visa-interview-prepration-2

Officers need to evaluate whether every applicant might overstay their visa illegally in the United States or immigrate illegally to the United States. And the law actually requires them to assume that every applicant intends to immigrate to the United States unless the applicant can convince them otherwise.” SO CONVINCE the VISA OFFICER THAT YOU  WILL COME BACK AFTER COMPLETING WHAT YOU ARE GOING FOR.

“It’s also to show that they are not going to immigrate illegally to the United States or break any of the rules of what their visa allows while they’re in the United States. So that’s huge. You know, understand that. And the law places the burden of proof on you to convince the officer of this. And the officer has unilateral authority to decide whether or not you are credible in your intent.”

“The best thing you can do to prepare for all of that is to make the officer’s job as easy as possible. You want to hand them the information about your case that actually matters to them on a SILVER PLATTER, just give it to them right from the top. State the case strengths of your particular case as they relate to the specific requirements for your case. And in a way that also gives them confidence that you are not going to migrate illegally to the United States.”

“One thing many applicants don’t understand and I think have not been advised is some PROACTIVITY in providing that information, regardless of what the officer has asked. Usually the officer will not be upset by that. If you’re actually providing them information that’s useful to them.”

“The language doesn’t have to be complex. Even if you are going to plan it out in advance, it has to be unmissable. It has to be BLUNT, almost especially if you have a prior refusal. A lot of my… I also do a lot of consultations for Chinese applicants and many of them are very wealthy and have prior refusals. I do a lot of consultations with very wealthy Pakistani clients who have prior refusals and I tell them to get in there and say I earn $1.2 million a year as the first thing that they say. And it’s very uncomfortable for people to do that. Right? It goes against modesty of human nature and especially in certain cultures. But you want to make it really easy for the officer to do their job.”

“You need to treat that prior refusal itself as the main topic of your interview. Because even if the officer doesn’t ask you a single direct question about it, it is almost certainly the main thing they’re thinking about throughout your interview. They’re thinking, okay, if I issue this person, what notes do I have to take to justify overcoming that prior refusal? So you need to give them those notes on a silver platter.”

“You want to hand them everything they need, which means preparing yourself in a way that you know what they’re looking for so that their job is easy. You minimize the effect of being in a bad mood or just being under too much time pressure or just being tired, any of those random factors that can unfortunately affect your case.”

“If you’re going somewhere that’s well known, it makes the visa officer’s decision easier to make going, okay, that’s easier to justify. Oh, yes, I know what this is. I think that’s more of a visa officer specific rather than a general broad response to like, okay, it affects the refusal rates or approval rates.”

“Well-known places like Johns Hopkins, Mayo, those letters are well known. They will have some credence. They have established authority that will help. That is a positive, right?” IT HELPS BUT IS NOT the DECIDING FACTOR.

“You can take a letter of invitation from Dr. Izar or from Dr. JD who are practicing physicians, who are at a hospital, you can do that. That will NOT be considered a negative for you. But if you are looking for a positive, if the letter is coming from a UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL or if the letter is coming from Mayo or Johns Hopkins, it’s a POSITIVE for you.”

“You need to get them from there to approval and set them up with the story. That’s going to make them feel okay to write that in their notes. You know, like, there’s got to be some kind of JUSTIFICATION they have for overcoming the prior refusal.”

“If you have a prior refusal, your chances of being refused again go way up. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but the unfortunate reality is that many officers, when they see a prior refusal, make up their mind to refuse the case pretty much on the spot. And it would take a very CONVINCING case to change their mind.”

“I think it’s the people who have PRIOR refusals who need us that much more. You know, your average person, maybe they can, I should say average person of the kinds of qualifications that our audience today has, probably can increase their chances of approval by maybe 20% to 30% from our services in the current political climate.”

“I tell them to get in there and say I earn $1.2 million a year as the first thing that they say. And it’s very uncomfortable for people to do that. Right? It goes against modesty of human nature and especially in certain cultures. But you want to make it really easy for the officer to do their job.”

“Because what really matters is not the time that’s passed, it’s whether your circumstances have meaningfully changed or if you can persuade the officer that the prior refusal didn’t make any sense, that would be the other way.”

“You need to give them those notes on a silver platter. You need to hand them the exact case specifics for your case that matter, and some information that persuades them that the prior refusal was basically innocuous, you know, that it was benign, that it was not because of some reason that still applies, that governs your case and the outcome of it.”

“You need to prepare why you’re going, what your plan is, and what your plan is when you’re going to come back to your home country. That’s what they’re looking at, right? Because if you’re going on a B1, B2 visa to go for your exams or to observe another doctor, you need to be very clear of what you’re going to be doing in the US and what’s bringing you back to your home country.”

“Applicants across the board, regardless of whether they’re IMGs or not, tend to make the MISTAKE of not connecting everything they say to their visa eligibility. Basically, they often don’t. I mean, there’s no reason that anybody would expect that they have to go into the interview knowing, like, the legal criteria for the visa.”

“You actually have to know what the requirements for the visa are, and you have to understand the intent question too. Even if you read the requirements for almost any visa class in the US policy or law, then you’d say, okay, I tick all those boxes, I’m good to go. If you have forgotten about the fact that the officer also needs to assume that you’re an intending immigrant until you prove otherwise, then you’ve missed a huge piece of the puzzle.”

“Instead of using the word observership, for example, use the word clerkship, because that’s what the FAM says. If they go into the Foreign Affairs Manual and they do control F for observership, they’re going to find no results. So maybe then they do a control F for medical, and they would actually hit quite a few results in different categories. So that doesn’t help them identify the one quickly that applies to you either.”

