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I am from India. I am planning to attend the conference. We are a team of 4 members.

1st Attempt

VO: How was your day?

Me: Great and how about you?

VO: Perfect? What's the purpose of your visit to the USA?

Me: I am going to attend the Conference ABCD ... (After a pause) Do you want to look at the invitation letter?

VO: No and where you are going to stay?

Me: I was going to stay at ABCD place.

VO: What you are going to do in the meetup?

Me: I am going to do ABCD.......

VO: Ok. Who is sponsoring for you?

Me: My college secretary is sponsoring for my team. (Do you want a look at the sponsorship letter)

VO: No. Have you married?

Me: I have not completed the under graduation and I am single.

VO: Sorry for this time. Given the form 214(B)

I didn't understand why I got refused. I wanted to give it a try once again, so I applied a second time. Second time my interviewer is very serious and she did not even smile.

2nd Attempt

VO: How was your day?

Me: Great and how about you?

VO: Good and whats the purpose of your visit?

Me: I was asked to attend the ABCD.

VO: What mother and father do?

Me: My father was ABCD and my mother is a housewife.

VO: What is your financial income?

Me: It was ABCD details.

Vo: Sorry for this time, you got rejected.

For the second time, I'm thinking she has looked into our financial status and my family members occupation and that's why I got refused.

I have many doubts about whether can I apply once again. After talking with one of my relatives he mentioned its not a wise idea to apply once again and mentioned the chances of getting accepted is 0% for the next time. But I want to try once again.

Questions I have:

  • Is it a wise idea to apply once again after refused two times form B1 Visa?
Ford Ramsaki
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    Lying in any visa application will get you a ban from that country and very probably mean you won’t be travelling anywhere for quite a long time. If you know how to get fake documents you can be sure the people validating and assessing your application know how to spot them. Don’t ruin your chances of future travel. – Traveller Feb 13 '19 at 07:40
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    So, you have an annual income of about $6,000 and you are going to stay at a hotel with room rates of $500 per day. Now figure out why your applications were rejected :) – alephzero Feb 13 '19 at 10:17
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    @Traveller: not only on "that country". That could effect many more countries. to OP: Better not go one time, than risk your entire career. – Giacomo Catenazzi Feb 13 '19 at 11:16
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    Maybe you should also look at the application you sent to them (not just the interview). Ask your team, and check what are the differences. Maybe you just misinterpreted some point of application. But applying again after 10 days is a bad sign. – Giacomo Catenazzi Feb 13 '19 at 11:20
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    Hi Alephzero, my college is sponsoring my trip. I am not the one who takes care of the expenses. – Ford Ramsaki Feb 13 '19 at 17:43
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    If you have a really good connection to your team members, you could ask them about their financial situation and so on and compare to yours. Although it seems that you won't travel to the US this time. Don't re-apply in less than 1-2 years. – Quora Feans Feb 13 '19 at 18:35
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    @SuryaTeja: I assume you mean your Indian college is sponsoring your travel. Here's the problem with that: the USA prefers a US sponsor. – MSalters Feb 13 '19 at 19:37
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    "Will it make problems if I lie about my financial details?" - you plan on visiting a foreign country and your first act on their soil will be to commit a criminal act in front of a government officer? Do you think that is wise? I don't! – RedGrittyBrick Feb 14 '19 at 11:27
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    @alephzero "So, you have an annual income of about $6,000 and you are going to stay at a hotel with room rates of $500 per day. Now figure out why your applications were rejected." To be fair, I just tried to book with the hotel and the rates were "only" $300 per day for two persons. On the other hand, if this was the only reason for rejection, why not looking for a cheaper accommodation. Not sure if the questioner actually would have to pay for the stay anyway? – NoDataDumpNoContribution Feb 14 '19 at 14:56
  • @Trilarion US Consulate expects you to be able to pay for yourself, no matter if you are going to need to do this or not. At least, that's what I have read and that's my personal experience. – Mołot Feb 14 '19 at 15:08
  • @Molot That seems way too general a statement. When I studied in the US (as an exchange student from western Europe) I certainly didn't have the funds to pay for the yearlong stay, but from what I remember my parents sponsored me and I had no problems at all. Although I'm sure an accepted exchange student from Austria will get different treatment to an Indian short-term visitor, that's not a knockout criteria. – Voo Feb 14 '19 at 21:00
  • @Trilarion I did a quick search through their booking website to get the $500 figure (and their top rates were several times that amount). But the difference between $500 and $300 isn't the point - why would four students be staying in that class of hotel, even if they could afford It? It suggests their financial sponsor is either "not entirely credible", or at best clueless. – alephzero Feb 15 '19 at 14:03
  • … Googling for "motels palo alto" produced a selection at around $100 a night, which seems like a more sensible price range for students than the Plaza! – alephzero Feb 15 '19 at 14:11
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    @SuryaTeja " my college is sponsoring my trip" - so far as the official is concerned, you have a letter that says "my college is going to throw away several thousand USD on accommodation for four students, for no obvious reason". Does that sound like a credible sponsorship letter? Not to me. – alephzero Feb 15 '19 at 14:15

