Transcript:

Scott Berry 

Welcome to Immigration Nation, the podcast that dives deep into the complex and often misunderstood world of United States immigration. Through interviews with leading US immigration Attorneys, this podcast aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the policies, struggles and victories within the ever changing world of immigration. Each episode will offer fresh perspectives and valuable insight using real life stories to navigate our nation’s immigration system. If you have an immigration question or an existing case, join us here on immigration nation because this podcast was made for you. 

Garry Davis 

Hi, I’m Garry Davis. I’m an immigration lawyer practicing immigration law in Texas. I’ve been practicing immigration law for 23 years. And it’s an exciting opportunity for me to be here today to share some thoughts with you on immigration and and to impart some knowledge that may be helpful to you. So I’m. Really glad to. 

Scott Berry 

Be here today and hello. I’m Scott Berry. I’m one of your hosts at Immigration Nation and this is a very exciting day for us. We have known Garry Davis since 2016. And it’s just an honor to have him in talking. About visas today we’re going to talk about visas, and no, not the credit card. We’re going to talk about visas. There’s so many of them. And Garry is going to kind of bring some clarity to that. How do we simplify something that is a little bit complex and today we’re going to do that and we’re looking forward to a great show. 

Garry Davis 

Doing immigration law as an attorney is very rewarding because it allows me and my firm the opportunity to change people’s lives, to bring families together. To to break through barriers that the government puts up, making it very difficult for people to navigate through the immigration system and we’re just honored that that people trust us enough to give us the opportunity to serve them in that way and to bring value to the world and make the world a better place. 

Scott Berry 

All right, let’s learn. 

Speaker 

Yeah. 

Scott Berry 

Hello, I’m Scott Berry with immigration nation. I’ll be your host today and we’re here with Garry Davis, who is the founder of Davis and Associates. He is a board certified immigration attorney. Immigration law is all the gear he works on. His firm is completely dedicated to immigration law. Our goal today is to bring a little bit of clarity when we say I need a visa or an immigration visa. There’s so many visa. Somewhere around the neighborhood of 185 different visas, that’s just overwhelming for people. A legal consumer doesn’t know what to ask for, and I would think it’s even a challenge for some attorneys to try to decipher. What’s the right visa for what this person is trying to accomplish? Can you shed a little bit of light on just at a high level? What’s an immigration visa? What’s it used? 

Garry Davis 

For absolutely and thanks for having me. I’m I’m looking forward to having this conversation today. This stuff is super complex and so anything we can do to. 

Speaker 

You’re very welcome. 

Garry Davis 

To help people cut through some of the, you know, challenging materials that are out there that talk about these things and it’s just it’s so thick and so complex that hopefully in our discussion today I’ll be able to share some knowledge and and break it down in a way that people can can use it and make some good decisions about their options. As far as immigration to the US. 

Scott Berry 

Excellent. Thank you. 

Garry Davis 

So basically the first thing I want to talk about if we can is the difference between a visa and status and that maybe is not exactly where you know, immigration nation would like us to stay. But I feel like it’s one of the most difficult and complex issues around this question and starting with this will give us a foundation that makes it so that the rest of what we. Discuss. Is easier to process and understand, and so let me let me start with that. And so basically what happens is. A person goes to a U.S. consulate with an application for a visa of some type, and we’ll talk about some of the. Pipes that are available and and basically if they are issued the visa, it is stamped in the passport and they bring themselves and their passport with the visa to the border. Whether that’s at an airport, at a seaport, at a landport, wherever. They present that visa to the inspecting officer of Customs and Border protection, or CBP, part of the Department of Homeland Security. And if that officer allows that person in on the visa, they get what’s called status at that point. So you may have a situation in which the visa may only be good for a few more days, like a visit visa for example, that’s about to expire. A person can come to the get on the plane, come to the airport, go through inspection, present the visa even with a few days left on it, get into the country and get some time period to be in the US generally about six months. If it’s a visit. For example. 

Scott Berry 

Garry Davis 

So people get confused about that. Wait a second, my visa is going. To. Expire, and if you’re talking to an immigration lawyer, their question is going to be I don’t care about the visa because you’re here already because again, a visa. Is just an. Entry document. What I want to know is when does your status expire? Because it could be different. The other end is also true if you have a visit visa, it may be good for 10 years, but when you come through inspection they may only give you 6 months of status to be in. The. Country. So if a person comes for a consultation and says I have a visa that’s good for 10 years. We’re going to say we don’t care about that because you’re here already, cause again, visa is just an entry. 