“Do NOT go to a different consulate or embassy the next time you apply. A lot of people do this hoping they’ll get a different outcome because it’s a different place. It’s totally understandable. It makes sense on the surface, but not to an officer. Officers actually have a term for that. They call it forum shopping. It’s a very derogatory term.”

“If you’ve been refused before, do not go to a different consulate or embassy the next time you apply. A lot of people do this hoping they’ll get a different outcome because it’s a different place. It’s totally understandable. It makes sense on the surface, but not to an officer.”

“If you are hoping that by waiting the officer will regard the time that has passed as a meaningful change in your life circumstances and that it will change the officer’s attitude about your case, then what really matters most is actual CHANGES in your life circumstances.”

“You can wait 2 years. And if you’re working the same job or attending the same university program or doing whatever it is on a daily basis that you were doing two years ago, then it’s unlikely that the officer is that it’s going to matter that you waited. Because what really matters is not the time that’s passed, it’s whether your circumstances have meaningfully CHANGED.”

“One attitude or one strategy is to wait for your circumstances to change and then go in and tell the officer my circumstances have changed and get them to reevaluate your situation based on the new circumstances. That’s totally valid. It’s how most people end up OVERCOMING prior refusals. And the other strategy or attitude toward your case would be to go in there and say, well, you don’t literally say this to the officer, but in concept you’re saying, actually I’m not too sure about that prior refusal for these reasons. And you try to make your case again and simply change their mind.”

“You need to treat that prior refusal itself as the main topic of your interview. Because even if the officer doesn’t ask you a single direct question about it, it is almost certainly the main thing they’re thinking about throughout your interview.”

“It helps your credibility a little bit if you’ve taken it and you passed it. But for clerkships, you want to show and… you just have to be studying at a foreign school you’re entering to do the elective clerkship. The hospital is not paying you anything. You have to be in your third or fourth year of internship in your home country and, you know, as part of a foreign medical school degree. That’s it.”

“J1 visa applicants must have sponsorship from an institution and present their DS-2019 form. Officers primarily focus on confirming the applicant’s intent and ties to their home country. The officer is suddenly doing a much narrower interview. They are just going to confirm with you the basic facts relevant to that J1 application.”

“You can convert a J1 research to J1 clinical provided you have a valid offer from a residency program or a faculty position that you have available, then you file at. Then you have to go outside the United States and appear for an interview at the consulate there.”

“No, there’s no quota or number system. However, there is a vague pressure to refuse more visas in certain political climates. Officers may feel indirect pressure from their superiors or the administration to refuse more cases, but there are no formal quotas.”

“If you’re going somewhere that’s well known, it makes the visa officer’s decision easier to make going, okay, that’s easier to justify. Oh, yes, I know what this is. I think that’s more of a visa officer specific rather than a general broad response to like, okay, it affects the refusal rates or approval rates.”

“If you make it easy for them by presenting only the important facts of your case, doing it concisely, first of all, they’ll love you for it. But hopefully it also just leads their brain naturally to an approval decision. Because the way an officer thinks about a visa case, you can’t really separate their thought process from their note taking, because we are constantly taking notes, writing down, you know, the strengths and weaknesses of the case, or usually just the strengths or the weaknesses.”

“The language doesn’t have to be complex. Even if you are going to plan it out in advance, it has to be unmissable. It has to be blunt, almost especially if you have a prior refusal. A lot of my… I also do a lot of consultations for Chinese applicants and many of them are very wealthy and have prior refusals. I do a lot of consultations with very wealthy Pakistani clients who have prior refusals and I tell them to get in there and say I earn $1.2 million a year as the first thing that they say.”

“Instead of using the word observership, for example, use the word clerkship, because that’s what the FAM says. If they go into the Foreign Affairs Manual and they do control F for observership, they’re going to find no results. So maybe then they do a control F for medical, and they would actually hit quite a few results in different categories. So that doesn’t help them identify the one quickly that applies to you either.”

“Just tell them I’m going to Chicago. They might say, well, your DS160 says you’re going to New York. I kind of doubt it. Officers look at the DS160 very briefly. They scan through and, you know, it depends. If there’s a red flag in there, then it’s a different story, but there usually isn’t. And there’s several things they check in it. The law requires them to check certain things and not other things. And so those are the things they usually check the story in your DS160 about where you’re going and what you’re doing.”

“If the ban is truly comprehensive, then I think the unfortunate answer is that you’re out of luck. But to be honest, I’m not familiar enough with the text of the ban to comment on it. And you know, I. Because most of our clients come to us knowing they want to apply for visas and suspecting that they’re probably eligible to do so.”

“Having the right strategy, having the right guidance is very important in life. Your success depends on that. So I would suggest that feel free to reach out. I’m sure JD and Misba, we are going to get a lot of queries from the students, how to get in touch with you.”

“You need to treat that prior refusal itself as the main topic of your interview. Because even if the officer doesn’t ask you a single direct question about it, it is almost certainly the main thing they’re thinking about throughout your interview. They’re thinking, okay, if I issue this person, what notes do I have to take to justify overcoming that prior refusal? So you need to give them those notes on a silver platter.”

“I think it’s the people who have prior refusals who need us that much more. You know, your average person, maybe they can, I should say average person of the kinds of qualifications that our audience today has, probably can increase their chances of approval by maybe 20%, you know, maybe 30% from our services in the current political climate.”

“Keep it simple and concise. Don’t, you know, keep the sentences short, you know, don’t stress too much. First of all, don’t stress too much about any of these language things, okay? Talk in a way that feels more or less natural to you. But you know, do be brief. Focus just on those major strengths of your case. Anything peripheral to that the officer doesn’t need to know. And in their brain it’s noise.”