floridapete
11-10-2006, 10:59 AM
Some you will remember that I was asked to write an article for the Emigrate America newspaper on the ongoing crisis of waiting times and bureaucratic bumblings at the US Embassy in London with regards to visa processing - particularly for E2's.
That article has now appeared in this months issue and I have obtained the full text from the publishers to reproduce here for your interest.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"E-2 waiting - the crisis continues".
With the current waiting times for E-2 visas seemingly getting longer by the
week, Peter Stanhope explains the devastating knock-on effects for British visa applicants, business brokers and business owners
"Let me first of all make it clear - I am not an expat Brit in Florida. Neither
am I an immigration attorney or consultant. I am simply someone who has been involved in this 'Florida thing' for 16 years now, since we first bought a holiday home in Orlando in 1989.
From that grew our Florida Brits Group of British owners of Florida holiday
homes and, over the years since, I have become involved in many aspects of British life in Florida - including the many who have dreamed of emigration - and the many others who have emigrated only to find that it isn't always the rose-tinted world over there that they expected.
For many would-be British emigrants to the United States, the E-2 (Treaty
Investor) Visa has become the most popular and, in fact, perhaps the only visa which will provide for them an opportunity to realise their own 'American Dream'. However, the dream can so easily turn into a nightmare - and the nightmare may start even before they have left the safety and security of their home country.
As anyone who has been paying attention to the coverage in Emigrate America will know, E-2 visas for British subjects can only be obtained by application to the US Embassy in London. As recently as two years ago the process of application and adjudicating used to take around three to five weeks. At that time successful E-2 visa applicants were being issued with visas which would have an initial term of entry to the United States of three to five years, enough time to get the business going and develop it.
However, things seem to have changed significantly in the past two years. We are left wondering whether the very long waiting times now being experienced by E-2 applicants is due simply to the increased number of British applicants seeking emigration through the E2 visa, or whether some other, more subtle factors have come into play ?
It all seems to have occurred during the tenure of one particular E-2 consular officer at the US Embassy in London. Suddenly applications were being processed more slowly, more requests for 'further information' being issued, and then even more information required and on some occasions, information being requested even though it had already been sent.
At the end of this adjudication process, if a visa was issued at all, it seemed to be for a two-year period - hardly time to get to the States and get the business in shape before having to think about applying for the first renewal.
When a new Consul Officer arrived to take over in the Summer of this year we heard that the 'new broom may be sweeping clean' in order to shorten the waiting times. But the wait times are just getting longer and longer. The current US Embassy website notice quotes a period of over 24 weeks (almost six months) which, I assume, is for a straightforward E-2 visa application, properly presented with no requests for further information being necessary. But applicants who have filed visa applications recently have been quoted 26 or more weeks on their acknowledgements - and others, already in the pipeline, have been experiencing much longer waiting times than that.
The situation with E-2 visa approvals from the US Embassy in London is now critical. The word is now out in the USA that sellers, brokers and attorneys should not consider the sale of US businesses to British buyers who may have to wait from 26 weeks to over a year for visa approvals.
So what is happening at Grosvenor Square? Are they intentionally trying to
create a log-jam of approvals and renewals to dissuade/prevent would-be British emigrants from realising their dreams of relocation to the USA for some obscure reason?
The following message from a business broker contact in Florida reveals much about the current situation: "The E-2 visa matter is now worse than ever. We have a number of clients willing to spend upwards of US$500,000 on a qualifying business, unfortunately the word is now out that the London Embassy is taking between six months and a year to issue E-2 visas and no legitimate businesses in the for sale listings are prepared to sell to E-2 visa applicants that we can find."
Elsewhere, a contributor to an expats forum that I contribute to recently
stated: "It is a total mess, isn't it? Effectively it [the ridiculous delays in
visa issue] has killed the business sales market here stone dead. Not just for brokers and attorneys, but for buyers and sellers who are just not going to be able to buy or sell their businesses if they need to move on or go home and will just have to close them down or sell them cut price to anyone (i.e. US citizen) who doesn't need a visa. I am guessing this will severely depress the market here. Add this to the number of people being turned down for visa renewals and draw your own conclusions."
To rub salt in the wounds, it appears that Belgian applicants applying through the US Embassy in Brussels, can get an E-2 approved in a matter of days rather than months! One would-be Belgian emigrant named Inge who applied in Brussels recently told of her fairly painless experience on the expats forum. "We finally applied for our E-2 visa on 25th July at the Brussels Embassy. One week later we are approved! We are really happy and very excited! We are opening our business on 1st October".
Of course, it's impossible for British nationals to file their visa applications
or renewals anywhere else but London - such is the stranglehold that the US immigration rules now have on an understaffed, near-broken system. So Brits could not go to Brussels to apply even if they wanted to !