4 Answers4

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You shouldn't reapply before you have had a significant change in your personal circumstances. Unless you secure services of a great immigration lawyer, it seems highly unlikely that you will be able to get the decision reversed after 2 back to back refusals within weeks.

Even a lawyer can not guarantee a visa.

But I want to try once again, so I concluded my self in order to get accepted for once again. I need to lie about my financial details. By telling my mothers occupation was from housewife to business owner. And income from 4lakhs to 16 lakhs ( I don't know whether I can get fake documents).

Never, ever, ever do that! I would not reapply immediately even with true facts in this situation.

is it a wise idea to apply once again after two times of rejection form B1 Visa?

No, it is not wise to reapply quickly without any change in circumstances.

Does it going to make any problem if lie my financial details?

Yes, big problems

IO: How did your financial situation improve 4 times in just 4 days?

Applicant: Ummm actually uhh i think...

IO: Here, you have a lifelong ban from entering US now. Have a nice day.

Here is what the law says:

The person will be barred from admission for the rest of his or her life unless the person qualifies for and is granted a waiver. The officer should examine all facts and circumstances when evaluating inadmissibility for fraud or willful misrepresentation.

INA Act 212 states that:

(C) Misrepresentation.-

(i) In general.-Any alien who, by fraud or willfully misrepresenting a material fact, seeks to procure (or has sought to procure or has procured) a visa, other documentation, or admission into the United States or other benefit provided under this Act is inadmissible.


Food for thought: If an applicant's desperation to get to the US is so glaringly obvious on a TSE post, How can the same applicant not appear like an immigration risk to a trained IO?

Hanky Panky
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    @MadHatter Exactly as you said. ref - ref - ref - here be caps: DON'T EVER LIE IN YOUR VISA APPLICATION. Caps off. – Mindwin Remember Monica Feb 13 '19 at 11:30
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    Nope, getting a visa is nobody's right. No basic human rights were effected and no harm was done to the OP. As a matter of fact, the US Law instructs its interviewing officer to assume that every non immigrant visa applicant is an immigration risk and only issue a visa once they are satisfied otherwise. So if anything, they followed their Law. Asking an applicant about their current circumstances and their financial standing sounds extremely relevant to me. – Hanky Panky Feb 13 '19 at 15:29
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    @Vilx- If the country has any reason to believe that you're planning to overstay your visa; then they're not likely to give you one. You can cite any reason you like, business, tourism, cheese ... they might seem like good reasons to let someone in, but it's out they're thinking of. – UKMonkey Feb 13 '19 at 16:37
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    @Vilx. His application said he is only going to stay for a few days for a business event. Do you believe everything that everyone tells you? Not if you have any common sense, or much experience of how the real world works. The OP needs to convince the officials that he/she is not going to stay in the USA indefinitely as an illegal immigrant. Some plausible reasons for going back home (a partner, some children, a well paying job, etc) might be enough to do that. Or it might not.. – alephzero Feb 13 '19 at 16:57
  • @alephzero Thanks for your information. The interviewer is not asking any of the details that are the issue I am facing most. To convince the VO, I need to speak, but they are not allowing me to talk about it. I am not getting how to convince the VO? – Ford Ramsaki Feb 13 '19 at 17:51
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    @SuryaTeja: "The interviewer is not asking any of the details that are the issue". You are severely mistaken there. It's not you who gets to decide what the issue is. The interviewing officer gets to decide what the issues are, and she had a few. You appear to be in denial of this fact, which likely did not help your case. – MSalters Feb 13 '19 at 19:35
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To get a temporary visa to the US the Visa Officer needs to believe that you have sufficient ties to your home country to leave the country after the purpose of your stay is over.
If you have very little income and are going to visit Google HQ they will assume that you'd try to just stay in the US illegally.
Having a higher income and a residence will help with that. I wouldn't think that applying again will have any chance of success.

