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What if I Flunk my Immigration Drug Test?

What happens if my fiance or spouse fails their drug test at the embassy appointed doctor?

Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the united States. Every now and then we have a client who has a problem with marijuana and they want to know what happens. Are they going to be able to come to the United States? En Español.

Here's how it comes up. After you file a fiance petition or after you file an I130 spouse petition and the case gets processed by the national visa center, eventually at some point the foreign national, whether it's a fiance or a spouse is going to have to go to a doctor appointed by the local embassy and that doctor is going to ask the applicant questions about their history of using marijuana. They're also going to test their blood.

The question comes up what happens if a client fails that drug test or admits to using marijuana at the interview with the doctor? Here's what we know. Generally, it's a bad deal. You really, obviously, don't want to be doing drugs. I don't even need to go into that. From an immigration standpoint, it presents specific hurdles. What happens is, is if you fail your drug test or if you admit to marijuana drug use then you're probably going to be kept out of the United States for a while. It's certainly going to be a red flag for the embassy officials.

The way it works is you go see the doctor shortly before your embassy interview. In our case, our client had to go see the doctor about 3 weeks before his actual embassy interview. The doctor asked him, "Have you ever smoked marijuana." And he said, "Yes." And he said, "How recently?" And he said, "About 2 weeks ago." So it's going to show up in his blood when they get the lab results back.

First of all, let me say that I'm really glad our client was honest. You can often get in a lot more trouble for lying to embassy officials or embassy doctors or immigration officials. You never want to lie. It is good that our client told the truth, but, it does present a problem. Here's what's going to happen. The doctor will complete his medical report. He'll reflect that the applicant indicated that he'd used marijuana. It'll probably come back on his drug test and the counselor official is going to have to decide whether or not that renders our client inadmissible.

What we're going to have to do, which probably going to happen is our overseas client is going to have to go to drug testing and drug classes for about a year. He's probably not going to be able to come for another year. We'll see what happens when he goes to the interview. The official may let him pass and may send him to the United States. We think that's doubtful. What's much more likely is that our client is going to be in communication with that doctors office over the course of the next 12 months and have to be tested up to 4 times over the course of the year and he's going to have to attend drug classes and treatment to make sure that he's clean and sober.

Obviously, our US citizen here, in the United States who's spouse or fiance is very upset and we understand that. There's really no way around it. There's no way to try to reschedule the appointment or to do anything sneaky. You never want to come across as being dishonest or untruthful. It's good that our client told the truth but it's going to be a real hurdle for him. He's probably going to be outside the United States for another 12 months. He's going to have to spend money on drug testing and he's going to have to spend money on treatment. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe in the long run, for his own health, that's a good thing. From an immigration standpoint, it's obviously a negative. It's going to slow down our client and her fiance from being together and so we're sad about that.

If you have any questions about the medical exams that go along with embassy interviews or the interview itself, remember always to tell the truth, but if you have specific questions and are wondering how to handle a situation make sure to give us a call at 314-961-8200 or you can always email us [email protected]. We hope you like this video. If you did, make sure to click like and also subscribe to our channel so that you can get new updates whenever we shoot a new video. Thanks a lot, have a great day, and stay off that marijuana. See ya.

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