What is happening with the US immigration service that there can be such a
contrast between two equally-small member countries of the European community? It seems like the doors to the USA are closed to Brits but open to Belgians?**I recently saw a mention on the US Embassy in Germany website that visa applications for the French were now being directed to other European countries, including Germany, due to the intense pressure that the Paris Embassy was now under. I wrote to the Consul General in London asking about this and asking if this would give us British the right to file our visa applications at other European US. Consular offices - or were the French a 'special case' in the eyes of the United States and, if so, why? So far I have not had the courtesy of a reply to my question!*
Meanwhile, there must be hundreds of families who are awaiting the outcome of their E-2 visa applications - they may have sold up everything they own to raise the funds necessary to make that 'qualifying substantial, not marginal, investment in a US business' and their lives are currently on hold. The business seller in the USA may be patiently awaiting his buyer's visas being issued so the sale of the business can close. Meanwhile, everyone is getting very frustrated with this slow moving bureaucracy.
So what happened about two years ago which may have cause this change of time scale and policy in adjudicating E-2 visas and their renewals?
Well, prior to 16th July 2004, holders of existing E-2 visas, already
established in their businesses in the US would apply to US offices for their
renewal for a further period. So long as the business was still trading,
profitable and qualifying, the renewal issues were almost automatic, fast and pain free.
However, as of that date, the Department of State issued a new procedure which would oblige all foreign holders of certain visa categories, which included all of the non-immigrant visas, to have to return to their own country of origin to file and renew their visas. This would entail a personal interview at which all visa holders and dependants would need to be present.
So, with almost immediate effect, all the US Embassies around the world suddenly had all of this renewal bureaucracy dumped upon them as well as the increasing burden of visa applications.
This change of procedure was made by the US authorities without any
consideration of the delays, inconvenience, travel, expense, disturbance to
family (children out of schools) and interruption to their small businesses that this would entail for the visa holders. It almost seems like all of these people who invested heavily in the United States, who create employment for US citizens, contribute to the US economy, pay their taxes but do not get to vote, are being abused by the US system simply because they are 'foreigners'!
Some people who contributed to the 'open letters' pages in a recent edition of this publication stated that they have now been waiting for over a year for their visa renewal to come through. Meanwhile, they have their business to run on a daily basis whilst worrying every morning as they awake that they could possibly be refused visa renewals in London and not be able to re-enter the USA again to get back to their home and business.
What has happened to bring this crisis about, and when will it be sorted out by Washington?"
So let's see what they say to that - if anything ?
That article has now appeared in this months issue and I have obtained the full text from the publishers to reproduce here for your interest.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"E-2 waiting - the crisis continues".
With the current waiting times for E-2 visas seemingly getting longer by the
week, Peter Stanhope explains the devastating knock-on effects for British visa applicants, business brokers and business owners
"Let me first of all make it clear - I am not an expat Brit in Florida. Neither
am I an immigration attorney or consultant. I am simply someone who has been involved in this 'Florida thing' for 16 years now, since we first bought a holiday home in Orlando in 1989.
From that grew our Florida Brits Group of British owners of Florida holiday
homes and, over the years since, I have become involved in many aspects of British life in Florida - including the many who have dreamed of emigration - and the many others who have emigrated only to find that it isn't always the rose-tinted world over there that they expected.
For many would-be British emigrants to the United States, the E-2 (Treaty
Investor) Visa has become the most popular and, in fact, perhaps the only visa which will provide for them an opportunity to realise their own 'American Dream'. However, the dream can so easily turn into a nightmare - and the nightmare may start even before they have left the safety and security of their home country.
As anyone who has been paying attention to the coverage in Emigrate America will know, E-2 visas for British subjects can only be obtained by application to the US Embassy in London. As recently as two years ago the process of application and adjudicating used to take around three to five weeks. At that time successful E-2 visa applicants were being issued with visas which would have an initial term of entry to the United States of three to five years, enough time to get the business going and develop it.
However, things seem to have changed significantly in the past two years. We are left wondering whether the very long waiting times now being experienced by E-2 applicants is due simply to the increased number of British applicants seeking emigration through the E2 visa, or whether some other, more subtle factors have come into play ?
It all seems to have occurred during the tenure of one particular E-2 consular officer at the US Embassy in London. Suddenly applications were being processed more slowly, more requests for 'further information' being issued, and then even more information required and on some occasions, information being requested even though it had already been sent.
At the end of this adjudication process, if a visa was issued at all, it seemed to be for a two-year period - hardly time to get to the States and get the business in shape before having to think about applying for the first renewal.
