myUface Blog

In this week’s mailbag I’ll respond to two different questions, the first about visa problems and the second about the myUface podcast.

1)  A student writes to ask if there are “lists” that U.S. Embassies maintain of people who are ineligible to get student visas, and why.

The short answer is, “I don’t know.”  I assume that there are lists that consulates keep of people who are ineligible.  For example, if you lie in a visa interview and are caught lying, your name might be added to a list that lets the consulate know they need to check all future visa applications with a special eye.  But how large are these lists?  Are they formal documents?  How do you get on and off them?  These are questions I just don’t know the answers to, unfortunately.

The only lists we know exist are those that exist for very special circumstances.  For example, there almost certainly is a list of terrorist suspects.  In some cases, student visas may be delayed because a student’s name is the same as or close to the name on such a list.  Another example of this are lists of alleged war criminals from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.  Again, this is just a list of names, but the process of checking these lists can, in certain cases, delay visas for students.

In general, though, you don’t need to worry about these kind of lists or whether you’re on them.  So long as you tell the truth in your visa documents and interview, there’s no reason why you’d ever end up on such a list, even if your application were denied.

2)  Another student writes and asks, “What happened to the podcast?” Good question.  The podcast is alive and well, but we haven’t put out a new episode as we’ve been focused on developing the full myUface students site (it’s only a few weeks away now) and researching other topics, like financial aid.  But I promise, a new podcast is coming soon.

Remember, if you have any questions you’d like answered on the blog, leace us a comment or e-mail us at blog@myuface.com.