The land of freedom the land of lib­erty yes, that’s the impression we get about America from Bruce Springsteen’s classics! But getting into that land is no easy job. How do you go about first entering and then, if you so want, staying on there?

Getting the visa can often be a tricky busi­ness and you will hear of zillions of cases where a person couldn’t go to the US even after get­ting his or her I-20 Forms and meeting all the necessary requirements. Here are some tricks to avoid falling into such a mess, and also some tips on how you can legally obtain a Green Card and become an American citizen after completing your studies.

Student visas

The two main visas issued to students are the F-l and M-l visas. Students pursuing academic and language courses get F-l visas and those undergoing vocational training get M-l visas. A visa is the legal permission to enter that country and, unlike most other countries, the united same time, it stipulates 700 deportation charges that you could face if your visa is obtained wrongly!

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The M-l and F-l visas are issued for the re­quired period of stay to complete your studies at the university and these visas come under no specific quota restrictions.

You qualify for such a visa if you are en­rolled to study full-time in a program that will lead to a degree, diploma or certificate in one of your selected fields of study. The school or uni­versity you enroll in must be authorized by the United States Government to enroll foreign students.

Eligibility

To be eligible for either F-l or M-l visas:

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1. You must be accepted by the school.

2. You must show sufficient finances to fund your stay, counting all awarded assistant- ships and jobs towards this, and also master the tricks in the previous chapter to show that you have all that money in your account!

3. You must be able to speak, understand and write English, or be enrolled in a course conducted in a language that you under­stand.

4. You must prove that you wish to return to your home country after you have completed your studies.

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Enroll as a full-time degree student

The full-time requirement varies from school to school. Undergraduate, graduate and doctoral courses as well as specialized training courses have their own minimum course requirements often specified in number of credit hours.

As an undergraduate, you must be enrolled in at least twelve hours of classes per week in a semester, except in the case of your last semes­ter which needs less than twelve hours to graduate. If you are a doctoral student attend­ing no classes but working towards a thesis or dissertation, you may be allowed to get this visa if your course coordinator or the INS staff member at the university approves. In case of special training programs, you should be at­tending twelve hours of classes per week, i.e. a rough minimum of three periods per day, each spanning about an hour, for a five-day week. Vocational courses need eighteen hours per week while lab research needs twenty-two hours per week.

An exception can be made only if your des­ignated school officer says it is necessary for you to take a reduced load on medical or other grounds. This status is, however, changeable by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) later on.

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Be sure to check if the school you are apply­ing to is authorized to accept international stu­dents and that it’s fully accredited.

How good is your English?

It is not just a formality to prove that you can read, write, understand and speak English sufficiently well. The only valid I proof is your TOEFL score. A score of above 550 is the minimum needed although scores in the 600+ range are not at all uncommon.

Even if the university you plan to attend of­fers to take you in on the assurance that you will attend zero-credit English language classes, you will still run into problems. Besides, the visa authorities in your country are quite likely to refuse you a visa just on this ground. So be sure you have good English skills. There are simply no exceptions except if you are going to take a course in your own mother tongue or in a language in which you have demonstrated fluency.

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Money…money…money…!

Monetary ability is another important factor in getting or not getting your visa from the consulate. Outright proof in liquid cash is needed in the form of a bank statement showing that you have the necessary funds for the first year and also to show that you have movable resources to provide cash for the following years (set previous chapter). As mentioned earlier, showing liquid cash in the bank for all the years you plan to be in the US will boost your chances of successfully getting your visa. This is usually given in the form of a letter signed by your parents or close relatives promising to pay the expenses and proving their ability to do so.

Proving that you will return

The biggest fear that looms in the hearts of visa-issuing Americans is that you will go to America and never return since there are enough ways to stay on in that country, so that even the US government can’t force you to get out and return to your own country.

