Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays

The real numbers, not ifs, maybes and lucky gueses. Basically what I would like to see are hard data which confirm accusations and speculations made by many on this forum that Poles en masse are:

overstaying visa
or work on toursit visa
or make any other serious violation of tourist visa constraints.

Sorry, but what I've found so far incline me to the view that refusal rate greater than 3% at USA embassy in Warsaw is based only on US clerks prejudices. This numbers from USA Homeland Security just don't add up with this popular view that Poles en masse violate tourist visa constraints. As I said I didn't find precise data regarding overstaying to confront it with USA HS data. Maybe there is not much to look for... I thought that with so many eager propagators of visa restrictions toward Poles, there would be at least one native who will be able to support his claims with some hard numbers. No luck so far.

ironside wrote:


oh but of course! the lord has spoken!

so ironside, with that way of thinking, everyone should be given visa free travel no? every single country? you wouldn't want to treat other countries differently than Poland would you?

jwojcie wrote:


you're completely avoiding the question. i'll word it in a different way:

IF.....the USA announced TOMORROW that 1% of all Poles that visit america on a tourist visa overstay their visas and IF out of those 10% that get refused every year, 1% planned on overstaying.....would those numbers justify Poland's exclusion from the VWP?

IF NOT, what numbers would justify Poland's exclusion?

You cannot beg for numbers without having an idea of what numbers would be acceptable and what numbers wouldn't. Otherwise, what would be the point even if you had the real numbers in front of you, no?

Answer the question.

Well, all you can do is coming back with hypothetical question and problems! for once let's talk about realties!
Visa waiver program is not based on people overstaying their visas but on the percentage of refusals of visa, its means that it depends on office clerks estimation who is or who isn't likely to overstay their visa - and that is based on .......gut feeling !

So don't ask your silky questions fuzz !
Come up with some data, not hypothetical stuff, or estimations!
Because I can estimate that every fourth adult from Lithuania will or did overstay his welcome in the US of A!

@FUZZYWICKETS, different "visa thread" the same attitute, speculations without any meaningful statistical foundation. We might as well speculate what if Martians invade earth tommorow. There is no value in such discussioin only fancy rhetoric. I'm not begging for numbers, I found some and give some, and made logical argument based on that. I'm not begging, I'm expecting the other side to do the same, otherwise any discussion is pointless. But, what the hell, lets see through your question. But first some word about your method of discussion wich I cann't accept:


Heh, that statement is somehow disqualifing... The whole idea of real numbers is to make an assement based on them not the other way around. Otherwise it is close to making the judgment without a rationale. Actually that is the point: I had no idea or personal agenda before I engaged in this visas threads. But after some discussions and data research I come to conclussion as stated before, that main fault here lies on US clerks at embassy. I can be proof wrong easilly with valid data about overstaying and other violations. You just have to make an effort and bring something against this:


Last but not least, Your questions:


As was stated before in fact overstaying is not directly connected with refusal (excluding those who overstayed and apply again), but a possibility of overstaying. The problem I have with it is like this:

1. is it at least in part an mathematically calculated possibility and statistics about it do exist?
2. or is it just a lucky guess of US clerk?
So far it seems that it is rather number two, because data from US HS don't add up with 10% refusal rate, at least to me.

AND FINALLY THE ANSWER! It depends... ;-) :
The answer depends on the idea of 3% threshold. If the idea is that theoretically US clerks are 100% effective then refusal rate is equal to people who would overstayed. If that is the case then if 1% in fact planned to overstay, then it is below 3% threshold which means that in such situation Poland should be included in VWP.

The same with 1% who actually overstays, it would be still below hypothetical 3% threshold. The other conclusion from your hypothetical situation would be that US clerks are highly ineffective because with 10% refusal rate and 1% actual violations they would exclude 9 innocent people in 10. If that would be the case something should be done to increase their work effectiveness or fire them and get better ones ;-) After all it is not Poland who loses something but USA tourist industry. Well, I'm aware that this are peanuts but not long ago I saw some american guy on CNBC crying that they have great services but since USA become besieged fortress they are lossing bussiness. Your choice :-)

PS. I assumed that by:


You meaned 1% out of 100% visa applications NOT 1% out of 10% refusals.