Scott Berry 

Document so we know. 

Garry Davis 

You’re in. That’s right. We know you’re here. So the visa doesn’t matter. It can be expired. It could be good for 10 years. It could be good. What it does. 

Speaker 

Yes. 

Garry Davis 

Matter, what matters is your status and so how long did they give you to be here? When you. Came into the country. The reason that is so significant in this context is because it’s easy for people to default to the idea that the visas, all that matters. I can stay here for 10 years because I have a. 10 year visa. No matter what, no matter what, right? Wrong. That means you can seek the opportunity to come into the. Entry for 10 years. That’s what the visa is. So when you get a visa from the consulate, it’s going to have some validity duration. You presented that inspection and the inspecting officer determines how long they’re going to let you in and for what purpose. Based on that visa. So that’s one side of the visa is it’s an entry. 

Speaker 

Hmm. 

Garry Davis 

Document. The other side is there’s lots of different as you mentioned. Almost 200 different categories and subcategories of visa types that are out there. The type of visa is important because that tells the person that holds the visa and the people at inspection what that person can do while they’re here. So for example, if they come on a visitor visa, what can they do with that they can visit, right? If they come on a student visa, what can they do with that they can? 

Speaker 

Like a study. 

Garry Davis 

Go to school, right? If they come on some type of work visa, say an H1B professional work visa, the most common? Visa. They can work. Now, what happens if they come on the student visa or the visit visa and and they want to work right? It becomes a problem so. So that’s why the the classification of visa, that’s what we call it is so. 

Scott Berry 

And try to work right. 

Garry Davis 

Important. What type of visa the person’s coming in on determines what they can do while? They’re. Here and the inspection, not the visa validity period, but the inspection. Determines how long they can do it for what that time period is, and that’s called status. So we’re going to be focusing our discussion today on Visa, but the concept of status probably comes up as we talk about changing status or adjusting status, right? Those kinds of things, we’ll we’ll talk about so that everybody understands the visa and the status 2 separate things. And you’re limited in duration by the status you get when. 

Scott Berry 

Yes, I had a question about that, yeah. 

Garry Davis 

You come in. And the classification of visa that you use to enter. 

Scott Berry 

Some people might not even come in the right way, right? And that’s their status. 

Speaker 

Yeah. 

Garry Davis 

Well, yeah. I mean, if you come in, if you come in without a visa at all, like just illegally, there’s a couple of different ways you could do that. One is to just cross the border Canada or Mexico or it happens. That’s right. And that’s an entry without inspection or an illegal entry, which means the person has no status because they had no visa when they were coming through inspection. But they’re here, right? 

Scott Berry 

It happens. They’re in. Yeah. OK. 

Garry Davis 

Exactly. So it’s tricky. But then there’s also a situation where a person and we’re seeing this a lot lately with what’s going on in the world. You know, we’ve got a crisis in Ukraine, we’ve got challenges in Central America and the Caribbean, Afghanistan, there’s all kinds of issues internationally that we’re dealing with. And so there’s lots and lots of people coming to the border, which I’m sure everyone’s heard about. However you feel about that politically, one of the options that people have when they’re coming in is to talk to a someone that patrols the border. Right, a Border Patrol officer, a CBP officer. 

Scott Berry 

Right. 

Garry Davis 

And and basically can tell their story. This is why I’ve come here. This is what I’m facing back home and there is an opportunity for that inspecting officer to actually let them into the country without a visa. But on what’s called parole. Or they could let them in just under what’s called release on their own recognizance, where they’re just allowed into the country while they pursue perhaps an an application for political asylum or something like that. 

Speaker 

Oh my God. 

Garry Davis 

So there’s other ways of getting into country, even legal ways of getting in the country without a visa. But again, for today we’re going to focus mostly on just the. 

Scott Berry 

Visa part. So when we’re talking about visas and status and now let’s start to kind of break it down that there’s multiple ways to break it down, right there are, you know, employment visas, you know. Family related visas, so many different ways, but let’s start with immigrant visas and non immigrant visas. Can you start there? OK. 