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You can prove your bonafides by showing that:

  • You have left behind some possessions as an incentive
  • You have land here
  • You have property here
  • You have family members here
  • You have a job appointment here
  • You own a business and your education will only improve that.
  • And, whatever else you do, remember to:
  • Dress properly; wear a formal suit and a tie (if male)
  • Arrive on time
  • Don’t reschedule visa interviews
  • Don’t lose your cool
  • Don’t confuse or babble
  • Don’t ask for water in-between

Presenting your project report

After you have selected your field of study, you can select some enterprise in that field. If it is Arts you are going to study, then advertising comes in that field; if it’s Electronics, then computers; if Software Engineering, then a software enterprise in Bangalore or if Chemical Engineering, then chemicals, dyes or clothing. After you have selected a venture, order a project report (typically costing about $10 in almost all countries in Asia and usually 60-100 pages long). Personally retype or laser-print and illustrate the same and present it as a fu­ture project you plan to start in your own country upon your return after getting your de­gree, which is crucially needed in such a spe­cialized project/industry as the one you plan to set up. Specify that the skills needed for such a venture are not taught in your country ade­quately or at all!

  • Paste a pleasant smile on your face
  • Make sure you have all your documents with you
  • Don’t talk excessively
  • Answer only to-the-point.

Employment rights in the US

When you get your student visa, you also automatically get the rights to:

Work on campus for up to 21 hours a week and full-time in vacations and in college- support companies.

On an assistantship given as a part of the scholarship, even if it is off the campus or in another city. You don’t need permission for these.

You can also get jobs where the employer has failed for sixty days to hire any American worker and if the employer gives in writing that he will pay the foreign student the same wages as he would to an American citizen.

You need prior permission and need to have studied in the institution for at least one year and have a good academic record before you. apply through your university’s designated school officer.

The visa interview

Apply for the visa at least three months before the date of joining. File in your application in your own consulate at a very nominal fee submitting your I-20 Form issued by the uni­versity or Form OF-156 for consular filing and Form I-539 for filing in the US. Before that, you must have the following ready with you:

  • Your passport
  • One passport-size photo
  • Birth certificate
  • Marriage certificate, if taking spouse along
  • Transcripts and degree certificates
  • Financial documentation
  • Property and details of family members
  • Any job offers received.

The visa interview, more than anything else, is an attempt by the officers at the embassy to catch you on some contradiction or the other to what you may have already stated in your forms. They could be aggressive, impolite, ex­cessively personal or rude all is considered fair in this interrogation! Don’t lose your temper if you don’t want to lose your visa. Be sure that all your documents are in order. Carry, four color photographs for safety. Dress properly. Keep your calm and answer truthfully enough but do not volunteer to give more information than is asked for.

Staying on

Applying for citizenship

Much return and many stay back after going to America. If you are one of those who wish to stay back for professional reasons or for finan­cial, intellectual, or other reasons, the easiest way to get a permanent resident status is to apply for a change of visa status which can be done even without having to leave America once!

The reasons for staying back in America are very often personal ones and not necessarily like those you read about in Eric Segal’s Acts of Faith. (Now, don’t go about hunting for this book if you haven’t already read this British author but it helps in getting along better with Americans if you show some familiarity with their household names and ‘knowledgeably’ discuss about such matters! Better “cultural adaptability”, as they call it!).

A foreigner getting married to a US citizen generally following a live in arrangement or a person’s brother or sister over 21 settling there or a person’s inability to return to his/her home country due to political or terrorist develop­ments or danger to his life or simply because of a change of personal preferences. Whatever be the reason, you can apply for a change of status without leaving the United States.

  • Hire an immigration lawyer. Though costly, it certainly helps having an American on your side!
  • You have all the rights, privileges and im­munities of a US citizen.
  • Refusal in the US is contestable in a court of law.
  • It rests on the INS to prove that you need to be definitely deported. It is not you who needs to prove that you need to stay there.
  • Such cases are handled more liberally in the United States than in the international of­fices of its consulates and embassies.

