Rules, decisions hard to figure for those seeking visitors visa

But with millions overstaying approved visits, consular officials are leery about all applicants
By Brady McCombs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

HERMOSILLO, Sonora — The tears well up in Velia Johana Castro's eyes as she repeats what the consular officer told her just minutes earlier.

"He said, 'You didn't qualify yesterday, you don't qualify today, and you won't qualify tomorrow,' " Castro, 19, says in Spanish, as her fiance, Jose Eduardo Alvarez, 21, kisses her forehead and pulls her into his arms.

The young couple from Guasave, Sinaloa, say they wanted to visit Velia's aunt and uncle in Ontario, Calif., for a honeymoon following their February wedding.

I don't want to hear any more whining about how long it takes to get permission to come to the US when nearly half or almost 6 million of those Mexicans currently illegally in the US have overstayed their welcome. These are criminals who were welcomed into our country and then chose to abuse our system by refusing to obey the law and either renew their visas or return to their native land when they permission to be here ended. I won't listen to the whining. I don't care how many tears are shed. Rather than being angry with the US, they should pour out their anger on their fellow countrymen who have abused the system, resulting in the wait and the restrictions - Mexicans are to blame, not the US government! -mm

But in the eyes of the consular officer, they didn't present a compelling enough case — through bank accounts, property ownership, social and family ties — to convince him they would return to Mexico afterward. Officers are trained to assume every applicant intends to overstay a tourist visa to live and work in the United States.

There's a reason the U.S. government has such rigid rules. As many as 45 percent of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States overstayed non-immigrant visas, a May 2006 study from the Pew Hispanic Study found. The study estimated that 250,000 to 500,000 of that group had border-crossing cards, or laser visas, available only to Mexicans.