Garry Davis 

Absolutely, yeah. So let’s, let’s take a couple of minutes on that. So an immigrant visa. Is a visa that’s issued by the US Consulate and also keep in mind all US consulates are outside of the US. There’s no US consulates here, so there is no way for someone to get a visa to the US while in the US. I’m having to explain that to people all the time. I’m here as a tourist. Can I get a student visa? 

Speaker 

Yeah. 

Garry Davis 

I could maybe change your status to student, but I couldn’t get you a visa right getting back. 

Scott Berry 

You’d have to go out of the country. 

Garry Davis 

That concept you got to go out because all US consulates, which is the only place to get a visa currently, yeah, to the US you have to leave the country, go to the US consulate to get one right. So an immigrant visa is basic. 

Speaker 

Garry Davis 

Actually a for lack of a better term, a permanent visa. Its validity period is generally 6 months, but when a person enters the US on an immigrant visa within that six month nudity period, they become permanent residents. People think of permanent residents as a green card, right? Is that colloquially we talk about it as a green card, and that’s that’s a fine word to use or phrase to use. But really it’s an immigrant visa that a person has obtained from outside the US. They come to the inspection presented to the officer when they come into the country, they are granted permanent residence of the. Current visa. So it is permanent residence or a green card visa for lack of a better term. So basically think of it as a green card. Visa. Is the visa that you get, whether it’s through family sponsorship, employment, sponsorship, investment, whatever the path to get it when you come into the country, you become a permanent resident through that. Immigrant visa. OK well. 

Scott Berry 

Is there a way? Is there a path for someone on a non immigrant visa to ever get a green card? 

Garry Davis 

Yeah, there are lots of different ways actually it’s it’s numerous. But to just make it clear on what the non immigrant visa is, a non immigrant visa is it is the opposite of that, right? So it’s a, it’s a visa that someone uses to come into the country for a temporary purpose. So whether that’s a work visa, a student visa, visit visa, those kinds of things are all non immigrant visas, meaning that they’re not ones that generate on their own permanent legal. 

Scott Berry 

I was going to say physical. 

Garry Davis 

Status the immigrant visa is permanent legal status. The non immigrant visa is temporary, so you’re going to have status pension. 

Scott Berry 

So there wasn’t an intention at the time for that non immigrant. Visa holder to become. 

Garry Davis 

Permanent. Well, not necessarily. I mean, there are paths to do that, but at the time of getting the visa and at the time of the inspection, one of the legal requirements is that the person approved to the. 

Scott Berry 

The car. 

Garry Davis 

Adjudicating officer. Whatever officer, Counselor, officer, whoever, even the inspectors at the airports or whatever. Costumes. Inspectors, right. Yeah. Those guys are having to make a determination about the person’s intention. And if the person does not satisfy them, that their intention is to stay on a temporary basis, a non a pure non immigrant. 

Scott Berry 

Customers. 

Garry Davis 

As opposed to an immigrant who wants to stay permanently, then they could refuse entry or deny the visa. That’s a. Ability. So. So yeah, the the non immigrant visas, there are a couple of exceptions, but generally non immigrant visas are designed for temporary visits to the US for the purpose that is allowed under the visa classification like we talked about earlier. Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, when someone comes into the country on a visa, they come on a certain visa type which limits. What they’re authorized to do while they’re here, like I said, if you come as an F1 student, you get to be a student. That’s just about it. And so the question frequently comes up. You know, what do I do to have an opportunity to do something different? Right. So when someone come into the country legally. And they’ve been maintaining status and there’s there’s several different ways that they can adjust their status to become a permanent resident. You don’t necessarily have to go get an immigrant visa from the consulate. You can adjust your status and get a green card from here without having to leave without having to leave. That’s called adjustment of status or let’s say as a person is graduating from school, having come in as an F1 student, they can change to a different visa type, like a work visa. For example, H1B is the most. Common. And so anyway, you can change status to a different status so that you have the opportunity for another time duration and a different set of options of things you can do while you’re here, or potentially with the right circumstance, adjust status and become a permanent resident while you’re in the US. So it would be pretty. 

Scott Berry 

Easy to visualize it. Someone could come with the intention of studying and going back. But for whatever reason right change their mind, they. Could fall in. 

Garry Davis 

Love that happens a lot, yes. 