The rate of exclusion is clear, above 3% refusal rate of visas. I have no problem with that threshold. I don't agree with the way refusal rate for Poles is made, which is a lucky guess of US clerks who don't have to support their decisions with anything. I think that their attitude originates in inertia and previous behaviour of Poles, but it has not much to do with current situation. I just feel sorry for people who paid a few hundred zlotys, went half of Poland and get 2 minute interview and refusal without any valid reason. I would say it is veery bad service.

ironside wrote:


right, and where does the percentage of refusals stem from??? oh, that's right. evil americans that have some mysterious reason to be utterly biased towards Poles.

ironside wrote:


you and I both know why countries like Lithuania are in the VWP. there are an estimated 10,000,000 Poles in the USA. that's 25% of Poland's population and TRIPLE the entire population of Lithuania.

ironside wrote:


which makes your argument as valid as mine. you have no data, neither do I, and the USA's policy on Poland still hasn't changed.

ironside wrote:


Yes, please. If you claim that the USA's decision to exclude Poland from the VWP is not valid due to lack of evidence, TELL ME what evidence would validate it? What kinds of numbers would make it valid? It's obvious that SOME number exists in your mind, otherwise you wouldn't request data!

round and round we go.

That is our question for you, because it seems that it is based on nothing but a lucky guess of US clerk.


Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy: MANIPULATION! I caught you! :-) You are certainly aware that Poles migrated to America the same way like any other European nation. You might as well complain that there are milions of Britons there... You also should be aware what was the aproximated number of illegal Poles in USA in 1996 because I gave you this number in another thread:

Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. - page 2


Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. - page 5

jwojcie wrote:


you caught nothing, hot shot. i brought that up to show just how easy it is for a pole to go to america and "get lost" among the polish community without even knowing a word of english. for a pole going to america and having plans of never coming back, it's a piece of cake, they have entire cities of polish people. as for a lithuanian? completely different.

Let's take a step back. Let's assume that the numbers you have are correct. 216 deportable Poles in 2009. The USA looks at that number and the result is a 10% tourist visa refusal rate.

So let's concentrate for now on the numbers we have: Is 216 a lot?

Yeah, and imagine how easy it is for Britons... but wait damn accent :-) Come one, you are a victim of Polish propaganda, from those 10 mln people of Polish origin small minority actually speaks the language. But let it be that it is easy for those who want to vanish. The issue is how many wants:


216 out of 133591 is about 0,16%, or to put it the other way 1 in about 618 Polish citizens in USA has a chance to become "deportable alien"... You have a better chance that you DNA test will be the same as a some murderer (which supposedly is 1 to 500).

So, based on above 216 is very low, I would say in neglible category. (PS. mind that 133591 is only a tourist visas, we should probably add other kind of visas which would bring our ratio even lower).

To asses it properly we can also make comparision with crime rate in USA. According to this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States


Even if those 216 are in those 7225800, they do not infulence much that 3.1% ratio.
3.1% is much more that 0.16% :-)

jwojcie wrote:



ok, so according to you, 216 is "negligible".

now, do you have data for how many Poles applied for a tourist visa in 2009?

Ehh... it seems that you don't read my posts at all... again:


for more data look into that link, page 83, table 28.

PS. now, when I look closer at this publication I see that in my calculation I should use rather page 74, table "NONIMMIGRANT ADMISSIONS (I-94 ONLY) BY REGION AND COUNTRY OF CITIZENSHIP: FISCAL YEARS 2000 TO 2009", for Poland 157116, which would bring aforementioned ratio to 0,14%.

Some of them born there, and the most of them aren't illegals !


I think that no more then 100 people per year overstaying their visa, now!


and who's fault it is ?My questions and doubts are perfectly justified, its you who is blindly defending US policy on the issue !

jwojcie wrote:


oh no? I'm reading what you just wrote and it's conveniently got "from Poland" written into it, something post #156 OR #148 did not include.

also, it is wrong to "suppose" that this number represents tourist visas only. many people go to the USA on business and go there on a business visa, something completely different from a tourist visa. if you work for a company and they want you to travel somewhere on business, the chances of that employee being refused a business visa to spend a week in the USA on business is slim to none. I have met many people over my 4 years of teaching here that went to the USA on a business visa.

jwojcie wrote:


Ok, I just found your 157,116. Now, if you're using I-94 stats, this would still include Business Visa. I'd like to know what the number is without business visas.

