What are the odds of me getting a visa?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

I am a young male, 21 years old who is interested in getting a United States (US) non-immigrant visa but I would like to know what my chances are of being successful when I apply. I have a good and clean police record, never travelled before and am currently working at a sugar factory. My father has lived in the US for over 10 years and I would like to know if it is good to mention him during my application. He is not an illegal immigrant.

- EB

Dear EB,

When a person applies for a non-immigrant visa there is a presumption that the individual is going to migrate and the burden is on the applicant to demonstrate to the consular officer that they will return home. The embassy looks to see what kinds of ties a person has to their home that would prompt them to return after a brief vacation in the States. Some of the issues they look to are: age, marital status, existence of children, employment or student status - if employed, how long, the presence of financial obligations, e.g., credit card and loans, etc. This is not to say that persons with some or all of the above do not travel to the US on non-immigrant visas and fail to return home.

The embassy also looks to the existence of family ties in the US as an indication of whether a non-immigrant visa applicant intends to remain after their period of stay. In your situation, it is absolutely important that you are 100 per cent truthful about your status in Jamaica and your family ties in the US. Failure to be truthful now will result in allegations of immigration fraud later. You should not be even tempted to say whatever you think the consular officer wants to hear, just to get a visa.

People will tell you that you should not admit that your father is in the US because that will prevent you from obtaining the non-immigrant visa now. However, if you do not tell the embassy on the application for the non-immigrant visa that your father is in the States and your father files an application for you to migrate to the US, that petition will most likely be denied because you failed to disclose that your father was in the US, on your non-immigrant visa application. At that point you would need a waiver before you would be allowed to migrate.

The reality is that an adult (over 21 years old) son or daughter of a US citizen cannot adjust their status in the US unless their US citizen parent filed an application before April 30, 2001. So it really should not matter if you have a US citizen parent in the US, as they would not be able to file for you and you remain in the US for years waiting for that green card to become available.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and Family, Criminal & Personal Injury Law in Florida. She is a mediator arbitrator and Special Magistrate in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com