Today, I got my passport back via courier with a US visitor visa (B1/B2) stamped in it, valid for ten years. This now marks the end of a saga that has spanned more than 7 years in a bid to get a US visitor visa.
Problems began for me in September 2015 when my ESTA (the electronic system that allows 90-day visits to the US without a visa) was revoked. Although subsequent changes in rule regarding travel history mean that I would not be entitled to an ESTA today anyway, it was apparent that I had been placed on some kind of watchlist prior to those rule changes and so even before I first applied for a visa in January 2016, I knew it was highly likely that I would be placed into that vague category called 'administrative processing'- a term for extra processing time to determine eligibility for a visa, but the nuts and bolts of which are poorly understood, to say the least, whatever you might find written on the Internet about it.
I also knew, based on the experience of a friend who similarly had his ESTA revoked for apparent security reasons and had to apply for a visa, that it was likely that such 'administrative processing would take an extended period of time. Thus, as my friend put it to me after I informed him that the application (as predicted) had been put into administrative processing: "You can forget about going to that conference"- referring to an invite for me to attend a conference in the state of Georgia in February 2016.
[Click here to continue reading, open-access]:
https://aymennaltamimi.substack.com/p/us-visitor-visas-and-suing-for-mandamus