He applied for a green card. Then the FBI came calling

[HeatDeath 430]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/03/he-applied-for-a-green-card-then-the-fbi-came-calling/

 

 

Mehdi Ostadhassan was at an academic conference when he received a mysterious phone call from the FBI.

The Iranian native had moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 2009 to study petroleum engineering. After marrying an American citizen and becoming an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota, Ostadhassan applied for a green card.

But his interview with an immigration officer in the spring 2014 was abruptly cancelled without explanation. And then, months later, came this call..

[HeatDeath 430]

The upshot is: trying to get a green card based on marriage to a USC after entering on a student visa, a very short prior marriage with no documentation of divorce, didn't mention Iranian military service on his student visa application, and high-school membership in what sounds like a religious branch of a quasi-military organization. Oh yeah, and filed a second AOS after the first was denied. Not to mention the intrinsic red flags of being Iranian with a STEM background. [Though, of course, these little details are all scattered around towards the end of a longish article. Bury the lead much, CNN?]

 

Can't say I'm terribly surprised he got flagged for a lot of extra scrutiny. 

 

Very interesting info about the security background check program though.

Edited October 3, 2019 by HeatDeath

[HeatDeath 430]

This, folks, is what material misrepresentation [particularly omission] looks like. And it is a showstopper. You can try to drag out the fight, but you ain't ever coming back from it.

 

If you do not tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in every single interaction you ever have with US immigration authorities, it will ruin your life.

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

38 minutes ago, HeatDeath said:

This, folks, is what material misrepresentation [particularly omission] looks like. And it is a showstopper. You can try to drag out the fight, but you ain't ever coming back from it.

 

If you do not tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in every single interaction you ever have with US immigration authorities, it will ruin your life.

I totally agree with this. The real substance of this story starts about 2/3 of the way through. But it looks like almost all of this was rather self inflicted unfortunately. 

[HeatDeath 430]

His US immigration trajectory was doomed the instant he omitted his military service on his student visa application. [And quite possibly before that when he failed to obtain documentation for his divorce.]

 

And any of us could have told him that 5 years ago.

 

Him moving to China is, frankly, the system working as designed. Hope he was more forthcoming with them.

Edited October 3, 2019 by HeatDeath

[TBoneTX 45,023]

Thanks for this informative, highly educational thread.  And great to see you still active here.  

[Canerican 242]

When I read that they had to get divorce documents to prove that his previous marriage was dissolved I was like, "Everyone has to do that." My now spouse had to do that during our K-1 process. In my opinion, they were not prepared and he was not forthcoming with information about his involvement in past organizations. That was the kicker and I agree that this was self-inflicted. 

[HeatDeath 430]

This still blows my mind. Both his actual circumstance, and how desperately the article's author or editor is working to whitewash and nothingburger what are objectively ridiculously serious issues with his entire immigration case.

 

The divorce documents thing seems like, by itself, it should have been recoverable. I know Islam has that divorce ritual that doesn't generate documentation, and if they left on bad terms I can see that being an issue, but they should have been able to get a civil authority or imam to issue something, even just notarized affidavits from family members.

 

On the other hand, omitting <ahem> IRANIAN MILITARY SERVICE (!!!) from his student visa application? That was unrecoverable. That's not just material misrepresentation, that is the literal sine qua non of material misrepresentation! I'm not certain I can actually imagine an instance of material representation that would possibly be bigger or worse, without being literally Al-Qaeda membership or murder convictions or something. And I literally cannot imagine that state of mind that would "innocently" consider it "nothing", let alone think that they can casually just not mention it on an application that specifically asks about military service, and expect it to squeak by. Frankly, it's a black mark on the DoS that he got a student visa in the first place.

 

And yeah, once you've got material representation in your immigration file (and a Doozy Whopper of an MR at that!), once you've been caught at that, it's done. Your're done. Everything since then was an utterly futile delaying action. You ain't never gonna get a GC with that in your file, no matter what the ACLU manage to get a court to do to the FBI, or what a subsequent administration decides about Basij, or anything else. A future US president could literally hire the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to replace the Secret Service, and this guy still isn't gonna get a GC from USCIS.

 

[The FBI, it seems, have almost literally nothing to do with his immigration issues, contrary to the headline.]

 

Equivocating between the [probably harmless] high-school branch of Basij, and the college-level branch that apparently goes out and beats up college protesters on behalf of the state, that was pretty bad too.

[Nitas_man 3,100]

Whatever.  I read this article.  When you omit information or “forget” you’re associated with some religious nutcase terrorist group there’s a price to pay for it.

Was up to me every single wahabbi who EVER demands that others follow their rules just because they are around them would be banished to their own countries or countries who think like them.

That includes trumps buddies and iranians sworn enemies the saudis.  If they are whack jobs and support the imposition of 7th century rules in their own country they are the same person when they leave.  After all ISIS and Taliban territory rules included act, dress, look like saudi arabia and nowhere else on the planet.

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by Nitas_man