
Administrative Purgatory - robin_reala
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgatory/
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n1231231231234
Belgium can be equally excruciating. a friend of mine moved from india to
belgium. after living here for more than a year, his parents wanted to visit
him. the parents have a house in india, family, the father is on a decent
indian pension, etc.

it took the belgian embassy about four months to decide on the application.
however, to be able to apply, you have to make all your travel arrangements.
they didn't anticipate the process to take this long, had to first move, and
then cancel their arrangements altogether. in the end, the application got
rejected, but the official reasons were cryptic. my friend's interpretation
was that the embassy was concerned that his parents might not return to india.
they had the option to appeal, which can take 6 to 12 months. chances of
appealing successfully are low and so are the chances of getting a visa in a
renewed application. in the process, they lost about €3000, which is a lot of
money in rupees.

instead of appealing, the parents booked a vacation in the netherlands. the
visa application went through in less than a month. they got a schengen visa,
meaning that they could also visit belgium. and this is how his parents
visited him in the end.

his conclusion was that belgian bureaucracy is out of hand and that the EU has
interesting loopholes.

~~~
kurthr
I have a friend who's a musician, that's been coming to the US to tour a month
a year for a decade. This last time his visa got stuck for a full year and
even his immigration lawyer couldn't figure out who was holding it up. Instead
they applied for the EB-'Eistein visa' which was issued in only 3 weeks so
that he could tour. It did take a call from said lawyer reminding them that a
US corporation would be losing money if it wasn't done on time.

Still, he was shocked shocked by a quick EB as a weekend strummer with a few
regular US gigs. Lawyer cost $6k.

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NTDF9
US immigration is on par (or worse than) third world countries. Having been in
it for 10 years now, I highly recommend people to consider doing business in
some other country.

At the end, there is only so much time left in life. Do you want to spend
months and years pandering to third world bureaucracy or do you want to be
quick, efficient and productive in this one single life you have?

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amingilani
Despite being someone from a country that end in -stan, I got my US travel
visa approved immediately and processed in a week.

While I don't know why you were rejected the first time around, I think the
102 day wait time is because your application is at the bottom of someone's
work pile, where it will stay until they realize something is wrong.

I'd personally ping them again and politely ask if it usually takes this long
to process applications of this sort.

~~~
villedepommes
I think this is a very common misconception. DHS and USCIS aren't idiots; they
can tell there's a world of difference between a former Soviet republic(e.g.
KZ,KG,UZ,etc) and other -stan countries. Also, the US maintains the fairly
extensive diplomatic staff in those states. Lastly, if you were to apply for a
Green Card, while holding an H1-B, you would get it years before an Indian or
Chinese national due to the quota system. I would imagine it should be also
easier for people like you to get the Green Card through the Diversity
Immigrant Visa Program.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> DHS and USCIS aren't idiots; they can tell there's a world of difference
> between a former Soviet republic(e.g. KZ,KG,UZ,etc) and other -stan
> countries.

I am a white and Christian European, the sort of person who generally does not
get much scrutiny when traveling internationally. Yet quite often when I fly
into the USA, the mood of the Customs and Border Patrol officer changes
markedly when he notices that I have a Kazakhstan tourist visa in my passport.
Since the officer is not allowed to ask you right out “Are you Muslim?”, I
once got the indirect question “Did you travel to this country because you
sympathize with the belief system of its inhabitants?”

I would hope that DHS staff in offices vetting visas are more knowledgeable
about the world, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they weren’t.

~~~
villedepommes
I was actually born in KZ and I can't remember even a single time a CBP
officer would give me a hard time because of that. Unless you are from one of
Eastern European countries meaning you probably have relatives living in KZ or
friends, I can see why a tourist visa for KZ has piqued his interest: it's
fairly unusual.

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dsr_
Some Mozilla employees might make inquiries with their congressional
representatives and senators; that's what they are there for, in theory.

~~~
rabidrat
I think the SF/BA reps and senators are already pretty well-aware that our
borders are terrible, but they lack the political situation and/or acumen to
do anything about it.

~~~
dsr_
They can make specific requests. It's just like tweeting at CEOs: terrible for
democracy, but often surprisingly effective.

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olivierlacan
This makes me wonder how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of people are
stuck in similar USCIS/USCBP purgatories regardless of the type of visa
application they're waiting to receive a response about.

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bodas
www.haxx.se:

 _" Haxx is a bunch of friends who work as software developers and hackers in
Sweden"_

Yep, that'll do it.