Just looked into the numbers a bit deeper.

for starters, your original number of 133,591, although inaccurate, is still closer to the real number than 157,116. 157,116 includes ALL visas given to Poles in 2009 which is not the number we are looking for.

Something I recently dug up:

travel.state.gov/pdf/MultiYearTableXIX.pdf

According to this table, in 2009, 69,714 Poles were given a non-immigrant visa in 2009. Why the discrepency? This is about half of 133,591. Could this number be B2 visas only? It doesn't say so because a B1 visa (business visa) is also non-immigrant status.

I'm still looking for the 2009 B2 visa statistics. Then we can discusss this further.

Well, we were talking about Poland aren't we? Besides those numbers are in publication I linked... I've added "from Poland" precisely because it hit me that maybe you didn't check that publication :-)


Both tourist and bussiness visas are under VWP program. Both can be violated. So I see no difference here regarding obtaining "illegal alien" status. Anyway most of data you can find in that link:

dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/yearbook.shtm

Among others you can find there:
Nonimmigrant Admissions
* Data tables (including supplemental tables):
dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/YrBk09NI.shtm
and in that:
Supplemental Table 1 Nonimmigrant Admissions (I-94 Only) by Class of Admission and Country of Citzenship: Fiscal Year 2009 (XLS, 163 KB)

Where there among various others is a category:

B2 Temporary visitors: for pleasure 107 752
Which the most probably stands for tourists. Regardless of my belief that in order to get proper ratio we should use whole admissions number, calculation with 107 752 gives about 0,2% ratio which is still very low...

***************************


Discrepancy can have two sources. One, that your source states:
"*FY2009 data is preliminary and is subject to change. Any changes would not be statistically significant.", whereas US HS data seems to be final (their publication is from August 2010). Secondly, isn't it the case that one can apply for a visa in any US embassy in the world? If so then I wouldn't be surprise that for example many applications were processed via London embassy, well that I must say is just a guess.

jwojcie wrote:


of course there's a difference. someone with nothing going for them that scrums up enough money to get themselves a tourist visa and a plane ticket to america is much more likely to become an illegal alien than somebody successful in business in Poland who gets a B1 visa from his/her company. common sense.

jwojcie wrote:


107,752. I still don't know where the discrepency comes from (69,714) but let's go with 107,000.

If 107,000 were given a tourist visa, that means that around 119,000 applied based on a 10% refusal rate, giving us 12,000 Poles that were denied a B2 visa.

We've already established that 216, according to you, is negligible. Consider this: What if Krakow/Warsaw was.........50% accurate in their denials. That would mean that they prevented 6,000 Poles from overstaying their visas.

Is that a lot?

That is the moment when we are back again when we started. Pure speculation. In the same manner I can ask such a question:
What if that Krakow/Warsaw was.........0,5% accurate in their denials? That would mean that they prevented almost 12000 innocent people from enjoying The States and robbed them from time and money at same time...

Is that a lot?

Well in my opinion that kind of argument is pointless... Personally I think that the whole idea of excluding from VWP based on refusals not factual overstaying/violation is plainly stupid from the start because refusal is a number from a thin air not from reality.

You know, I can always in speculation go into conspiracy theory area valid with any bureaucracy in the world like: "They need a high refusal rate in order to have a job and money from it"... But it is just another speculation... Frankly speaking it is a good question:

- where money from global visa issuance go? to US Department of State? I wonder how much in their budget visa money are... Just imagine globally milions of visas a year about 100$ each. We are getting into billions area here ;-) In Poland millions of $. Probably my fellow citizens are paying for US embassies in Poland simply by making visa applications, cunning americans ;-) Heh, one of the oldest way of making money, build a barrier on the bridge.

jwojcie wrote:


the number is 12,000. get the "speculation" fart out of your head for a minute and answer me this: Is the USA ok for denying 12,000 people from Poland if they ALL were going to overstay? What about 8,000? What about 6,000? 5,000?

