3. FOLLOW THESE SPECIFIC TIPS FOR YOUR PARTICULAR VISA TYPE

Having picked up your application and prepared your evidentiary support, you should be aware of the quirks that are particular to your type of visa.

  1. Tourist Visa
  2. Student Visa
  3. Temporary Work Visa

Tourist Visa

The Tourist Visa - also known as a Visitor Visa - is the least complex of all the visas you can acquire for a visit to the United States. Because the U.S. government presumes that you are coming to America only for pleasure or personal reasons, and only for a limited duration, they do not conduct an extensive inquiry into your background. They will, however, remain perpetually suspicious about whether you are simply using this as a ruse to enter the country and then to remain here illegally thereafter.

If you are coming to America to visit the Grand Canyon, therefore, be prepared to show your itinerary or travel tickets to that destination when you go to the U.S. Embassy. Similarly, if you need a visa to go to your friend's college graduation, having a copy of the invitation or announcement with the date and place will help verify your claims to the U.S. bureautron behind the counter.

In general, the technical requirements for this kind of visa are slight, and you should rely on your common sense to get through the application process. Just think of what you would want to see as proof of the reason for your trip and your intent to return home afterwards.

But before you spend all day in line at the U.S. Embassy, check out the Visa Waiver Pilot Program to see if you can waive even this low-level paperwork.

Student Visa

Tens of thousands of foreigners come to America each year to study at this country's fine institutions of higher learning. Oh, yeah, and to get totally ripped at frat parties. Thankfully, the U.S. government encourages this behavior and has established a relatively liberal policy of allowing aliens to study here. Of course, you still must apply for a visa.

Keep your letter of admission. Before you set one foot inside the U.S. Embassy, you must have a letter of admission from your university. The consular officials won't even consider your application unless they have proof that you are, or will be, a student in the United States. No worries, though - this is not tough to take care of. When you get admitted to your school, just make a copy of the admission letter.

Obtain additional paperwork from your prospective school. Once you are admitted, you will also need to contact your university's international office. Each university in America is evaluated by the INS, which accredits it for the purposes of immigration - the idea here is that they don't want recent immigrants setting up "universities" in their double-wide trailers and admitting thousands of their old grade school chums. All accredited schools - and we mean really accredited - will have an official who handles applications by international students. This person will be responsible for sending you the paperwork that you will need to negotiate the visa application process in your home country.

The first thing this university official will do is determine what kind of student visa - F-1 or J-1 - you should apply for. In practical terms, there is no great distinction between these two. On either one, you will go through many of the same procedures to stay "in status" and will be able to come and go from America to the same extent. Technically, however, F-1s are for undergraduate students and boarding schoolers. They can, therefore, last up to four years, if your degree program takes that long. By contrast, J-1 visas are for "visiting scholars," which usually means professors or lecturers, but can also mean graduate students. Another slight difference between the two visas is that a J-1 allows 18 months of practical training, while an F-1 allows only 12. So if your school is indifferent, and you have the choice, you may want to opt for a J-1.

The practical training addition to these visas allows you to find employment related to your field of study for as long as the visa allows. If you just graduated from law school on a J-1 visa, for example, you could work for a law firm for a year-and-a-half before needing either to leave the country or to secure another visa. Those practical training months can also be used piecemeal, such that you could use three months during each summer break from school to work in a job related to your studies and still have months left over for when you graduate. If you do not apply to your university official for this practical training during the summers, you cannot work in America at those times. You would have to return to your home country to do so. Having extra months of practical training, therefore, is definitely useful.

Once you have worked out what kind of visa you will be applying for, your university official must send you the appropriate form. For an F-1, this form is called an I-20. For a J-1, the form is called an IAP-66. Do not lose these forms. They are your tickets into America.

Apply at the embassy. If you have received your letter of acceptance and I-20 or IAP-66, you can then approach the U.S. Embassy to apply formally for the visa. Rarely will an embassy deny you a visa if you can produce these pieces of university paperwork. There is, however, one important requirement that you must satisfy before being granted the visa: financial ability.

The U.S. Embassy will generally not grant you a student visa unless you can demonstrate your ability to pay for your education. This can be a difficult thing to establish. If you plan to attend a private four-year university, for example, the total cost of your schooling can be over $100,000. You must show the U.S. Embassy that you have this cash before they'll let you come over here. So start liquidating the stocks and padding that bank statement! We've also found that drug smuggling will help.

Get the actual visa. Finally, having laid yourself bare before the American government, you may be granted your visa. Prepare to be disappointed. After all that hassle, the visa itself is a small piece of paper, about the size of a postcard, that is glued into your passport. It contains a scanned photograph of you (which you must furnish to the embassy on your application), plus your vital information, such as name, date of birth, country of citizenship, and so on. More importantly, it declares itself to be your visa. When you attempt to enter the United States, you will need to present your passport and I-20 or IAP-66 to the person working at the immigration counter - so you had better have both before you book that ticket.

Temporary Work Visa

If you thought the student visas were complicated, be prepared for even more hassle if you attempt to obtain permission to work in the United States. For this process, you will certainly need the assistance of your employer or an attorney, and most likely, both. Nevertheless, we will outline the process for you here so that you know where to begin and what to expect.

Obtain a Job Offer. Just as with a student visa, the first thing you must have for a temporary work visa is a letter of acceptance. Your employer must furnish you with a piece of correspondence - preferably on corporate letterhead - formally offering you a position with the company. This letter should also contain several other details to assuage the INS. Your employer should note the title of the position and its responsibilities, the salary, the start and end dates, and how many hours a week the position involves. The end date here is particularly important, in light of the INS's constant fear of your overstaying the visa. They need to know that this job has a time limit - a date after which it will definitely be over.

Fill Out the INS Paperwork. Your employer will then need to fill out an application on an INS Form I-129, petitioning for permission to hire you as a temporary employee. Of course, in all practicality, this means that you fill out the form for your employer and then hand it to them for their signature. The form can be downloaded here: http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-129.pdf

Having filled out this form, with the help of your employer and possibly an attorney, you will need to file it with the INS along with a fee of $610. Yeah, that's steep. But we always knew that America got rich on the backs of immigrants.

Then you wait. And wait. The INS can take many months to process these requests, and the number of these visas available is finite. That means the government can run out of them. These visas - "H" visas - are replenished each year, though, and the beginning of the INS year is in October/November. You should try to get your application to the INS as soon after that time as possible to ensure that there are sufficient H visas available by the time they process your application.

Use the H Visa. Once you receive your visa, the government will instruct you on the mechanics of activating it, which (if you are already in the United States) may involve leaving the country and visiting a U.S. Embassy abroad. When you travel on an H visa, you will not have an I-20 or an IAP-66, but the INS will furnish you with proof of your visa, and it is always a good idea to carry your employer's letter of acceptance with you.

Please be aware that the intricacies of applying for a temporary work visa are numerous. We have provided you with only an overview of the process here, so that you will be sufficiently informed to begin your application in earnest. A great place to begin, of course, is on the INS's own website.

There are also a number of private law firms that specialize in immigration law, and their websites are also informative. One of the best is http://www.immigration.com.