- How do you assess the current immigration sentiments of citizens?
- In my opinion, the country now has a relatively stable political and economic situation - at least compared with 1996 or 1998. That is why immigration no longer has that hysterical character, when it seemed that everyone was ready to flee. People will always migrate - leaving the country, returning back - for a variety of reasons, but in the absence of economic or political catastrophes, social upheavals, this process will be stable. Which, in fact, is what we are observing now.
Judging by our clients, one can conclude that there are more people willing to emigrate among residents of provincial cities; there are significantly fewer opportunities to find employment and live a normal life than in the capital. True, most of them, as a rule, have few chances: they have no relatives abroad, no higher education, no employment contract, and no good knowledge of English. Just last week, four people called us and said they would like to immigrate to Canada. But one of them does not speak English, and another is already too old...
According to my estimates, up to 5,000 adopted children are taken from Russia to the United States each year; 3-4 thousand Russian women marry Americans; several thousand qualified specialists sign employment contracts with American firms and leave on work visas; Russians take part in the Green Card lottery; receive immigrant visas as prominent figures in science, culture, business, and sports; go to study.
- Among your clients - representatives of all these categories?
- Yes, except for adoptive parents. Although most of our clients now are those who have been denied a tourist or student visa by the American embassy. And this is not surprising. Contrary to the information spread by the embassy that 80% of applicants get visas, official statistics show that out of 98,000 visa applications submitted to the US Embassy in Moscow last year, 35,000 applicants were denied visas. And student visas were denied to every other applicant. In other words, the denial rate of the American Embassy in Moscow reaches 35%, while local European embassies give refusals in only 5% of cases.
We handle the cases of brides planning to marry Americans and their relatives, who are denied visas to travel to that very wedding.
- By the way, what do you think about these marriages? The press regularly publishes all sorts of horror stories on this topic.
- Yes, yes. About how an American villain beats his defenseless Russian wife. Such a problem certainly exists. Although it would be good to look at comparative statistics: what is the frequency of domestic violence cases in purely American families and in American-Russian ones.
- How do these couples meet? Where do they find each other?
- On the Internet, at marriage agencies. Grooms come here, they are arranged meetings... We do not deal with their marital affairs - we have enough legal work: they come to us for help in obtaining a visa. We prepare documents, prepare brides for the interview at the embassy. It is all not complicated, and many manage on their own. But there are those who play it safe and turn to lawyers.
One might assume that grooms who look for brides this way are people of insufficient means, without professional education. However, 50% of the grooms are qualified specialists with solid, good incomes. The other 50% are not "white-collar workers" - they did not finish college, have been divorced twice or even three times, some are unemployed. Although they do have some money: after all, in search of a bride, they spend on a trip to Russia, some two or three times, try to see as many potential brides as possible, and then pay for the visa for the found bride, her ticket to America. Moreover, many brides have children - they also have to be paid for.
What is the proportion of successful marriages? I think also about 50 percent: that is, half of the families created in this way are quite viable.
- What kind of women go for this? Who are they?
- All possible types: with higher education and without it, residents of the capital and provincial women, very many are divorced and with a child. Perhaps some of them do fall in love, but the majority are driven by the desire for a more comfortable, more prosperous life, for a better fate for their child... And some thus save their child from military service.
Couples enter into legal matrimony, although, at least for me, the depth of these relationships is questionable. Maybe I am too practical and lacking in romance, but I do not understand how one can fall in love and decide on marriage in two weeks - I also have a Russian wife, but we dated for two years before the wedding.
- Yes, this is an undertaking for fans of Russian roulette. And what is happening now with another game - the Green Card lottery? I remember, a few years ago you undertook to defend Russians who won green cards but could not get them due to accusations of forgery. The US Embassy in Moscow claimed that these people had asked their American relatives or friends to sign the initial application for participation in the lottery. You then sued the American embassy and the State Department. Is that case closed?
- No. In October 2003, the district court in Washington ruled that it had no right to review the decision of consular officers. In response, in November we filed a motion with the appeals court. There we argue that the district court has the right to hear this case, since we are essentially contesting not the decision of a consular official, but the decision of the State Department, which authorized the consular officer to conduct signature examinations without having professional training for that. We argue, based on judicial precedents, that courts have the right to review cases related to the procedures of the State Department, and that in our case the problems that have arisen are precisely due to the imperfections of the State Department's procedures. This is not about an isolated case.
- What are the prospects for this case?
- If I did not hope to win, I would not be doing this. I believe the case will be concluded this year. It is a difficult case, but, in my opinion, a special and promising one. I do not run to court over every matter, and besides, we are handling the case on a pro bono basis.
