We have extensively written and warned fellow Indian students about avoiding USA as an education destination like plague. Luckily, our voices are being heard and enrollment of Indian students in USA is on shrap decline.
If you have not already read our popular post 5 reasons why Indian students should avoid USA, please read it carefully.
USA student visa is arbitrary and prone to corruption.
Visa officers aren’t particularly well trained, they are not good at their job and to be frank their jobs are not well defined. They have specific “decline” targets they need to meet which means they often decline visas for no good reason. As a student you have done everything right, you are there with all documents but he/she does not care. They simply refuse your visa claiming you could not prove your non-immigrant intent.
Here is an example.
F1 interview: Consular Affairs is more absurd than USCIS and should be closed. pic.twitter.com/ZKgXZYfuOy
— David Bier (@David_J_Bier) July 11, 2022
Now, as you can see the student answered to the point and had not done anything particularly wrong. But when people here about such stories they claim things like.
The university was not good (aka Visa Mill)
That should mean all students of that college should get declined. DHS should not all such universities to take foreign students in. Why Jack should be denied but Jill be allowed ?
Student should have explained more.
If students should explain more to these specific questions, the visa officer should allow them to explain or ask clarifying questions. Those 22 year students have already put in efforts to come to the consulate for an interview so visa officer should ask them direct questions instead of waiting for these students to act like astrologers and guess what doubts the visa officer has.
The real reason is that the visa officer is probably someone who has no clue about their job.
Visa officers act in blatant violation of law but there is no accountability.
Busting the myths around what the law is.
Most students care only about the visa interview and do not know what the law is. The law is very simple around student visa interviews. The whole purpose of visa interview is to ensure that students do not have “immigrant intent“.
The student must convince the visa officer that they will return back to India after their program is complete and they have a strong reason to return to the country.
This is a dumb requirement because it is not possible to prove that you wont do something in future. Note that the consulate and its affiliates often tell students that they can work in USA after their education, about opportunities after their masters etc. clearly giving wrong impression to these young kids but that is not an excuse. Every student must know this law.
But you see the law never grants the visa officers the power to deny the visa based on :
- How the student looks and what vibes they give out.
- Whether the degree program makes sense for the student.
- Whether the university is good or bad (as long as it is legitimate university with authorization to issue I20 form). As long ICE (US government branch that ensures immigrants are present legally) authorizes a university it is considered legitimate for the purpose of visa interview.
- Whether the program and location of the university is good for the student.
- Whether or not the student had hired agents to scout the university for them.
Here is an ex Visa officer giving instructions about this madness.
Note that visa officer is pretty terrible at explaining why exactly students needs to do this random guesswork of what the question truly means.
Why can not the VO ask students how much money they have right now in their account, what is the family’s background in terms of wealth etc.
Most students have documentation (hard proof) on how much fund they have. The visa officer should look at those papers if at all their have doubt but they explicitly refuse to look at these papers claiming they have all the data they need.
Students have also filled in forms like DS160 and provided the very information they are being asked about and that too under oath.
Or imagine if the DMV got to deny you a driver's license because you gave "simple one word answers" that "didn't bring you to life as a person." And they probably would do that if the DMV blamed its employees for approving a driver's license for a drunk driver.
— David Bier (@David_J_Bier) July 11, 2022
Student visa: 20% denied
H1B lottery: 75% denied
H1B petition: 3% denied
H1B visa: 7% denied
Employer sponsorship: ~50% "denied" by employers
Labor certification: 4% denied
Employer immigrant petition: 4% denied
Green card caps: ~50% "denied"
Green card application: 5% denied pic.twitter.com/XfNqBaY0kz— David Bier (@David_J_Bier) June 30, 2022
