Emigrate America - Answer-back US Embassy.

[floridapete]

The two page (well it's actually one page spread over two pages with half page adverts) feature on answer-back letters to thr US Embassy in London is in the Emigrate America just published.

I have just checked to see if they have put that two page feature up on their website edition - but they haven't. They simply mention it there.

So I will have a word with their Editor on Monday to see if he can add it to their online edition so all of you in the Land of the Free can read it.

Full marks, however, to all those who responded to my request for them to contribute to this 'answer-back' feature. Particularly to those who had the confidence (bravery) to have their names published.

Now let's see what they say - although taking this together with the Microsoft statement, and also another piece from a Texas source which I read earlier today - the delays and delaying tactics now appear to be becoming a worldwide trend in US Consular offices everywhere, including India and China !

[floridapete]

Rather than wait for this feature to be posted on their online edition, Ben Lewis has e-mailed me the whole piece to post here. So here it is:


"Open letters to the US. Embassy".

The letter from US Embassy Consul General John Caulfield responding to criticisms of the handling of E-2 visa cases in the last edition of Emigrate America has prompted a great deal of response. We take a look at what you had to say:

Dear Emigrate America.
I first submitted my application in March 2005 and was told rightly or wrongly that it was a 12-week processing time.
This came and went with no sign of correspondence although at this stage I wasn’t particularly pushing them as I expected a wait. When it turned into 20-plus weeks I then started to contact them via email and phone and was always either talked to very rudely and abruptly or was sent a short terse reply. No matter how I worded my emails or what questions I asked the answer was always the same – something along the lines of “your application is under review and you will be notified of the outcome in the post. Please do not contact us again”.
Well you can understand that when your life is on hold and you are living within laws as we were this is a bit soul destroying.
The wait turned into 40 weeks and still no information from the embassy. All the while my immigration lawyer and business broker were constantly trying to obtain information as to what was happening only to be met with a wall of silence.
This was the most heartbreaking thing, they are so unhelpful and appear to have no idea what they are putting people through. I am not sure if whoever is in charge of the E visa department has any idea what is going on or even cares.

I was told around about week 18 that my application had fallen into the bracket of ‘additional processing’.

In December 2005 I jumped the gun and applied for a B-2 visa which I my wife and two kids all got. I was prepared to go over and do a ‘Change of Status’ once in the US as I was at the end of my tether. Suddenly out of the blue in January I got a letter inviting me to the embassy for an interview for my E-2. This was now about 44 weeks since my application was submitted, not bad when their website is still quoting 14-16 weeks.
I was there with 11 other couples who were all buying into the same franchise type business as myself. One by one we were called in and one by one we were turned down and had our passports stamped. It seems they had devised a new strategy of inviting people down to the embassy to refuse them their visas instead of the old way of sending a letter. Great, not only had I waited ten months for this five-minute refusal interview but I also had to pay £240 processing fees, travel, and hotel costs in London for the privilege. Our fate had been decided before we even got there so this really was a last ‘twist of the knife’.

The way I see it is that they have every right to refuse us, but not to treat us the way they do. To make us wait so long, be so unhelpful it borders on being rude, and then to humiliate us in the way they did at the embassy well this just isn’t right. n Chris Bourke – ‘Down but not beaten!’ (Manchester)


Dear Emigrate America,
My family and I bought a business in Florida in October 2005. We fast-tracked our visa through Texas allowing us to complete the deal. All paperwork was sent to London in mid-October for an E-2 visa. We received notification from London in mid-May 2006 declining our application pending further information.

Most of the information they requested had already been provided so it is clear someone did not read our file very carefully. We had already closed on the deal and sent the closing statement but they asked for it again. They now want to see our accounts which we have provided. We have invested a substantial amount of around $360,000 and just cannot understand why we are being treated so badly.

The reason we fast tracked through Texas this time was because the previous business we tried to purchase, the seller pulled out after six months as they got fed up waiting for us to get a visa, and guess what? This application was returned requesting further information! The thing that really annoys us is you wait all these months for approval and when they ask for further information instead of putting your case in a pending file it goes to the bottom of the pile and you have to wait months for it to surface again.
- Anonymous via email

Dear Emigrate America,
I have just read a letter to the Embassy from the previous edition of Emigrate America. We, too, have experienced terrible treatment from the Embassy with our application.

We were in the system for 18 months with varying sets of questions (sometimes repeated!) which were always answered by us by return of post. Another three or four months would go by and we would perhaps get another set of questions. As far as we were concerned, these were deliberate delaying tactics with the intention, I feel, of waiting until we ran out of patience or funds and had to withdraw, which, eventually, we did.
We are now contemplating going through the business again but are fearful of the same treatment. Will this business be acceptable for immediate adjudication? Or, will it go on the pile of ‘don’t like the look of this’ and leave us in limbo for another year. John Caulfield completely missed the point, and what’s worse, his letter was condescending – pointing out the criteria for an E-2 which is something we could all recite in our sleep.
- Maxine Lacey via email

Dear Emigrate America,
In November 2004, following a visit to the Sandown Park Emigrate Exhibition, we engaged the services a visa agent to assist with the application to work and live in the USA.

As company director of a successful e-commerce retail site which exports products from a US company to sell to consumers in the UK we were applying for a E-1 visa. At the time of application, we were assured that there was no fixed amount to how much trade occurred between the treaty countries. Part of the criteria used to assess the application was the potential growth for business.

In March 2005, despite all of the copies of our UK passports and trade invoices being included with our original application, our agent received a letter asking for further clarification on our citizenship and for invoices showing trade conducted between our company and the US based companies we purchase from.

June 2005 arrived along with a rejection letter informing us that due to documentation being insufficient, we would not qualify for an E-1 visa, this was despite all the invoices showing trade between the US and the UK being resubmitted along with passports proving our nationality.