Scott Berry 

Right. They could do really well in school, right and during the the University Career Center, meet some amazing companies, right, that want to hire them, yes. And are trying to convince them. To stay exactly. 

Garry Davis 

Or or they go on, go on to professional athletics, or they have an opportunity to go into business for themselves, or they have a call to the ministry and they decide they want to go work for. 

Speaker 

Garry Davis 

Church there. There’s all kinds of visa types and they can switch out of that other. Whatever they came in on and switch over to a different classification through a change of status process that would allow them to to change what they are authorized to do while they’re here in the US and and what the time period is within which they. 

Scott Berry 

Can do that. That probably happens more often than you would. 

Garry Davis 

It happens very, very frequently and and my experience is that the government doesn’t really get bothered by that. I mean they they make money from it. Yeah. They have a process around it. And so it’s just something that’s kind of in the normal course of of providing an immigration, you know, policy and and and pathways through the government. 

Speaker 

Wrong. 

Garry Davis 

It’s just the immigration lawyer’s job to figure out which one fits the best for that individual that’s come in to say, hey, I’m about to graduate from school. What are my options? Our job is to make sure that they know which of the many visa options there are would potentially be applicable to. 

Scott Berry 

Them just not getting it right could delay. 

Garry Davis 

The entire well, yeah. When you when you consider time horizons for government processing on things. I mean, people have to realize it’s only one source. 

Speaker 

Right. 

Garry Davis 

In the US, to go to to get this stuff processed, it’s the US government. And so long time horizons. Sometimes on these things you got to get it right, you know from the beginning. So that you have maximum chances of getting the. Result that you want. 

Scott Berry 

Good point. So. So out of all of those kind of visas, clearly some of them get used. 

Garry Davis 

Exactly. 

Scott Berry 

More often than others, so we can’t cover. Them all? Sure. But it would be nice to be familiar with the ones that get applied for the most. Can we pick a handful of absolutely look about them? 

Garry Davis 

Yeah, I’ll give you a quick snippet on a few. We talked about the F1 student visa as our kind of example case because that’s very. Common get accepted to a school, go to the consulate, get the visa, come to the US study. There’s even some work authorization opportunities through the F1 status. So it’s a really, really good visa type that people frequently choose. The H1B work visa I’ve also mentioned and that’s basically a professional worker visa, so a company can sponsor someone to come in and work for them in a professional job, one that requires a specific, you know, four year or higher degree. Usually engineering technology, sometimes teaching those kinds of things that require education. That’s an H1B work. These. There’s also a couple of others that come up frequently. An L1 visa is for an international transfer of an executive or a manager, or someone with specialized knowledge. So there’s a company outside the US that has an office here, or I guess you could say it the other way. It has a U.S. company that has an office outside the US. They work for that company outside the US or the office for a year. And they can potentially transfer to the US office if it’s in a managerial executive or specialized knowledge capacity for the. So that’s an L. 

Scott Berry 

Visa it seems like that would be fairly common as well, right? 

Garry Davis 

It’s very common, but it’s hard for smaller business. 

Scott Berry 

Well, I was thinking more like Toyota’s Frito Lay Google Facebook. 

Garry Davis 

Exactly that, that that’s what it was built for is like Amazon, ExxonMobil, Walmart companies like this that have big international presences. Exactly. So they want to bring their maybe director level plus type positions that some superstar. 

Speaker 

Why? 

Scott Berry 

They’re already global. 

Speaker 

Right. 

Garry Davis 

Outside, bringing them in, that’s an L1A, OK? And it works great. It’s a really, really good visa, but in the right situation. That’s the intercompany transfer L visa. E2 is incredibly common. The E2 visa is an international investor visa. There’s also E1, which is for trade, but E2 is the more common of the E visas because it’s just for investment. It’s basically somebody wants to own their own business here, and they have some money to invest in the bus. Then they can come to the US as an E2 investor to run. 

Scott Berry 

Their business. Now, I know you have a pretty good bit about that because we’ve talked about that before. The types of businesses. 

Garry Davis 

We do. Yeah. Yeah, we do a lot of ethos exactly. And and it it spans the spectrum of business options. You can do franchises, you can do hospitality, you can do pretty much anything that has some substantial investment of capital to get it started, have a lot of guys that do like car sales. 

