A BOOK ON U.S. APPLICABLE LAW

Deacon San Nguyen

IT WAS TOO LATE FOR A REMORSE!

(This article is written with the purpose to help all people who visit America as tourists and those who sponsor their relatives or friends in Vietnam to visit the U.S.A.)

Recently, many Vietnamese tourists visit America. They go either in groups or as individuals. If they go with the group organized by Vietnam Tourist Companies, they will not be able to request for a tourist visa to stay a little longer, except when they get accidents or severe sickness and they needed to stay in U.S. hospitals.

With individual tourists who arrive in America to visit their relatives on death beds, certain interesting places, or certain organizations as invited, they may request to extend their visa for 6 months to the maximum of 1 year. Practically, it is rare when a request to extend to 1 year is approved because the government suspects that the visitors who want to stay longer than 1 year will stay indefinitely then become illegal alien.

Not long ago, there were three cases related with requests for extension of staying visa as follow:

1. A man had a visa to visit his son who was in his death bed. He stayed and prayed with his whole family for his son’s health condition. Luckily, the son recovered. At that time, the man’s tourist visa was nearly expired. He submitted an application for a 3 month extension. His application was denied. Although knowing that his request was denied, the man still stayed 2 weeks after his visa expired and flew back to Vietnam.
   Question: Were those two weeks staying in America illegal?
   Answer: The father could stay waiting for the reply from INS. The period of 2-week waiting was legal.
2. A well-known priest from Vietnam visited America as a tourist but his prime purpose was to give lectures to Vietnamese Congregations and by the way, visit his relatives in this country. He had a visa that would expire after 3 months staying. When he had 17 days before his visa expired, the priest submitted an application for an extension. Waiting for 14 days without a reply, the priest hurriedly flew back home. He did not want to violate any rule or regulation here. However, one day after his leaving, his relatives in America received a permit allowing the priest to stay for another 3 months. It was too late for him to return to America, because he was already gone. Had he stayed a bit longer, the priest could have more time for lecturing and enjoying America beautiful scenes.
   Question: While waiting for an extension, can the priest stay in U.S.A regardless he does not receive any reply from INS?
   Answer: The priest could have 3 months waiting legally. However, he already left America before the approval letter coming to him. It was too late for coming back to the U.S.A.
3. About 5 years ago, a young lady visited her 70 year old mother in nursing home. When the visa expired, she requested for an extension of 6 months for her mother’s heart surgery. The request was approved. Then she requested to stay for another 3 months. Totally, she was allowed to stay in America for a year already. In the last 3 months, she made friend with a 60 year old man who was 30 years older than her. This man had had two wives already. His first wife died 5 years before he married the second wife who left him right after 2 years living with him for another man. Then, he married this young lady the third time. The couple married with each other. The young lady believed that she could stay in America as a citizen because she married an U.S. citizen especially she was pregnant at that time. However, when they were invited to be interviewed by INS, the examiner found out that before she married the old man, the young lady already had a lover who was 4 years younger than her. The examiner then told her that she only had 30 days for preparation to leave America. Of course, they had rights to appeal, the examiner told them. At last, she returned to Vietnam with her pregnancy without appeal.
   Question: Was the pregnancy from the 60 year old man? Or from a young man who left her for another girl prettier than her?
   Answer: Nobody knew. The truth was that she had to go back to her original country waiting for the old man to sponsor her to America again.

As a Deputy Court Clerk with over 32 years of experience on coordinating with INS and Federal Courts, I witnessed that only about a tenth of appeal cases resulted in favor of the appellants. Therefore, consider it very carefully before filling an appeal, to save money and time. Once the INS has determined the case already, they usually have good reasons for doing so.

About Request for Extension of Staying Visa, there are some details as follow:

1. If filing a Request for Extension of Staying Visa, the applicant needs to fill in the form I-539 at least 30 days before the date on the I-94 card expires.
2. The fee for the form I-539 is $290.00 in personal check or money order. No cash accepted.
3. Fill in the form I-134 for financial support, with applicant's signature or with sponsor's signature.
4. The request for Extension including Form I-539 and Form I-134 must mail to the USCIS Regional Service Center which has jurisdiction over the place the applicant is residing. If the applicant does not know the address of INS office, he or she can find it on Website: www.uscis.gov or telephone to 800-870-3676 to know the address.
5. In case INS needs to have other paperwork, they will send the Request for Evidence within 30 days to the applicant.
6. After all paperwork had been sent to INS, waiting days in order to receive approval or denial from CIS are entirely legal to stay in the United States. However, the applicant can not stay over the extension time that he requested. For example, if the request for 30 days extension, the applicant can not stay over 30 days. He needed to leave before the time for an extension ends.
7. If a request is denied, the applicant will receive a thorough explanation. Most of denials are based on the experience that many visitors want to stay in America forever.
8. Generally, if a request is denied, the applicant has 30 days since the days he or she receives the denial letter of Citizenship and Immigration Service, INS to leave America. After the 30th day, if the applicant still stays illegally, INS will forcibly deport the visitor back to his or her original country.

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