Tourist / Visitor Visas

Author: Joseph P. Murphy, Esq., Allegheny Immigration Group

Release Date: 12/27/2019 (YouTube)

Author’s Statement:

This is part 1 of a transcription of my video on tourist visas which you can see here. If you, or someone you care about need legal services related to filing for, extending, traveling on, or any other matter related to a B Tourist Visa, please call my office at (412)521-2000 or my cell at (412)973-3442. You can also email me at jmurphy@jmurphyfirm.com. Please visit, like and share the Allegheny Immigration Group Facebook page and the Allegheny Immigration Group Youtube Channel.

About 50 times a year someone calls here and asks me to help them get a B Visa for a foreign friend or family member to enter the United States and come as a tourist and visit with them. This commonly is after they have already tried once and then perhaps been denied. And the question becomes what’s required. I know at one time, it was a common practice for the Americans citizen to act almost as a sponsor and write letters of invitation and reassurance to the government that they would make sure that this person left on time, that they would make sure that this person has health coverage while they were here, that they would make sure of a bunch of different things. This is not the process anymore. You don’t need to invite anyone. The American tourism industry is spending probably hundreds of billions of dollars on an annual basis, inviting everyone on planet earth to come here and be a tourist. And that could be to visit Niagara Falls, gamble in Las Vegas, Ski in Aspen, surf in Malibu, anything, there is all the whole world is invited as long as they will pay and qualify for a B Visa.

Every foreigner who has lawfully admitted into our country is admitted one or two broad categories. Those two categories are immigrant and non-immigrant. We don’t think people who come to spend a week in Las Vegas is “immigrants”. We think of them as tourists. And that is because tourism is a non-immigrant purpose. So, they are not moving in. Immigrants are the people that are moving here forever. So, the B Visa or tourist visa, is a non-immigrant visa.

Now, our government presumes anybody who’s led in the United States is gonna wanna stay here forever. Because of that, anyone who applies for any category of non-immigrant visa has to prove that they are not gonna live here. That they have to overcome the presumption that they have an intention to immigrate. Normally, that is done by proving a couple of things. One, that the person applying for a non-immigrant visa has significant ties to their home country. Something pulling them home. Two, that the non-immigrant is not in the process of developing significant ties here and three, that the time in the United States won’t destroy the thing pulling them back home. For example, there is a good job that they would lose if they were in the United States for six months. And that the time in the United States won’t of course result in them forming bonds with the United States.