xyious
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    Having a higher income - it is worth to stress that lying about income, as OP suggested in his question, can do more harm than good. – Mołot Feb 14 '19 at 08:57
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    Actually, you can safely change that to will do more harm than good. Especially with three applications just weeks apart, a sudden change in income will probably invite them to have a very close look at how that change suddenly happened. – CompuChip Feb 15 '19 at 12:48
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Me: ... In which we are going to visit Google head office and other silicon valley locations.

Them: sounds like seeking employment ... Which can often lead to absconding on a visa and staying in the country to work illegally.

But I want to try once again, so I concluded in order to get accepted I need to lie about my financial details. By telling my mothers occupation was from housewife to business owner. And income from 4lakhs to 16 lakhs ($6000 to $24,000)

Your logic is as follows: the USA is a blind, dumb machine which has no idea who you are, and no ability to store state information. So it will look at your new application de novo with no recall of your previous applications. And as such, there is no harm in applying any number of times. You get a cold-reset after every attempt, just like loading a save-game or starting another throwaway character in a free-to-play MMO. Don't like your result, hit reset and do it again 'til you get it right, your only consequence is the application fee!

That is wrong. That is soooo, sooo wrong.

They will in fact remember you, will correllate the data on your new application with the data you gave them previously. They will not match, so they will look at the probability that you are deliberately lying vs. that you just made a clerical error or failed to mention something. Depending on how they feel, you'll either get "lol, no" or a ban for deception.

To makeitwork:You would need first, to have your factual circumstances actually change, and second, be able to show convincing proof of that, with level of proof proportional to the probability of that happening. For instance if you have a job, house and wife in 10 years, you won't need to work very hard to prove it, because that is pretty normal. But if you suddenly get them next week, you better have one whopper of an explanation how that happened and a stack of proofs that it actually did.

( I don't know whether I can get fake documents).

You can definitely get them. And so can they. And they do, because they like to know what the fakers are producing. And when you walk in with a similar document... The jig is up. Their job is hard... it's less hard when you do stupid things.

Also, they have been giving you hints. E.g. The question about your wife that ended the first interview, and what the B-1 visa page says. They want

You have a residence outside the United States in which you have no intention of abandoning, as well as other binding ties which will ensure your return abroad at the end of the visit