Scott Berry 

That flight could come over. 

Garry Davis 

And. Alcohol sales restaurants. 

Scott Berry 

Restaurants and stuff. 

Garry Davis 

Franchises of all kinds. So it’s really, really flexible. But it only applies to people that come from countries with which with which the US has a treaty that allows for that kind of bilateral investment exchange. So there’s a list that you can find at the state departments website that maps out all of the countries that have the treaty that. Is. Permitted countries that we do most frequently or Colombia. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Canada and then a lot of the Western European countries, France, UK. Netherlands places like that. 

Scott Berry 

The government limits like the how many overall? Visas that can be given in a year and and how many people can you know, immigrants that can come over? 

Garry Davis 

Yeah. They do in some categories, not all the the most notable of those is the H1B that I mentioned earlier. Believe it or not, despite the fact that our economy is as large as it is, there’s only 85,000 H-1B visas available every year. 85,000 woefully insufficient relative to demand last year. I don’t know what the number was this year. I don’t know that it’s been reported yet, because we just barely ran the lottery that they run to allocate those visas. But but last year it was close to 500,000 people or, yeah, 500,000 submissions vying for those 85,000 spots. Yeah. 

Scott Berry 

We definitely need to talk about the H1B and its own session because it’s. 

Garry Davis 

Oh my goodness. Yeah, it’s it’s a it’s thick. 

Scott Berry 

It deserves an explanation and. 

Garry Davis 

It’s a big topic and and when you add in the the exception to the CAP which is that you can work for some qualified nonprofit institutions like universities, for example, universities last statistic that I saw and I’m sure somebody out there will correct me, but the last one I saw is about 170,000 H-1B’s to universities and other nonprofits. Because there’s no cap. And 85,000 cap subject. Which would be for private companies and that kind of thing. So it almost double s the size of. Well, I guess it triples the number of H1B’s actually issued, but 2/3 of those are from. From nonprofit organizations, not from private industry, is that probably professors, usually professors, exactly or other high level administrators in in university setting thing one last one that I’ll mention and then we can tie this off is the R1. Visa and that is for religious work, so if someone’s ordained to ministry or has some other level of authority within a religious organization, they could potentially be sponsored for ministry type duties here in the US through the R1 visa. So those are some of the most common ones that. 

Scott Berry 

We see, you know. We seriously could have, like we could talk about this forever. 

Garry Davis 

Oh, yeah, yeah. There’s no no limit. 

Scott Berry 

You know, there’s just and, and there’s a lack of understanding to a legal consumer because how could you absorb all this information? It’s it’s. 

Garry Davis 

Yeah, you can’t. Somebody ought to write immigration for dummies, frankly, because it might be kind of nice to have a reference. Book. 

Scott Berry 

Garry Davis 

Where where people could flip through and have like a like a flow, yes. No kind of flow diagram. To help people kind of figure out what visa types may be options and then take them through each one and blame what they are and how to qualify for them, it could. 

Speaker 

Right. 

Garry Davis 

Be a whole series writing that book. No, seriously, seriously, I thought. About it thought about. 

Scott Berry 

It OK, so this is a trick question, right? Because there’s so many different types of visas, but. Somehow try to find a way to talk about like, what is the process of obtaining a visa? Is there any way to talk about that in general terms? 

Garry Davis 

There are some commonalities between types, but each type has its own little bit of uniqueness, right? So. To give you an example, we’ve talked about F1 and H1B F One students H1B professional work, so we’ll stick with that because they’re 2 examples of of ways that it’s processed a little bit. With an F1 student, I think I mentioned this before, but basically you get accepted by the school they give you the documentation you need. You apply for the visa at the consulate, they give you the visa, hopefully, and then you use the visa to come to the US and go to school. That’s it. That’s the whole process. The applications online. Frankly, you don’t really need lawyers. You just fill it out online, get an appointment at the. Consulate. Show your acceptance letter and then they either give you the visa or they don’t. OK, pretty. 

Scott Berry 

That’s a good point. 