~~~
cyberferret
I'm old enough to remember when "hacker" was a term of respect and awe for
people with top notch technical skills.

Then again, I have come across many Americans who think "boffin" is a
derogatory/negative term too...

~~~
starmftronajoll
Americans instinctively assume “boffin” is derogatory because it’s totally
absent from American parlance (iOS autocorrects it to “bogging” in US), so
without the cultural context it just sounds like a goofy word, like “doofus.”
In an American context, it’s not a word that sounds as if it’s being spoken
with admiration, so the true meaning is counterintuitive.

~~~
tluyben2
But when someone says/texts me a word I do not understand, I look it up
including the contexts it is used in. I do not immediately, from the sound of
a word I never heard, assume someone is calling me an idiot. Doing so actually
makes you an idiot.

I do not understand how it seems logical to assume that me speaking the
English I have learned in school (which is the Queens English when I was young
in the Netherlands) is somehow interpreted by someone with a limited
vocabulary as derogatory.

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codeisawesome
I am risking down votes and flagging on this, and it's so worth it.

I can't help but feel a nasty, uncalled-for sense of schadenfreude at this -
White European gets denied entry to the US and it's MAJOR NEWS!! Plenty of
equally talented, educated, trained, motivated, law-abiding people face this
treatment everyday (or otherwise avoid risking this treatment by just not
going) - just because they happen to be from "shitholes" (US Presidential
Terminology of course) that happen to be shitholes in no small part because of
the greedy raping and looting in quite recent history by regimes (or
antecedents) that are today closing their gates (Daniel's own country
included).

Nothing against Daniel - deep respect for the guy!! I hope this problem
resolves for him.

But man, can't help the smile on my face. Not in the least bit because of the
complaining in Daniel's post of the DS-160 - something I had to fill too, and
hated it just as much, and wouldn't have made the news if I was the author of
cURL because I'm Indian.

~~~
jnurmine
I don't exactly know which countries are nowadays classified by president
Trump as a "shithole", but I wonder what is a country that classifies as such
and had been "raped and looted" by Sweden in the past?

Thinking back to the history lessons about where the historical Sweden waged
wars at all in the past, I still couldn't figure it out... Ukraine, Poland,
Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Norway, Finland? Nope, none of these.

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lowbloodsugar
IANAL but ESTA is not a work permit [1], and if you were going to San
Francisco for an all-hands meeting at your employer, then that sounds like
work?

[1] [https://de.usembassy.gov/unpaid-work-is-work-make-sure-
you-h...](https://de.usembassy.gov/unpaid-work-is-work-make-sure-you-have-the-
correct-visa/)

~~~
smelendez
You are allowed to travel for business meetings under ESTA/the visa waiver
program, same as a B1 visa. [https://nl.usembassy.gov/visas/visa-waiver-
program/](https://nl.usembassy.gov/visas/visa-waiver-program/)

I think attending meetings of a US parent company is a pretty common use case.
It is an elitist rule but what isn't.

~~~
tluyben2
Makes a lot of sense; companies need to do business with other companies,
often abroad. If you have to get work permits for visits and meetings, that
would hamper the economy on both sides. Not sure about the elitist part there.

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lawrencegs
Contact immigration lawyer, maybe?

~~~
oneplane
I wonder if there is a 'job creation system' at play here for those lawyers to
have a job or exist in the first place. If a country has a good and functional
administrative system in place, that would not be needed.

~~~
colanderman
This is after all partly why the US tax system is so complex... It's well-
known that tax preparers lobby against tax simplification.

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projektir
This is part of the problem with there not being clear rights for people
traveling to countries. You end up with a weird case where most people can get
in, but some people end up in administrative balderdash with no recourse.

It would look very different if the country just wouldn't let anyone in at
all, but because it lets _some_ people in, we get this "well, you can't
complain" situation.

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hawkice
Worth noting: there is a way to do this well. I've been through a visa
screening involving domestic and international criminal and espionage
background checks that completed in about ten minutes while I waited (that
country was the Philippines). There are also a great deal of countries where
they allow visas on arrival, where presumably the quite minimal screening
happens at the airline.

