Immigration Corner | I was banned from the US for five years

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

My visa was cancelled and I was given a five-year ban from the US. The US immigration said I was working in their country, and as a result they took away my visa.

Can I apply for a waiver now?

Thanks.

ID

Dear ID,

Let me start out by reminding you and the readers that no one is entitled to a US visa. It is a privilege and there is no right to a visa – renewal or first issuance.

If you are fortunate enough to have acquired a US visa, that visa can be revoked at any time and for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons are linked to your conduct in your home country and some linked to your conduct in America.

It appears that your usage of your US visa may have led a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer at a US port of entry to determine that you were working in the US and revoked your visa. Or it could be that your cell phone was searched and information found led the CBP officer to form the belief that you worked in the US without authorisation. A person on a visitor’s visa is not permitted to work in exchange for compensation.

When a visa is revoked at the point of entry, the immigrant is banned from applying for a visa for five years and would need to file a special application; in essence, request permission to apply for a visa before those five years are up. Additionally, you would need a non-immigrant visa waiver to overcome your inadmissibility (even after five years) for the reason that your non-immigrant visa was cancelled in the first place (working without authorisation).

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq, is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises Immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a diversity and inclusion consultant, mediator, and former special magistrate and hearing Officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com