- And how many victims are still hoping along with you?
- Twenty-five. Those are the ones included in the lawsuit. Another twenty or so people have come to us with the same complaint. They are also ready to sue. But we are not including them in the lawsuit. If the court rules in our favor, we will add new names to the case. We expect the first response from the appeals court in about two months.
- This case started before September 11. However, after those terrible terrorist attacks, security measures were tightened, and many lottery winners did not receive their winning green cards simply because they did not manage to pass the security check before the end of the fiscal year. Can these cases be challenged in any way?
- Unlikely. In this situation, I was particularly dismayed that people were invited for interviews in July, August, and September and were not even warned that they might not manage to pass the security services check. In response to my official inquiry, the State Department merely replied that no visa applicant was guaranteed to receive a visa.
However, now this category of victims has also gained some hope, albeit very, very tenuous. Senator Chambliss has proposed a bill that would allow immigration visas (in other words, green cards) to those who were hindered by the lengthy security review. This concerns winners of the DV lotteries from 1998 to 2004. It would be great if this law passes. Of course, one must remember that even under the most favorable circumstances, the path from proposing a bill to adopting a law is very long.
I would also note that at present, more than 50 bills related to immigration, naturalization, work and student visas, and other similar matters have accumulated in Congress. Many of the proposed laws are in one way or another connected with the upcoming presidential elections - they are aimed at attracting votes from various categories of voters. So it is quite likely that they will be forgotten after the elections.
For example, amid rising unemployment in the U.S., the quota for work visas for qualified specialists (H-1B) was reduced from 205,000 to 65,000. In this way, Congress showed that it cares about its citizens - preserving jobs for them. This procedure is already in effect. And the current quota is being used up within the first six months of the fiscal year, so we warn clients who come to us now asking for help with obtaining a work visa that they can file a petition starting April 1, but it will only be considered after October 1. When obtaining a visa, planning is an important factor: one must take into account the moment when the likelihood of receiving it is higher.
This also applies to lottery winners. After all, the first notice of winning is far from a green card. The number of notices sent out is twice the quota. So the competition continues literally until the very last minute - until the immigration visa is obtained. However, not everyone understands that one cannot relax: if you receive a notice of winning and a package of documents, don't put it off - fill it out immediately.
For example, last year, the issuance of visas to lottery winners ended not on the last day of the fiscal year - September 30 - but five days earlier, when the quota was exhausted. Those five days proved fatal for many. For instance, one lottery winner came to us on September 10 with some problem. We tried to solve it and were very close to success. I think if we had had those five days at our disposal, we would have resolved everything, but by September 25 we did not make it.
- So what does it come down to: people are often the cause of their own failure - they delay the paperwork and lose their chance?
- It happens. Here is another example. Yesterday a woman called me; her husband was a lottery winner. But since they live in the countryside and do not rely on their mail service, the husband indicated in the form the address of relatives living in the city. These city relatives received the notice of winning, but for some reason - I did not understand why - they did not contact the relatives, did not tell them about the win, and sent the package back to Kentucky - to the consular center for processing lottery applications.
So the woman called me yesterday and asked me to find out whether they really won the lottery, and asked how the misunderstanding that had arisen could be resolved.
What could I answer her? It's spring now, and the winners of the DV-2004 lottery are already going through interviews. Suppose I get through to Kentucky, find out the case number, and they send her the winner's package again. She won't receive it before April or May, and while she fills out the forms and gathers all the necessary certificates, another month or two will pass... And she still needs to get an interview invitation, go through it, and only after that will the security checks begin. They've lost almost a year: our clients who are currently having interviews sent their forms and certificates back in August. So this family has not the slightest chance of meeting the deadlines set for this lottery, which is what I told them.
Failure to meet deadlines - not necessarily the fault of the lottery winners - sometimes even leads to the separation of families. We had two such cases. A young couple went to the United States as visitors, leaving their small child with the grandmother in some Siberian city. They liked it in the States, they managed to enroll in school, changed their tourist visa to a student visa, and applied for the lottery. And they won. Their case number was quite low, and they thought the case would be processed quickly. So they decided to go through all the paperwork in the United States, and only then go to Russia - to get a visa for the child and take him with them. They had their interview as early as January. But only on September 30 - the last day of the fiscal year - did they receive approval from the immigration service. And their child is in Siberia! The embassy has no right to issue lottery visas after September 30 - and the seven-year-old child was left without an immigration visa. What are the parents to do? They filed a petition for family reunification. But residents (not U.S. citizens) have to wait five years for reunification with children. We applied to the immigration service to grant the child humanitarian status (parole) and were refused.