When a new Consul Officer arrived to take over in the Summer of this year we heard that the 'new broom may be sweeping clean' in order to shorten the waiting times. But the wait times are just getting longer and longer. The current US Embassy website notice quotes a period of over 24 weeks (almost six months) which, I assume, is for a straightforward E-2 visa application, properly presented with no requests for further information being necessary. But applicants who have filed visa applications recently have been quoted 26 or more weeks on their acknowledgements - and others, already in the pipeline, have been experiencing much longer waiting times than that.
The situation with E-2 visa approvals from the US Embassy in London is now critical. The word is now out in the USA that sellers, brokers and attorneys should not consider the sale of US businesses to British buyers who may have to wait from 26 weeks to over a year for visa approvals.
So what is happening at Grosvenor Square? Are they intentionally trying to
create a log-jam of approvals and renewals to dissuade/prevent would-be British emigrants from realising their dreams of relocation to the USA for some obscure reason?
The following message from a business broker contact in Florida reveals much about the current situation: "The E-2 visa matter is now worse than ever. We have a number of clients willing to spend upwards of US$500,000 on a qualifying business, unfortunately the word is now out that the London Embassy is taking between six months and a year to issue E-2 visas and no legitimate businesses in the for sale listings are prepared to sell to E-2 visa applicants that we can find."
Elsewhere, a contributor to an expats forum that I contribute to recently
stated: "It is a total mess, isn't it? Effectively it [the ridiculous delays in
visa issue] has killed the business sales market here stone dead. Not just for brokers and attorneys, but for buyers and sellers who are just not going to be able to buy or sell their businesses if they need to move on or go home and will just have to close them down or sell them cut price to anyone (i.e. US citizen) who doesn't need a visa. I am guessing this will severely depress the market here. Add this to the number of people being turned down for visa renewals and draw your own conclusions."
To rub salt in the wounds, it appears that Belgian applicants applying through the US Embassy in Brussels, can get an E-2 approved in a matter of days rather than months! One would-be Belgian emigrant named Inge who applied in Brussels recently told of her fairly painless experience on the expats forum. "We finally applied for our E-2 visa on 25th July at the Brussels Embassy. One week later we are approved! We are really happy and very excited! We are opening our business on 1st October".
Of course, it's impossible for British nationals to file their visa applications
or renewals anywhere else but London - such is the stranglehold that the US immigration rules now have on an understaffed, near-broken system. So Brits could not go to Brussels to apply even if they wanted to !
What is happening with the US immigration service that there can be such a
contrast between two equally-small member countries of the European community? It seems like the doors to the USA are closed to Brits but open to Belgians?**I recently saw a mention on the US Embassy in Germany website that visa applications for the French were now being directed to other European countries, including Germany, due to the intense pressure that the Paris Embassy was now under. I wrote to the Consul General in London asking about this and asking if this would give us British the right to file our visa applications at other European US. Consular offices - or were the French a 'special case' in the eyes of the United States and, if so, why? So far I have not had the courtesy of a reply to my question!*
Meanwhile, there must be hundreds of families who are awaiting the outcome of their E-2 visa applications - they may have sold up everything they own to raise the funds necessary to make that 'qualifying substantial, not marginal, investment in a US business' and their lives are currently on hold. The business seller in the USA may be patiently awaiting his buyer's visas being issued so the sale of the business can close. Meanwhile, everyone is getting very frustrated with this slow moving bureaucracy.
So what happened about two years ago which may have cause this change of time scale and policy in adjudicating E-2 visas and their renewals?
Well, prior to 16th July 2004, holders of existing E-2 visas, already
established in their businesses in the US would apply to US offices for their
renewal for a further period. So long as the business was still trading,
profitable and qualifying, the renewal issues were almost automatic, fast and pain free.
However, as of that date, the Department of State issued a new procedure which would oblige all foreign holders of certain visa categories, which included all of the non-immigrant visas, to have to return to their own country of origin to file and renew their visas. This would entail a personal interview at which all visa holders and dependants would need to be present.
So, with almost immediate effect, all the US Embassies around the world suddenly had all of this renewal bureaucracy dumped upon them as well as the increasing burden of visa applications.
This change of procedure was made by the US authorities without any
consideration of the delays, inconvenience, travel, expense, disturbance to
family (children out of schools) and interruption to their small businesses that this would entail for the visa holders. It almost seems like all of these people who invested heavily in the United States, who create employment for US citizens, contribute to the US economy, pay their taxes but do not get to vote, are being abused by the US system simply because they are 'foreigners'!
Some people who contributed to the 'open letters' pages in a recent edition of this publication stated that they have now been waiting for over a year for their visa renewal to come through. Meanwhile, they have their business to run on a daily basis whilst worrying every morning as they awake that they could possibly be refused visa renewals in London and not be able to re-enter the USA again to get back to their home and business.
What has happened to bring this crisis about, and when will it be sorted out by Washington?"
So let's see what they say to that - if anything ?