US immigrant visa refusals over 90% |
US immigrant visa refusals over 90%
-Affidavit of Support posing major problemsBy Courtney Jones
Stabroek News
April 16, 1999
Officials from the US State Department say that problems in filling the Affidavit of Support form has resulted in around 90% of Guyanese being refused immigrant visas and measures are under review to tackle this problem.
The officials are due to leave today after a three-day visit as the US Embassy in Georgetown continues moves to streamline its immigrant visa processing system.
Deputy Executive Director, Consular Affairs, Robyn Bishop, and Visa Field Support and Liaison Office Director also of the Consular Affairs Bureau of the State Department, Janice Jacobs, told reporters that the introduction of the new Affidavit of Support form in 1997 severely affected heavy visa-issuing posts like the Guyana Consular Section of the US Embassy.
Bishop told reporters at a press briefing at the US Embassy yesterday that the complex nature of the new Affidavit of Support form had led to an increase in the workload of the consular officers adjudicating cases, since the form requires a lot of information from the petitioner and sponsors from the US.
"Because the form is difficult and is required by law, if applicants' sponsors have not filled it out properly then consular officers overseas are not able to issue the visas," Bishop said.
She noted that the obtaining of correct information or additional documentation has led to officers at the embassy having to see persons more than once "before they are able to make a positive determination."
According to Bishop, because the financial regulations regarding what the US-based sponsor must have available to sponsor someone have been specifically defined, Guyana, like other visa-issuing posts the world over, has had a difficulty with this aspect of the whole immigrant visa granting process.
The State Department official said that in order to meet the numerical limit stipulated by US immigration law, officers have to interview would-be immigrants a number of times and work to ensure all the visas that can be issued under the quota are issued.
This has had an impact on the work of the visa sections and Bishop said the visit by the State Department team to Guyana was to view the situation here first hand and "to work with the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the United States to look for solutions to provide more resources to the posts...."
She also spoke of the possibility of the Bureau of Consular Affairs working with US sponsors of would-be immigrants to get the information required organised in a proper manner so that applicants in Guyana would be granted visas on the first interview. Jacobs said that in the past the whole granting of immigrant visas was based on the premise that a visa would be issued since applicants would have all their documents, and that indeed, about 90 percent of the time visas were issued.
"With the change of the law which took place in 1996, and (was) implemented in December of 1997, the complete reverse has happened. About 90 percent of people that come in are not issued a visa the first time that they visit the consulate because of problems with the Affidavit of Support," Jacobs said.
She disclosed that since January, 1998, in 22 of the US embassies worldwide which issue about 75 percent of all of the immigrant or permanent visas, the refusal rates have gone up from 15% to 90%. Vincent Principe, officer in charge of the Consular section at the embassy here in Georgetown quoted figures to show reporters that in Guyana the refusal rate has gone over the 90 percent rate.
"...We need that when people come [to the embassy] for them to have a properly completed and correct Affidavit of Support and we don't have to send them away to get back in touch with the sponsor...," Jacobs said.
She said that before the consular officers only dealt with the applicant, but because the affidavit is a legally-binding document, the State Department feels that it is important for officers to be in touch with the sponsors.
"What we [the consular officers] would like to do is deal with the sponsor in the US directly instead of having the applicant come in with a form that he/she didn't even fill out and cannot answer when you start to ask questions about the document."
The US official said that the authorities are looking at providing a service in the United States at the National Visas Centre located in New Hampshire to help sponsors. This would comprise a 'help desk' with special telephone lines that the sponsors could call if they do not understand aspects of the affidavit.
Jacobs said even when the form is completed and the sponsor has that and all of the tax documents these would go first to the National Visas Centre and be thoroughly examined for missing documents and signatures. She said that that form is so difficult to fill out that a lot of simple technical errors occur in its preparation, but that "unfortunately the form has to be almost perfect before we can accept it."
Jacobs said the State Department has recognised the immensity of the problem and since streamlining the system will require extra resources, it has already begun talking to the US Congress about legislation that will authorise the State Department to charge a fee to the sponsors for helping in the preparation of the Affidavit of Support.
She could not speculate as to the amount of the fee but noted that it will be cheaper than the phone calls and trips even by sponsors to Guyana to get issues clarified.
The two State Department officials have already visited the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and after leaving Guyana will visit Barbados, Mexico and Suriname. The department also has officers looking at the situation in the Philippines and El Salvador.