~~~
vinceguidry
While this is true for just about every single other country, the US remains
an impossible-to-grok travesty of justice. When I read about what my country
does to the people that seek to be a part of it, I can only think back to the
1700s where many many countries wouldn't just deny you entry, they'd
_imprison_ you for the horrible horrible crime of just being at their borders.

The father of the guy that wrote _The Count of Monte Cristo_ was imprisoned
for two years in the Kingdom of Naples for the horrific crime of needing
provisions after a storm killed their self-reliance.

It's exactly the kind of barbarism I think of when I consider the US stance
towards any kind of interested interlopers. You must be doing something wrong,
wait until I go through the X days process to decide you're not a horrible
person.

Disgusting.

~~~
PakG1
Still happening today if you saw the news this year.

------
gruez
>Among other things it requires me to provide info about [...] and every email
address I've used during the last 5 years.

the other requirements are quite easy to fulfill, but the last one... what if
you used disposable mail sites (think mailinator), or a bunch of registered
throwaway emails that you simply don't remember anymore?

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dmh2000
In the first couple of paragraphs I immediately thought 'haxx' is it. In the
past at work when I downloaded from haxx.se I was always worried that IT
security would swat me.

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KKKKkkkk1
Administrative processing (a euphemism for a security background check) often
takes multiple months. This happens regularly to engineers and students from
places like China or Iran. It can easily take half a year. I'm sure it feels
Kafkaesque, but it's not unusual or exceptional.

~~~
nhf
I wonder what would come out of Daniel filing a FOIA request about himself to
CBP. FOIA is a nice law in that "any person" (as written in the statute) has
standing to file a request, regardless of relationship to the U.S.

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colanderman
Who lobbies for our awful travel system? I mean, of course there's a large
contingent of Americans who are xenophobic and nationalist, but such pseudo-
fascist bureaucratic red tape doesn't come into being unless powerful entities
who stand to benefit from the bureaucracy take advantage of the populist
zeitgeist to bend political will to their favor. Who gains power by
arbitrarily rejecting random Swedes' visas and ultimately chilling
international intrapersonal relationships and flow of culture?

~~~
CostanzaKing
Lots of ugly and false assumptions you're making in this comment, but I'll
bite.

Billions of people want to come to the US. Many more than want to go to, say,
Argentina. So our immigration laws need to be a bit more strict to restrict
what could be a flood of immigrants to a more manageable flow. This is
necessary for cultural and economic reasons, to promote unity and stability,
which make America great.

Second, we are understandably paranoid about security, which also leads us to
more restrictive immigration laws.

That said, nearly a million people immigrate into the US each year. Most
Americans like legal immigrants contrary to what propoganda you may read or
hear, considering we are a nation of immigrants.

~~~
techsupporter
> Many more than want to go to, say, Argentina. So our immigration laws need
> to be a bit more strict to restrict what could be a flood of immigrants

I disagree with this statement. The immigration laws of the United States need
not be more strict; if anything, they should simply be more fair. The biggest
problem with our laws is that they leave far too much up to discretion. If you
turn in this stack of paperwork and if the person reviewing the application
finds that you have met the requirements and if the person reviewing the
application doesn't simply say "denied," then you may receive a visa.

Decisions of immigration, visa, and consular officers are not reviewable by
any court or administrative body. You are not even entitled to know why you
were denied. The reviewing individual may simply deny you for no reason at
all.

That's not fair.

> Second, we are understandably paranoid about security

I also disagree that our paranoia about security is "understandable." I don't
believe that it is. Virtually every action we have taken since That One Big
Attack By Terrorists That Everyone Cites has shown that we're less paranoid
about security and more paranoid about _looking_ secure. Those are two almost
totally different things. This means that our government takes wild actions
that make us look secure--like simply banning all nationals of several
countries, even people who happen to be dual-nationals of those countries--
while accomplishing little.

That's unwise.

------
microcolonel
Wasn't aware that Swedes needed visas to visit the U.S, wonder why that is.

~~~
ajdlinux
If you're not arriving by land from Canada or Mexico, you need to at least
have an ESTA, even if you're from a US-friendly Western country. If you're
denied an ESTA (as in this case) you have to go through the regular visa
process. This applies to Swedes, Brits, Australians...

~~~
cozzyd
Hmm is that why Canada is likely to deny him entrance as well?

~~~
tluyben2
Usually, entry cards (the ones you get on the plane before landing) contain
something like; 'have you been denied access to a country in the past 2
years?' Or something like that. You can lie ofcourse, but...