Qualifying for a Green Card

Only A-1, A-2, G-1 and G-2 category visa holders are not allowed to file such visa status change requests. Your category which classifies you as a student, however, allows you to file such an application. The only preliminary conditions are that there must be an immediate availability of immigrant visas while the quota, which usually runs into hundreds of thousands over a couple of years, should not be filled.

To qualify for a Green Card, you must:

  • Be physically fit
  • Be mentally sound
  • There should be no grounds on which you could be excluded from that country
  • The last time you entered the US; you should have been either admitted or paroled into the country
  • Your current visa should be valid.

Among other things, one factor that helps a lot is showing some tie with a US citizen which can demonstrate that you will be put to extreme suffering if you are deported. Such a tie could be an adoption by a senior citizen which is less convincing, or marriage to a US citizen. In this regard, you’d better know that a few years back rent-a-spouse agencies had sprouted in America where a citizen would, for a cost and only on paper, marry you to help you get a visa change and later formally separate. You could pay a per-day charge as agreed. But these rackets went bust after the officers at the INS started asking highly personal questions which only a real spouse could answer and also began ques­tioning the couple separately to establish the genuineness of the relationship! So it’s better not to rely on any such tricks as they will kill your chances of EVER getting a status change.

Illegal entrants, crew members, transit visa- less passengers, medical graduates who have not passed visa qualifying exams and illegally em­ployed persons are barred from applying for such status change.

How to apply

You can apply to the INS representative in the US and your application will be forwarded only at the discretion of the examining officer, who may totally reject your application at the first stage itself if she/he suspects that you intended to stay back in the US right at the time of your original entry and that you had given mislead­ing statements to the original visa interviewers in your home country.

To apply for a Green Card you will need to submit the following:

  • The completed application form
  • Three color passport-sized photos
  • Affidavit of support or letter stating that

Your prospective employer is willing to hire you.

Reasons for rejection

You could be refused a change in visa status on one of the following counts, (though on re appealing, a high percentage of rejected appli­cants are able to qualify):

  • Physically disabled to an extent that would impair earning a living.
  • Persons who are liable to become a public expenditure by having the government sup­port them.
  • Mentally diseased persons.
  • Persons indulging in flesh trade and im­moral activity.
  • Persons with psychopathic records.
  • Persons with infectious fatal diseases like AIDS.
  • Persons with narcotic addiction or alcohol­ism.
  • Professional beggars.
  • Persons who have been previously arrested and deported.
  • Persons having undergone five years impris­onment for political crimes.
  • Persons furnishing false information on the visa application.
  • Persons who have evaded military service at the time of war or emergency.
  • Persons who have polygamous records.
  • Persons who have drug trafficking records.
  • Persons who may pose a public danger to. Citizens of that country.
  • Persons who wish to work as laborers in some job for which sufficient skilled labor is already available in that country.

Your anti-deportation rights

If you ever come to the stage of facing deporta­tion, try your best to hire an immigration law­yer immediately or be ready to defend your own case after considerable study. Under the rights conferred, as a person facing deportation

You have the right to:

Be told by the judge at your hearing about the exact clause out of the seven hundred causes for deportation that you are being deported under.

Receive notices, examine evidence and cross examine witnesses testifying against you.

Understand that it is up to the INS to prove that you must be deported from the country and not vice versa where you have to prove your case.

The judge has the power to cancel your deportation or confirm it and also to decide whether you are forcibly deported or allowed to leave voluntarily or be granted permanent residence in the United States.

It is your right to know when you have a right to appeal against some decision of court and how to make that appeal. Hiring a lawyer will tremendously boost your chances of winning through an appeal. Let’s hope, you never reach that stage. Now that you’re immediate criteria is to get your visa, bear the points in mind and keep your cool. And whatever you do, remember to be very very polite! If you conjure up some new tricks, do share it with future aspirants by writing to the editors at Vision Books, c/o CARING. Till then, all the best.