This is NOT speculation, this is ME asking YOU a simple question based on the only numbers we have. YOU have no idea how many were planning on overstaying but a group of very well trained and educated consulars of the USA found 12,000 Poles, for whatever reason, "unfit" for travel and you don't like it. So, what numbers would be acceptable, ALL THINGS aside? The more you go on about speculation, the more you discredit your own discourse on the whole thing because that's all you have for the whole visa issue.....speculation.

If you ask me, if they are 50% accurate, the USA saves money. They still get your application fee and you don't go there and live illegally without paying any taxes into the system. Win-Win. Of the 50% that were legit, hell, how much were they really going to spend there anyway? Chances are they weren't even going to pay for a hotel, rather they'd end up staying with Uncle Pawel in Chicago or Aunt Joanna in Michigan. As for the ones with plenty of money, real estate and good jobs in Poland that plan on spending some cash when they visit, they almost ALWAYS get the tourist visa anyway. I've yet to meet an educated, financially successful Pole who was denied a B2 visa.

All kidding aside, I bet the cost of processing all those applications is likely about a hundred bucks. So not too much profit being made. Then if you forward all the "Profits" to the ICE department to follow up on those that overstayed, and the legal costs, and the border security costs, the profits are well and truly gone.

actually the number is 107752 * 9,8 % ~ 10560. The speculation is with your 50% effectiveness of refusals, don't pretend you don't know what I meant ;-)


Is it a moment I should start to laugh? This discussion has no end, I will only say that it is funny to observe when US citizens are complaing about quality of their gov with internal issues and at the same time they praise them on external ones which not directly concerns them. Excuse me my doubts, but every time when I see bureaucracy making decisions based on lucky guess red light starts to burning in my mind. That seems to be the case with visa issuance here. I perfectly understand that every sensible gov. in the world makes money on visas and I have no problem with that. But if that is the case then don't expect me to belief that VWP has anything to do with some artificial out of thin air threshold, when in fact it is a purely political decision.


In Poland alone money from visa are easily above 100 mln $. That is probably enough to pay for embassy here. I understand of course that those profits can go into cost in another department, but the thing is that it don't concerns State Deparment which has a direct influence on refusal rate simply by setting US clerks attitute toward applicants. As with every gov. one hand eats the other.

I don't claim to be a financial wizard, but with a $1.3 Trillion Budget deficit, it looks like the US is eating from more than it's own hands..... The $100 M income is but a drop in the bucket.

^^ as I said it was just another speculation theory.. But in more broader light money from visas are going into Bilion area globally. I can imagine that somewhere in Washington there is a bold accountant, who already lost a lot because of VWP, and now some people want him to give up another 100 mln $ or more... Some internal bureaucracy frictions can be in place here. On the one hand general deficit can be $1.3 trillion, but in practice every department has it own deficit, where those 100 mln $ can have a meaning.

Anyway, EOT from my side, I said what I wanted to say. Some numbers just don't add up, some are missing, and frankly I don't care about visa, I'm just angry when I read about some granny who cann't visit her grandchildren, I suppose exactly in the same way when some of you are angry because of some Pole who illegaly crossed US-Canadian border ;-)

Personally I was thinking about going to The States once when $ was so chip a couple of years back. I thought that maybe seeing Yellowstone or Grand Canyon would be cool thing to do on the vacation, but when I read that I would have to take a day off, go to Warsaw, stay in the long queue, pay 100$ and have 2 minutes with some clerk who can refuse me visa without any explanation I thought "f..k it, it is not worth it" and I went to Montenegro instead (great place btw.). Those visa thing make me just think that USA is kind of unfriendly place. Thats it.

It is a huge problem, but the budget deficit as a proportion of our GDP (both nominal and PPP) is not that much more (and is in fact less in many comparisons) than many western nations.

visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country

(I know that wasn't the point of your post, just mentioning it)

jwojcie wrote:


and yet, you still decided to avoid my question. i will not ask it again.

just keep in mind, if you cannot supply me with what you think is acceptable, you cannot complain about how you think it's not acceptable.