Garry Davis 

On the H1B side, however, H1B and there are other types like the L that I mentioned. Earlier the R. That you have to have a petition approved from a sponsor like an employer or a church. To be able to apply for the visa. So in other words, you get the petition approved from here, you take the approved petition to the consulate and then it’s very similar to the F1 you go online, you follow these application, pick the category of visa that you’re asking for. And then you show them that you’ve got the petition approved and that you otherwise qualify for the visa. They issue the visa, you come to the US to start the job. So the application itself is very similar regardless of the visa type. The difference is going to be whether or not you have to have an approval from the US government. From here that’s called a petition. Or if you can just go with some other documents, like from the school without dealing with the government at all and go straight to the consulate. 

Scott Berry 

With the visa application, so there could be different forms. 

Garry Davis 

So actually what’s interesting about that is to get the petitions. Those forms are different than the visa applications. But regardless of what visa you’re applying for, at least on the non immigrant side, it’s all the same form. It’s just you select a different category of visa, kind of in a drop down at the government’s website depending on which. Visa type you want to try? 

Scott Berry 

Yep. So I’m assuming one or two checks in the wrong spot. 

Garry Davis 

Could be a real problem the the one where people get tripped up a lot and this usually happens because they’ve hired someone that’s local to the consulate that claims to be, you know, has special access to the to the government or whatever. May not. May not generally not. 

Scott Berry 

Be an attorney, and that’s generally not. 

Garry Davis 

Right. And you know, different levels of actual honesty about, you know, what they’re actually. Doing putting down whether or not you’re married and putting down whether or not you have kids, the temptation for these service providers or even for individuals applying on their own, is to put down a spouse or a child that you may be leaving behind to get past that issue that we talked about earlier. Remember, the consulates are by law required to assume. You’re coming to stay permanently until you prove otherwise while having a spouse and a child that you’re leaving. Kind. Even if those people don’t exist is very tempting to put that on there because they believe that it will improve chances of getting the visa right. Whether that’s true or not, it’s anyone’s guess. I mean, there’s such heavy consequences from that when you get here now, you’ve told the government you’re married, you get married to someone else, try to file for a green card that’s going to. Come back up. Yeah. And then you can say, well, I paid this guy to file it for me. I didn’t know what was in there, but. Sorry, you’re an adult. They’re not going to give you a pass on that. Right? So. So yes, there are certain places on that application where if you don’t get it exactly right. Or you believe by giving you know an answer that deviates from, you know, that distracts them from getting the real information, or whatever your motivation is that they don’t. They don’t throw those things in the garbage after the issue. The visa, they’re all still out there with all those answers to those questions. And so you got to be very, very careful to be accurate with those. Application disclosures and you’ve got to make sure that you set it up correctly to accomplish what you. Accomplish right, because if you drop down and click the wrong visa type, they’re going to refuse that visa because you picked the wrong one and now you got. There’s no fixing it exactly right. So there’s other consequences like that. 

Scott Berry 

You got another six months, another eight months like and it takes a long time. 

Garry Davis 

Anyway, it does, depending on the visa tie, there’s some where we’re seeing 2025, you know, appointment times at the consulates for like visit visas and stuff. Since COVID it’s been a. Big mess. 

Scott Berry 

That’s just the appointment. 

Garry Davis 

Just the appointment to get to try. 

Scott Berry 

To get the visa two years, yeah. 

Garry Davis 

For some visa types and some consulates that are more heavy so. 

Scott Berry 

Those kinds of no need to blame your immigration attorney. 

Speaker 

For that. 

Garry Davis 

That is correct. Well, with one exception. If your attorney did not warn you that that was a possibility and you were expecting it to pay a few weeks, OK, you could be upset about them not bothering to tell you it’s going to take a. 

Scott Berry 

It’s OK to be upset about that. 

Garry Davis 

A long time to get scheduled, but we don’t, I mean obviously. These. Attorneys don’t control the government, right? We we we know how to access the system we have. You know, those of us that do good work, we have a good reputation with those guys and and they appreciate what we do because it kind of makes their job easier when we do a good job on our end and everybody’s happy, right, everybody wins. And so in that sense we’ve got some influence and some. Right aspects, but no control, right? It’s not your system. No, it’s not our system. We just help our clients access it in the in the most efficient way possible with the highest. 

Scott Berry 

Chances for success you mentioned earlier about the ability to work on certain visas and stuff like that. They. Obviously all the visas don’t come with work rights correct. 