As anyone who has been or is going through this process will understand the emotional drain on a family is enormous without encountering rejection. Sadly for the time being we will have to forgo the dream to move to the Sunshine State unless there is a change in policy or clarification on amount of trade required.

Applying for a visa whether successful or not is a costly business and not to be taken lightly, it would help if the process surrounding E visas were clearer especially when you are under the impression you tick all of the boxes required.
- Steve and Lorraine Baker

Dear Emigrate America,
On the one hand, I think it is important for the public to know that there is a huge amount of fraud happening in the current E-2 process. The American Embassy in London encounters more cases of fraud than any other consulate that issues the E-2 Treaty visas. In addition, they are the busiest of all of the embassies in this process and thanks to inflated house prices in the UK have to wade through a record number of cases.

Yet, on the other hand, they should undoubtedly hire better trained professionals to do this job and spend more time making the effort to completely understand who these investors are and how they can make the USA better.

It is horribly frustrating for honest people that want to have better weather, or a piece of land in the USA and move. It sometimes seems as if the USA accepts illegal immigrants. They don’t appear to want hardworking individuals with money that are willing to go though this painful process that the Embassy forces them to endure. I think that the individuals that go through this process are some of the most courageous families I have ever met, and the experience is a combination of a modern wild west and that of the early pioneers.
- A Florida business broker

Dear Emigrate America,
I live and work in the US, my son applied for an E.2 visa and like everyone else after 16 weeks was told they needed more information.
The information they asked for they already had. When questioned, they admitted to my son that his application had been declined pending this further information four weeks after he first applied. If this was the case why wasn’t he informed for another 12 weeks. The end result was that he was put back to the bottom of the pile and made to wait another 23 weeks.
He feels that like everyone else he was treated like a second class citizen.
I really don't know if I want to be here if they are going to treat the English so badly.
- Margaret Taylor, Florida

- If you have a story similar to these please send it to: ben.lewis@
outboundmedia.co.uk

Ben Lewis
Outbound Publishing
1 Commercial Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 3XQ, UK.
tel: +44 (0) 1323 726040
fax: +44 (0) 1323 649249
www.outboundpublishing.com

[floridapete]

And here's some more:

Dear Emigrate America,
With regard to the comments made by Mr Caulfield of the US Embassy recently regarding E-2 visa applications, he is comparing apples to oranges when he talks about the UK having more stringent requirements.

The £750,000 requirement for an ‘investor’ visa is correct and allows US citizens to basically invest in government bonds and receive a visa but that is not a good comparison.

The UK has a separate visa category for US citizens (and others) wanting to start up their own business in the UK and it is outlined on the UK government’s website where it states, and I quote:
What do I need to set up in business in the UK?
To qualify, you must be able to show evidence for the following.
- You have at least £200,000 under your control, which is available for you to use in the UK and which is held in your name (it is not held by trust or other investment arrangements), with the aim of investing it in a business in the UK;
- You have enough extra funds to support yourself and any dependants, and live without needing any help from public funds or taking employment (other than work for the business) until the business earns you income;
- You intend to be actively involved full-time in trading or providing services on your own account or in partnership, or in promoting and managing the company as a director; n You intend to keep a level of financial investment proportional to your interest in the business;
- You intend to have either a controlling or equal interest in the business, and any partnership or directorship must not amount to disguised employment. This is when a person claims to be running the business but is really an employee;
- You can afford your share of any liabilities;
- You intend to provide investment and services for which there is a genuine need in the UK;
- You expect to receive a share of the profits from the business, which will be enough to support yourself and any dependants, and live without needing any help from public funds or taking employment (other than the business); and
- You do not intend to take or look for any other employment in the UK other than your work for the
business.

If you are taking over or joining as a partner or director in an existing business, you should provide:
- A written statement of the terms on which you will join or take over the business;
- Audited accounts from the business for previous years; and
- Evidence that your services and investment will lead to an overall increase in the employment the business provides and so create at least two new full-time jobs for people already settled in the UK.
If you are setting up a new business in the UK, you should provide evidence that:
- You will bring enough funds of your own to the UK to set up the business; and
- The business will create at least two new full-time jobs for people already settled in the UK.
These requirements are therefore well short of the £750,000 Mr Caulfield was talking about and also much easier to satisfy than the equivalent US requirements.
- John Lance, Owner, Elite Homes, Kissimmee, Florida

Dear Emigrate America,
As President of Florida Association of British Business (FABB), an organisation designed to assist Brits emigrating to Florida, I welcomed your May/June 2006 issue on the E-2 visa roadblocks at the US Embassy. However, you omitted mention of the serious fallout these delays create in Florida.

FABB’s British team of business brokers reports that many Florida sellers are now reluctant to do business with Brits. A seller wants to sell his business ASAP not wait, fingers crossed, for untold months, maybe years, in case Harry from Hartlepool gets his visa approved.

Also we are getting more frequently now sad cases of FABB members finding the ideal business to buy, after expensive trips to Florida and months of legwork with our experts, only to find the seller has lost patience and sold it to a ready buyer.

The requests we get from UK Brits for immigration law changes are rising. We’re good enough to fight their war, a similar refrain goes in the emails I receive, so how come Brits get treated so shoddily. Well, since 9-11 it seems that America’s priority is keeping people out, not helping them get in.
- Patricia Kawaja (President FABB), Miami, Fla.

[Susie]

Hi Peter

Thank you for sharing with us. What interesting reading this makes and what a terrible light this throws upon the emabssy and its staff


I would be happy for you to share my story with the editor and should he wish to discuss in further detail please pm his contact details

Could you PM Margret Taylor's telephone number please? For the life of me I cannot remember her companies name

Regards Sue