- But why? After all, this is about reuniting parents with their small child?
- This status is granted very rarely and usually not to circumvent visa queues. Honestly, the immigration service did not feel sympathy for parents who left their child with the grandmother in Siberia and went off to conquer the New World. That is one of the unspoken factors that, I think, lies behind the refusal.
- And the second story?
- Quite simple. The embassy notified a family of four that won the lottery - father, mother, son and daughter - living in Krasnodar, that their case was complete and they could receive their immigrant visas. The Krasnodar family sold everything, including their apartment, and with all their remaining belongings came to Moscow for visas, to fly straight to the United States from there. But when they arrived at the embassy, it turned out that only three visas were issued: to the father - the principal applicant, the son and the daughter. The mother did not receive a visa: the embassy lost her police certificate. The embassy lost that certificate two more times. And then September 30 arrived, when it was no longer possible to issue lottery visas. So, the husband and children are in America, while the wife sits on her suitcases in a rented room in Moscow.
Only 16 months later did we manage to obtain for her that very status - humanitarian parole - with the help of a senator. The woman has been living in the United States under this status for a year now, but she still does not have a green card, and she is not considered an immigrant - accordingly, she has fewer rights compared to the rest of her family.
- Do such stories happen often?
- I wouldn't say often. And I had never heard such an extreme story before. The embassy's behavior in this situation was simply unimaginable. One of the officials told our client: we can ask you for police certificates as many times as we want. How do you like that?
- You once told me, and our readers have complained more than once, that the American embassy in Moscow does not explain to people the reason they were refused a visa - for example, a tourist or student visa. Do all U.S. embassies around the world work this way, or is it exclusively the signature of the Moscow one?
- Let's start with the policy of the State Department in Washington. It states that every embassy, every consulate is always obliged to explain the reason for a visa refusal. For example: we think you have immigrant intentions. But even such an explanation is not enough: consular officers are obliged to clarify on what basis they made such a conclusion. Such is the policy of the U.S. State Department.
I rarely deal with other American embassies, although I have had to work with the embassies in Almaty, Kyiv, Minsk, Yerevan, and the consulate in St. Petersburg. In my cases, they were cooperative and provided all the necessary information. Perhaps the reason is that they are simply less busy.
However, the embassy in Moscow definitely does not follow the rules of the U.S. State Department. And it explains this by fraud. Like, if they explain to someone that they are refusing him a tourist visa to the United States because he has neither a wife nor children - then in six months he will come back for a visa and provide them with a marriage certificate and a child's birth certificate. Or the conclusion about a person's intentions is made on the basis that he has never traveled abroad. And in three months he is back at the embassy - and in his passport there are stamps from a trip to Germany or Malta. And he is refused a visa again - everyone understands that he took that trip only to convince Americans to give him a visa. According to embassy staff, they do not want to suggest tactics to applicants.
- Do you manage to help your clients find out the reasons for refusals?
- Sometimes we don't even need to contact the embassy - the reason can be understood from the client's account of what questions were asked at the interview. But sometimes we have to make an inquiry. Getting an answer from the current consular team is harder than from the previous one. But we have to pursue it, and not out of idle curiosity - sometimes mistakes or misunderstandings come to light.
Recently there was such a case. The embassy replied that our client had been refused a visa because the previous time the woman had stayed in the United States for eight months, and since she had been there for so long, the embassy concludes that the woman is settling her life in America. We call the client, who claims that she was in the USA for only four months. We contact the travel agency, get copies of her airline tickets, provide these documents to the embassy - and our client receives a visa.
Besides, not all embassy staff speak and understand Russian well, and the interview time is limited to a few minutes. So sometimes problems arise from mutual misunderstanding. Literally a few days ago, my friend was refused a visa because he could not explain the purpose of his trip in English, and the consular officer did not understand explanations in Russian.
And it happens that consular officials demonstrate a banal ignorance of the law. Here is an example. A 10-year ban on visiting the United States was imposed on one of our clients. The fact is that she stayed in America for nine months. But under the law, if a person stayed in the United States 6-12 months longer than the period permitted by the visa, then he is forbidden to enter the United States for the next three years. But if after the expiration of the visa the person remained in America for more than a year, he is forbidden to enter the country for 10 years.
Our client was in the United States illegally (that is, after the expiration of the visa) for less than a year. Moreover, two years have already passed since then. So she only has to wait one year - and the ban on entering the country will be lifted from her.
