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Common Reasons Visas Get Denied

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What are the most common reasons that spouse and fiance cases get denied? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. We have a great lead intake team here. And one of our members, Ellen, has been sending me questions that she gets from people that call the firm. And this video is going to answer one of those questions.

The caller wanted to know what are the most common reasons that oversees cases, that is spouse cases and fiance cases, what's the most common reason that those cases get denied? We don't see a lot of denials. And of course at the state department, they're not actually even called denials. They're called refusals and refusals can be based on many different reasons. The state department at the Embassy are supposed to give you a piece of paper that says why your case was refused.

Some refusals can be overcome and some refusals cannot be overcome. If your spouse is refused for some kind of national security concern, they were in a military force, such as in Iran that the US now views as a terrorist organization, that might be a refusal that can't ever be overcome.

I think what the caller was wondering more about is what about the cases that are just marriage based that don't get approved? I think the number one reason that these cases get refused and sometimes permanently refused is when there's a huge age gap between the petitioner, that's the US citizen or green card holder and the beneficiary, that's the person who's overseas who wants to come. When there's a big age gap, the officers do cause a fair bit of mischief. They do like to cause trouble. We've had people actually mocked at their interview. They don't like it when there's a huge age gap. They think that the foreign national is just marrying, and usually it's the foreign national who's young and the petitioner, the US citizen or green card holder, who's older.

And so we've had cases where there were large age gaps, and when I say a large age gap, I mean, maybe say more than 10 or 15 years. Anything less than that, shouldn't be a problem, but age gap is the big issue. We've had some where the couple were refused or they had their case sent back to USCIS and that's usually because of that age gap.

Other things can include if the US citizen has been married many times before. We've seen refusals when the beneficiary has made multiple attempts to come to the United States, maybe even having married other people. That's always interesting when that happens. We also see refusals where they don't believe that the US citizen is going to be able to financially support the foreign national. That's sort of rare.

Most refusals will result in what's called a 221G, which is administrative processing, and that sort of where we help filing lawsuits. On those cases, they're delayed because there's something about the case that the state department doesn't like, but they don't feel that they have enough to flat out refuse it. When we sue them, it sort of compresses time and it gets us to the end and an answer faster.

In our lawsuit cases, we see cases get sent back to USCIS for possible revocation. We see certainly many, many approvals, and then we also see some refusals where the state department makes it clear that they're going to stand on that refusal and not give the visa. And because of a case that went to the Supreme Court about 10 years ago called Kerry versus Din, the state department doesn't have to explain to you why they are refusing and you can't challenge it or appeal it in federal court. You really have to win your spouse or fiance case at the interview.

Speaking of fiances, because I didn't really talk about that. In those situations, a lot of times they just don't believe the relationship. And so there's this stupid show called 90 Day Fiance, and I think those people have ruined it for many, many people. And if you can't establish that the relationship is real, you're going to have a hard time getting a visa, fiance or spouse or otherwise.

We hope this answers the question. We hope Ellen's caller is happy now. Our phone number is (314) 961-8200, if you have questions about this. You can also email us at [email protected]. You can join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. We have a lot of people joining there every day. We also have a new Instagram account called Hacking Immigration Law, LLC. You can find us there. And finally, if you like this video, we ask that you please share it out on social and that you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you get updates whenever we make videos just like this one. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.

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