Garry Davis 

That is correct. Yeah. Visit visas. You don’t have work authorization, although it’s a little Gray because you can’t do business. So if you’re here. You know, if you’re here for like a sales meeting or something with your company, you’re kind of doing business, but you’re not like an employee, right? So there is some Gray in there, like on a B1 business visitor where you can check on clients or you can even make sales calls, but you well, you could open a company, but you can’t really run it day-to-day, right? You’d have to have a manager or partner or somebody to kind of run the day-to-day. So there’s definitely some Gray. But yeah, to answer your question, there’s some that are here that you have to be working. 

Scott Berry 

You can’t go open the company. Though. 

Speaker 

Sure. 

Garry Davis 

To be legal, there’s some that you can’t be working to stay legal, and so you know having good advice on where your limits are and what kinds of things are appropriate within the bounds of the law. That’s the kind of thing that that attorneys like us. Are about is trying to help people navigate through that. 

Scott Berry 

Understand it. It seems pretty obvious at this point that there’s massive benefits to someone speak into an immigration attorney before you launch off into this and either fail or make something last two 3-4 years and you suffer. Right. So we’re going to talk in a separate episode about consultations. Yeah, so that they get good advice. So they jump in so. So clarify this for me. Not all visas when people are applying for visas, they don’t all get accepted, right? Some some get denied. Correct. How’s that work? 

Garry Davis 

So it depends on where you are in the process. I mean as I mentioned before, there are some visas that require a petition, so it could be that the petition itself is not successful like for an H1B work visa that has to be approved from here before you can go to the console with your application then you know it’s not going to work because it just says get approved. But let’s say that that’s been approved or otherwise you don’t need it. 

Scott Berry 

But very early on. 

Garry Davis 

When you go to the consulate, it just depends on. You know the the the console has got to be satisfied that you’re actually going to go do what you say you’re going to do. You’re going to take that job on the H1B, for example, going to actually attend the school. Sometimes they’ll call the school. So, you know this person. Did you really accept them? These documents? Legitimate. So there’s got to be legitimacy to the application and your intentions in some situations. Most they’ve got to be satisfied that there’s something about your life in your country that is drawing you back. So whether it’s real estate that you own, family ties, that you’re leaving behind, maybe some money or whatever, just job opportunity, something that satisfies them, that you’ve got sufficient motivation, that you’re not just going to come here and then overstay or, you know, stay beyond your time, they got to, they got to be satisfied, you’re gonna come back at the end of your stay. And so that’s that part of it. If it’s education based like for the H1B, you got to have certain level of education, they may check into that to make sure that it’s legitimate. And those kinds of things. So legitimacy. And then they also check background. They’re going to want to know that you’re. A. Good person. They want to know that you’re not. Some of that’s been involved in terrorism or that has a criminal record that you’re not disclosing or, you know, has been to the US before and violated status in the past over state or something. Drug use is 1, you know, any kind of security. 

Scott Berry 

Bars. 

Garry Davis 

Or background kind of issue. They’re going to check into. They’re looking for a red flag so they could deny you. They can if they deny you, is it all is lost or you can appeal depends on the the justification for the denial. OK, so if it’s denied and they say we find you to be a terrorist. You have. To apply again and provide evidence that they got the. Wrong guy, right? Right. You got to be able to show them that you can overcome whatever they had in their system that showed you. Engage in terrorist activity. That’s that’s right. So it was my cousin or it was somebody else. You got to prove. It’s not me. Right? Yeah. So that’s that one. If it’s. If it’s more background related, like a deportation in the past and they refuse it, then we may have to get it like a waiver or some way to pardon that history so that the person becomes eligible for the visa. 

Scott Berry 

Right, just same name. 

Garry Davis 

If it’s fraud, then we have to try to show them that that the fraud was, you know, was innocent or that they were not aware that there was any fraud in this thing or or that approach that they’re a victim in this whole thing or that there’s a waiver available there. There is a waiver section for non immigrant visas and a waiver. 

Scott Berry 

Their victim. 

Garry Davis 

You can think of it kind of like as a pardon and it’s it’s like a forgiveness for that history. And so they could potentially qualify for a waiver as well in the right. In the right justification for the objection to the apple. 

Scott Berry 

There’s another section we could talk about layers. We’re doing it like this down. Somebody write this down, right. OK, so let let’s wrap it up with you. Just. 