What really worries me is that consular officers often do not take the trouble to get to the heart of the matter, to admit that they could have made a mistake, and sometimes simply do not understand the essence of the complaint because they do not know the laws. They stand their ground: we are always right and have no intention of reconsidering our decisions.
It is hard to say how many people received such erroneous 10-year bans on entering the United States - and did not even try to find out what they were punished for.
- What I could never understand is how a visa obtained at the embassy is connected with the permitted length of stay in the USA, which an immigration official puts in your passport upon entry into the country. It seems that an embassy visa is nothing more than permission to enter. And at passport control, an official asks how long you are coming for and enters some period in the immigration card. Say, I came for 10 days, as I honestly said, and he allowed me to live in the country for six months, or one month, or two weeks. How is such a decision made? On what basis?
- First of all, you must keep in mind that the embassy employs representatives of the State Department, and at the airport, at passport control, there are representatives of the immigration service. That is, these are two different organizations. The embassy gives you a visa valid for a certain period. But the visa does not say how long you may stay in the USA. The decision on the length of stay in the country is made by the immigration service. And usually this period is six months, regardless of how long you came for.
After the attacks of September 11, there was talk of reducing this period to three months. However, such a law was not passed - tourist companies opposed it, especially the tourism industry of Florida, where elderly foreigners like to come for four to five months.
However, it is important to remember that next time you apply for a visa, the embassy will look into the computer and find information about how long you intended to stay in America (that is, the period you indicated in the visa application) and how long you actually stayed there. And the official will see that you intended to go visit your grandmother and spend two weeks with her, but stayed with her for six months. Yes, you did not exceed the period allowed by the immigration service, you were in the country legally. But you misled the embassy! The embassy official thinks: it is unlikely that a person's plans could have changed so dramatically; obviously, such a long visit was planned in advance; it is very likely that this person wants to live in the USA - that is why he has again applied to us for a visa, wants to spend another six months there. And he refuses.
You have raised a very important question, because such cases happen often: puzzled clients come to us who have already been to the USA more than once and suddenly received a refusal. They do not understand what is going on. And they are simply punished - for deception.
- I wonder, would they have been given a visa if they had honestly written that they were going for six months?
- Everything depends on the motive for a long trip. If it is a serious illness of a relative with whom you want to stay, that is a valid reason. Usually a trip of more than two months is regarded as excessively long. Questions will inevitably arise about what you will live on there, whether you intend to work illegally. The grounds for a long trip must be very substantial. It turns out to be a kind of trap: if you are honest, you will be refused now; if you deceive, you will be refused next time.
This is the same problem I already mentioned. It all turns out that the embassy sort of pushes you into falsification. And people who simply cannot be suspected of dishonesty buy fake documents.
Take grandmothers. A sixty-year-old woman, a pensioner, thinks that it will be easier for her to get a visa if she presents a certificate that she works and has a decent income - and she buys a fake salary certificate. She believes that having real estate will make it easier to get a visa - and she buys a certificate of apartment ownership. The woman does all this only because she wants to see a grandson she has never seen. She does not want to move to America, because she does not know English and in general she is fine at home - but she wants to see her grandson! And if she had come to the embassy as a pensioner without property...
- Would she be refused? I thought that pensioners find it even easier to get a visa than young working people.
- It used to be that almost all pensioners got visas through the express window without any interview. Now everything is different. We very often get calls from elderly people who have been denied visas. Almost certainly, widows who live alone are refused.
Recently we had such a client. She is not even a pensioner yet, she is 55 years old and works, which, in my opinion, is more promising in terms of getting a visa. So, she could not go to her son in Iowa for the MBA graduation ceremony. Moreover, her son already had a child, whom the grandmother has never seen. This woman lives in Krasnodar, is divorced, and has her own small apartment. The embassy refused her because she has no child or husband - that is, in the embassy's opinion, she has no reason to return home. How do you like that?
Or: a pensioner from Novokuznetsk. Her daughter lives in North Carolina, she is a US citizen, recently gave birth to a child. The grandmother wants to see her grandson. She submitted an application to the embassy - everything honestly. She received a refusal: you have never been abroad, you have not been to Europe. The American son-in-law paid for her trip to Europe, and she came to the embassy again. There she was told: you went to Europe only to get an American visa, that does not convince us that you will not stay to live in the USA. And they refused again.
The woman and her American relatives turned to me. They were thinking of different ways to convince the embassy: what documents and certificates should they buy for this? These are normal, honest people, and they began to think about forgery!
I do not justify such steps or intentions. But one cannot but admit: the embassy complains about forgeries, and meanwhile, with its unfounded refusals, it itself pushes people to purchase fake documents and to deception.