I am still at a loss why anybody voluntary would go to the USA? I do not need a visa but never ever would I consider to go there. That said and done...Poland is doing everything to please the USA...and you still need visa....

Don't come to Amerika, we are full and the life boat is about to capsize. Not to mention we are close to our next civil war.

Find an island where there is no large government and make yourself a nice home there.

Why would we Europeans voluntary would like to come to Hamburger Country? Getting humiliated at JFK by a border moron? Yes the Poles mysteriously still think going across the ocean is a kind of deliverance.

And washing the dishes in Chicago on a lousy tourist visa would be deliverance?
Sad.

you are the one avoiding questions fuzz !
Anyway, what kind of crooked thinking is that ?:


The point is you or nobody else can be certain who will overstay visa or who will not, and that is that ! Somebody guess taken as a success, because it is a hypothetical success!

What a messy way of thinking, its sick !Well, are you one of them? bureaucrats?
That would be an explanation !

jwojcie wrote:


The bottom line is this: none of you want to answer my questions because it puts you immediately in a pickle. If, for example, you could agree that say 50% accuracy is "sufficient" because "6,000 additional poles every year living illegally in the USA is a lot" then you know as well as I do that it would greatly tip the scales in this argument. You don't want to commit to saying that ANY percentage of the 12,000, whether it be 100%, 80%, 60%, etc. would justify the screening process because if it turned out to be true, if the screening process actually IS reasonably accurate, even 50% accurate.....well........then we wouldn't have anything to talk about, would we. Instead, based on what LIMITED evidence you have, you're putting all your cash on, 'Conspiracy Theory', which is fitting for this forum, it goes along with a lot of the other bullsh!t about the USA on PF.

So we now have two possibilities here folks:

1) Some percentage of 12,000 Poles last year (which means AT MOST, 0.0003% of Poland), wanted to leave their country due to reasons X, Y and Z to go to the USA, a country with the largest number of Poles in the world outside of Poland, a place where they can most certainly find a friend or family member to stay with when they arrive, speak no english and be perfectly fine, find work through whatever Polish community they live in that pays cash, and overstay their visa....

OR

2) The USA hates Poland and it's all a big conspiracy.

Cut the crap, it simply pisses you off that Poland is not in the VWP and you're fishing for ways to justify your frustration.

Polish mentality. USA is pleasing Poles by giving some a tourist visa but they don't return, so don't blame the US for it, blame the Poles who don't return like they are suppose to, ruining the chance for other Poles. Too many don't return, Chicago is overburdened by illegal Poles and there has to be a limit as to how many don't return, other nations who don't need a visa return to their country, but not Poles.

Yes, this has been pointed out many times, but głupi dont get it!


Very true!
There should be a hold on Polish Visas until some of these criminal Illegals can be rounded up and deported, its getting ridiculous here in chicago. They arent any different than Illegal Mexicans.


Exactly, The Brits dont need Visa`s because they have lives to go back to too! I feel sorry (kinda) for England after being invaded by the mass Polish exodus when they joined the EU.

How many threads have there been by Brits complaining about the Poles ruining the UK,,countless????

Im glad for US Visa restrictions! Maybe someday Poles will learn how to obey rules and laws, then they can be trusted to return when obligated,,,,, that never will happen lol

Blame your own dishonest countrymen like Tygrys stated:)

Exactly, Poles come to America and install their own rules instead of following the rules of this country, then they wonder why Americans don't like them. They are known as lazy drunks, they don't want to just work anywhere like cleaning toilets because "they are from Poland, they should get a better job than Americans". Women work as nanny's, clean "domki" or work in bars and guys do construction, but they are so bad at it that everything has to be redone over. They put switch plates in upside down, don't know how to use a blower, connect wiring wrong, etc, they know nothing about US construction but lie to get a job, then they get fired because of their inability and blame America for it. The illegal Poles are lowering the standards of construction, lowering rates causing hard working knowledgable Americans to lower their rates or push them into foreclosure.

The problem with Poles lies in that they will not return when visas will be dropped and they don't understand that they will not be able to adjust their status, or marry a US citizen to become legal because no lawyer will legalize such a viza and there will be an influx of illegal Polish citizens lowering the standards.