Garry Davis 

Oh, waivers. It’s a whole. It’s a whole day. So that’s right. 

Scott Berry 

Share with our listeners anything else that you think they should know. It might be a most common myth. It may be something you really want them to leave with the understanding of these one or two points, right? 

Garry Davis 

So I would say one thing that I can share with the audience is. One of the most common questions that I get in the consultation is what are my options? And the options that you have are limited by an archaic statute. That does not reflect current realities. And the fact that you are driven, motivated and want something and feel like you have something to bring by itself is not enough, right? We have to make it fit into one of these. Categories that we’ve been talking about, whether it’s an E2 investor visa, you got to fit into it, you got to take your idea, your drive, your motivation and and and gel it to make it fit the requirements. You may have to rethink your business plan or or whatever. 

Scott Berry 

Meet the requirements. 

Garry Davis 

With a student, you’re going to have to set aside your desire to come here and take over the world and focus on your studies as what your primary motivation is for seeking the visa. Because if they detect that your long term plan is to stay in the US, you may not get the visa right. So just because you have a desire and the motivation and the drive, and maybe even the qualifications. 

Scott Berry 

Right. 

Garry Davis 

Need or need or whatever to bring tremendous value to the country. Sorry. Does not by itself qualify you for a visa. You’ve got to fit into these very rigid requirements for each classification and get over that non immigrant and immigrant. You know, issue that we were talking about earlier satisfy them that you’re really planning to come on a temporary basis to be able to have a chance to get the. Visa, we got to make it fit. And sometimes that’s really hard and people don’t want to accept that because they know that they’re successful in their country or they know the kind of value they can bring to the United States. They are. That’s right. They’re trying to do it the legal way, the right way. 

Scott Berry 

Being honest, it’s yeah. 

Garry Davis 

I know the value that I can bring. I’m a nurse or I’m a doctor or I’m a first responder by profession. And I’ve got a law degree and I want to change the world in terms of law. All of that is great, but we can only take what you have and then try to squeeze it through. Yeah, the funnel of one of these options, a very rigid system, and you may have to be willing to be open minded about what you’re hoping to accomplish. And you may have to rethink and reframe. 

Scott Berry 

A rigid system. 

Garry Davis 

Team, what you want to do with the next phase of your life by coming to the US to make it fit with the options. That. Are available. There’s no custom option, there’s no all other when it comes to visas, you either fit one of the categories. 

Scott Berry 

Or you don’t. It’s not super subjective. 

Garry Davis 

That’s right. There’s there is no. There’s a lot of objectivity in terms of the requirements and but then it gets worse because when you’re going to talk to the officer where you submit a petition or whatever an application for a visa, that analysis is subjective. So even though we’re stuck with these rigid, in some cases very draconian and. Silly, frankly, looking at current times. Requirements on the objective side, we got to meet all those. You got to check those boxes first. But then you also have to be prepared to deal with the. Subjective analysis and that’s. 

Scott Berry 

It’s another whole. Again another. 

Garry Davis 

It is. 

Scott Berry 

It is and they really need to talk about that, cause it could. It shouldn’t, but it could depend on. 

Garry Davis 

There’s. That’s right. Who you get? No. No, it’s not about that. It absolutely does depend on who you get, and that’s where the lawyers again can bring some value now. Take some experience. You got to have some exposure to presenting applications to these guys so that you get a feel for where their lines are, right. And then you start over time to refine your understanding of what generally is accepted over there based on just the volume of filings and the feedback that you get, right. So that’s why using an experienced attorney can help you, you know. Analyze your presentation from the beginning to help you understand what your actual chances are of being. 

Scott Berry 

Successful with the approach because you need every extra 5% chance of winning. 

Garry Davis 

Sometimes that’s all it. 

Scott Berry 

You know 10, is it gonna matter? That’s right, yeah. Garry, thank you so much for being with us and we’re definitely going to do this more good. All right, we’ll do it several more times. Garry Davis, founder of Davis and Associates, based primarily out of Dallas and Houston, but serving legal consumers across the United States. 

Garry Davis 

Absolutely. It’s my pleasure. 

Scott Berry 

Have a great. Day. 

Speaker 

So. 

Scott Berry 

This podcast has been prepared for general information purposes only and is not legal advice. This information is not intended to create and receipt of it does not constitute an attorney-client relationship.