will accept it but not her.. she is not on this forum and not even aware of my postings or as you say ranting.

This is admittedly a lot of "feeling" I feel for those who have been denied that really just want to visit and then return..Disney land is great! Everyone should experience the world! I love travel and go as often as I can but have only been to about 60 countries and hope to do 60 more.

I do feel is that if she (or anyone like her like my employee in India), a successful, educated person of means, cannot get a visitor's visa then what hope does anyone else have? Why is the playing field not fairly marked? I guess I don't accept an arbitrary decision based on nebulous criteria.. If the file had been opened or reviewed even cursorily in any of the 5 cases (3 for her and 2 for my employee over 10 years) I would not have commented.. If the CO had "not" said "you are too pretty, too young, you will get married and never come back" or asked my employee "his name only" before denying him..(also never looking at the invitation letter or bank statements or other ties to his homeland such as his five kids, wife, house, job, etc.) then I would have placed greater credence in the fairness of the "process" and made no comment.

While I think that wealthy people are less likely to end up on welfare I don't believe that is the criteria that should be employed ( I think true wealth is a happy family and helping others).. In fact I rebel against it as unfair and not humane in nature. As an American I expect fairness and humanity.. I look at fairness, morality, and what is "just" above all else..I confess to being a bit of a crusader for the under dog.

Strong ties I can understand.. But that is quantifiable.. Home, family, job, assets, education, involvement in community and charities.. little league coach for example over 3 or more years would seem to be having ties to a community as well. A checklist would do nicely..

A monetary Bond.. That too seems feasible.

But tell me that one person gets to make that decision arbitrarily and I get upset...

Comments like the one quoted above tell me that you either 1- Love the system and think it is perfect.. 2- Work for the government and are trying to justify your own job somehow or 3- Like to make unkind comments to someone that has not attacked you previously to make yourself seem like the informed and intelligent one.

At the end of the day if you are on this forum because you or someone you love is seeking a visa then you and I have that in common and I wish you well...

Edited January 11, 2016 by walran