- Hi, everyone. This is U.S. Immigration
Lawyer Michael Ashoori, and in this video, I'm
gonna give you five tips on how to get your B-1/B-2 visa. The B-1/B-2 visa is also
known as a visitor visa, and it can allow you to either enter to conduct various business activities or to act as a tourist. Another benefit of the B-1/B-2 visa is that it can oftentimes
allow you to stay in the United States for
up to six months at a time. Now that the consulates and
the embassies are starting to reopen, I wanna give you guys five tips on how to have success with
your B-1/B-2 visa application, so let's get started. Tip number one, make sure
that you have very strong ties to your home country. Now, let me explain what this means. When you go in for your
B-1/B-2 visa interview, the immigration officer
is required to presume that you are an intending immigrant. What that means is that they are required to initially believe that
you are planning to go to the United States and
to stay there permanently. It is your duty to show
them that you do plan to return to your home country. The way that you can show
that you plan to return to your home country is by
showing that you have strong ties to your home country. Some examples of strong
ties to your home country include showing that you
have a home or an apartment in your home country, showing
that you have a business in your home country or a
job in your home country, showing that you pay taxes
in your home country, that you have family in your home country, that you have a bank account
in your home country. All of these different
things can help to show that you have strong ties
to your home country. And when an immigration officer sees that, they're more likely to believe
that you do truly believe to return to your home country and that you're not planning on staying in the United States permanently. Tip number two, make sure
that you have enough money in your bank account to cover
the expenses of your trip. When you're in the United
States on a B-1/B-2 visa, you are not allowed to work. So when you go in for your
B-1/B-2 visa interview, the officer is going to
wanna make sure that you have enough money to cover
the expenses of your trip. Otherwise, they're going
to think that you're going to the United States to unlawfully work. So make sure to have documentation showing that you have enough
money in your bank account to cover the expenses of your trip. Now, if your trip expenses
are going to be very minimal because, for example,
you're going to be staying with a friend or family member, then be sure to have
documentation to prove that. Tip number three, make
sure to have documentation to prove the reason that you're coming to the United States. For example, if you're
coming to the United States to visit Disneyland, it would
be great to have an itinerary for what you're planning on
doing in the United States, perhaps having tickets
purchased for Disneyland or having a hotel booked in
Orlando, similar such documents. If you're planning on
coming to the United States to attend a business conference, you should have an invitation
for that conference or tickets booked for that conference. Those documents are gonna
be very helpful to prove that the reason that you're
coming to the United States is in fact to do that activity, that you're letting them
know that you plan to do. Tip number four, be prepared
to explain your relationships with people in the United States. During your B-1/B-2 visa
interview, they're going to ask you whether you have a
boyfriend or a girlfriend in the United States, or
whether you have a parent or a sibling or a child that
could potentially sponsor you for a green card. And the reason that they're
asking you this question is to determine whether you're
coming to the United States and that you plan to
stay in the United States and have them petition for
you to have a green card. So it's up to you to be
able to explain to them that although you're
entering the United States and that you have a
relationship with somebody that could potentially sponsor you, that that is not your plan. That, for example, if
you're in a relationship with somebody, that your
relationship is not serious to the point where you're
going to get married and that you're going to, you know, stay, or if it's a family member, that again, you're just planning on
coming for that conference or for that tourism purpose,
and that you're going to be leaving after that initial purpose of your trip is accomplished. Tip number five, last but
not least, be very careful about the information and the
content that's on your phone. Immigration officers, particularly Customs and Border Protection,
are known to check phones to search for potentially
problematic information. So you wanna make sure that
you have nothing on your phone that could potentially be misconstrued by an immigration officer to
think that you're planning on coming to the United States for some type of an impermissible purpose. So again, tip number five,
make sure that your phone doesn't have any sort of
problematic information that could potentially be misconstrued by an immigration officer. So just like I promised,
those are five tips to help you have a successful
outcome on your B-1/B-2 visa. I hope you guys found this
video extremely helpful. If you know anybody that could benefit from this information,
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for tuning in to this video, and I will see you on the next one.