As a single, unemployed college student living with your mother, you have no particular ties to India. (Not the kinds they like to see, anyway). From immigration's perspective, the likeliest case is that you would cheerfully take school and/or employ in the US if you could find it, and their worry is you will stay illegally and get the job for sure, instead of go home and take your chances getting the correct visa, which is in high demand.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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    Working on B1 status is a violation, looking for work isn't. It's the correct visa type for a job interview, for example, if you can show that you intend to return and obtain the correct visa if hired. – gabedwrds Feb 14 '19 at 05:24
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    @gabedwrds ok, that's different. In the UK you can't look for work, and they'll refuse you if they find a bunch of copies of your CV in your bag. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 14 '19 at 05:48
  • In fairness to the OP, I don't think this Meetup is a good entry point for illegal work. – Andrew Lazarus Feb 14 '19 at 19:57
  • @AndrewLazarus not for any traditional company of size, but an increasing number of small companies occupy a main office that also sells Breakfast soufflés or Frappucinos, and/or pays people on a 1099 basis. An absconder would be able to function that way. Regardless, if a visitor thought he could march right up to the Googleplex and get hired, and after arriving in America networked with smaller companies like that, again same effect as far as immigration is concerned. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 14 '19 at 20:02
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    "As a single, unemployed fresh college graduate living with your mother, you have no ties to India." The OP says they have an income, although it's not clear whether it's their personal income or family income (and if it's family, then that implies family ties). So that leaves you saying that anyone who isn't married has no ties to their home country. – Acccumulation Feb 14 '19 at 21:59
  • @Acccumulation I do not agree with that interpretation of my words. My sentence doesn't say anything about income, and "family income" appears to be your invention as well. I list the ties (or their lack) plainly: single=no wife/kids... unemployed=no job obligations... college grad=no student obligations... living with your mother=no owned home or apartment lease. Also implying, no life plan in India, no political career, etc. I don't know where you're getting the income issue. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 14 '19 at 22:51
  • @Harper "unemployed=no job obligations [...] I don't know where you're getting the income issue." Are you speaking some variety of English in which "unemployed" does not imply anything about income? I don't see anything in the question that says "unemployed" or "college graduate". On the contrary, they say they haven't completed their undergraduate. ""family income" appears to be your invention as well" I was simply discussing possibilities. Discussion possibilities is not an "invention". – Acccumulation Feb 14 '19 at 23:22
  • @Harper He has not graduated. That’s enough attraction to return home. It’s different if he were a recent unemployed graduate. Only a fool will abandon a good degree after the third year to become an illegal in the USA. The USA ain’t heaven, it’s not all that. – Augustine of Hippo Feb 15 '19 at 04:31
  • @AndrewLazarus You are assuming the OP ever had any intentions of going to the meetup. He's not going to put something on his application like "one of my extended family is already in the USA running an ethnic restaurant and he will let me work there illegally for $2 an hour, eat the leftover food, and sleep on the floor until I find something better paid", is he? (Of course I'm not suggesting the OP was planning to do anything like that, but other people do things like that every day of the year.) – alephzero Feb 15 '19 at 14:24
  • @ThEiLlEgAlaLiEn "The USA ain’t heaven" - But the con trick to counteract that truth started with the Statue of Liberty looking out to sea to greet the arriving immigrant ships, and it's still going strong today. – alephzero Feb 15 '19 at 14:33
  • @Acccumulation I see your point on not graduated. You yourself said income isn't clear, and so that's an unknowable; I'm not as willing as you to speculate, so I'm leaving it alone. Discussing possibilities is fair, but it felt like that was in the context of criticizing my statement, and it doesn't seem fair to expect me to infer the same possibilities as you do. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 15 '19 at 16:40
  • @Harper "I'm not as willing as you to speculate, so I'm leaving it alone." That's just bizarre. Your answers implies that you are assuming that the OP is an unemployed college graduate. You're the one speculating, not me. – Acccumulation Feb 15 '19 at 17:11
  • @Acccumulation I have conceded the point about "college graduate" and made an edit. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 15 '19 at 17:22
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Unlike the other answers I think you should apply again immediately however do not lie about your financial situation. You’re is a sponsored trip.

It does not make sense for a third year engineering graduate to abscond in the USA. Some of the consular officers are just unsympathetic and sometimes downright unreasonable. As a student, one of your strongest ties is to your education and the desire to complete it. Increasing your family finance artificially won’t change your profile.

In the country I am originally from the average university student comes from a family with annual income maybe $5000/year or less and many get visas duering the summer to ostensibly visit relatives.

Additionally in my time we were issued visas under your very same circumstances, albeit that was a couple decades ago and the current immigration situation is more hostile. Anecdotally I have a friend a year my junior who was refused three times in two week and granted the visa on the fourth try. What do you have to lose, $160.

Augustine of Hippo
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    I agree, it sounds like OP got a very harsh treatment. I know many Mexican students, unmarried, from poor families that have been on multiple grant-funded short trips to the US without any issues what-so-ever... – a20 Feb 14 '19 at 21:20
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    The OP maybe should be emphasizing commitment to, and prior time and money invested in, their degree program. That is a strong reason to return home. – Patricia Shanahan Feb 15 '19 at 00:14
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    I don't think the immigration officer will conclude that the OP will happily return back (after two refusals) by him simply following the above by ThE iLlEgAl aLiEn – Ángel Feb 15 '19 at 01:55