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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawDenial of Entry to the United States as an Intending Immigrant without Proper Documentation

Denial of Entry to the United States as an Intending Immigrant without Proper Documentation

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we are going to talk about lack of entry into the United States or denial of entry into the United States. 

This isn't an aspect of the immigration process I talk about overly frequently because usually at the point we get an issued visa for say a fiancée, spouse or one of the employment visas like the E-2 or the L-1, in most of those cases, you know once the visa is issued it's not really so much an issue as far as entering the United States. But that being said, when it comes to entering the United States in a non-immigrant visa the issue of intending immigration, so intent of immigration becomes an issue. What are we talking about here? Well in the cases where I've seen someone excluded from the United States, denied entry from the United States under these circumstances it's usually somebody using a tourist visa and quite frankly it's somebody usually using a tourist visa improperly. So what are we talking about? You have got an individual, they come to the United States,  they've been issued what's called a B-1/B-2 tourist visa and they basically have been coming into the United States for 6 months intervals, been admitted  with a 6-month stamp, and they turn around for 3 weeks, leave the US and then return for another 6 months.  Do this more than maybe once and it's pretty likely US Customs and Border Protection is going  to want to know exactly what that individual is doing in the United States, why they're taking up so much time in the United States etc.

There's kind of  a common misconception with respect to a tourist visas, that's once it's issued, especially based on the fact that it’s issued for 10 years, and especially based on the fact that most US Customs and Border Protection Officers are going to admit tourist visa applicants if you will, applicants for entry, they are going to admit them for a 6 month period because in my opinion 9 times out of 10 that's just how the stamps are set and they've got so many people going through that they are just going to stamp them through for 6 months because that's the maximum allowable per entry in B1/B2 status. If it becomes abundantly clear that one is using a tourist visa to live in the United States, then US Customs and Border Protection officers are going to often times take it upon themselves to review that  individual before their coming in, question them at what they're doing and in a lot of cases they are going to make a finding that that individual is not admissible to the United States on the ground that that individual is an intending immigrant without proper documentation pursuant to the Immigration Nationality Act. What does that mean? It basically means this person is coming in on a tourist visa but they really want to live in America, they really want to live in the United States. And under those circumstances they are going to go ahead and deny that person entry. Now there are circumstances where I have seen this ground of inadmissibility crop up in an expedited removal proceeding which there's other videos on this channel with respect to expedited removal and what that procedure is. It was created under the old IRAIRA Act and basically the expedited removal proceeding can result in a 5-year ban from returning to the United States and may require an I-601 and/or an I-212 waiver in order to return to the United States in some other visa category. So that being said, the reason I bring this up is that expedited removal, that's serious stuff that results in often times in a significant bar from entry back into the United States. In other cases, the Customs Border Protection officer might say “look you were just here for 6 months, you are coming back in 3 weeks later, for presumably we're thinking you are wanting to stay for another 6 months, you haven’t yet, we’re going to give you the chance to go ahead and voluntarily depart and go about your business without being put through expedited removal”. Under those circumstances it might be fairly, and I shouldn't say easy, but rather more straightforward to assist in getting that person readmitted to the United States but if expedited removal proceedings are brought into the equation, it's going to be really problematic getting that individual back to the United States in any quick time frame because of the bars associated just with the act of expeditious removal. So to sum up this video, basically those using tourist visas really need to have the intent of a tourist, they need to plan to be in the United States for a relatively short period of time. Now that's not to say it's not possible to go to the United States for a couple of months. People do take long vacations but that being said, going to the United States for 6 months intervals and then leaving for 3 weeks and returning for another 6 months that looks like the opposite, that looks like you're vacationing abroad and living in the US. And under those circumstances it's pretty likely you're going to see a finding of inadmissibility as an intending immigrant without proper documentation.