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Comment by paraschopra | Hacker News Reader

I will tell another personal experience. I am based out of India and have been invited to speak at a conference in San Francisco. I applied for a business visa and was denied that visa because apparently I am young (23) and they have not heard about my startup (it is of course not an IT service giant like Infosys, TCS or Wipro) or conference (it's about A/B testing). Mind you: my startup is doing quite well financially and we pay regular taxes (had all relevant documents to prove it). Getting a simple business visa for US is so hard that from multiple sources I heard that founders of a lot of VC funded startups (with more than million $ in bank) in India many times don't get a US visa if they need to setup a sales team there or be there for some business purpose. Is doing business in US for foreign startups really this hard or I am an outlier?

It's, of course, frustrating and I don't know what to do about it.

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My experiences have been as bad too..I am an Indian citizen and came to the US for graduate studies about 3 years back. Immediately after graduation,I was supposed to join a reputed company but due to some administrative glitch by the USCIS, it took me 6 months to get the required work authorization. I was barely able to convince the company to hold my job. Those were the most harrowing days. I came to India this December for vacation and my work visa application has been again kept on hold status since the past 2 months and I am struck here. I am again on the verge of losing my job. The worst part of all this is, the administration at no point does seem to care about letting people know what causes the hold up and the estimated time for it to get resolved. The lack of transperancy is so frustrating. Each day you just pray that you will get some update from them. And I am not alone, I know atleast 5-6 persons who have been held up for some reason or the other at this time. I really like life in the US and the opportunities it provides, but now I am seriously contemplating if all this is worth it.

It is worth it. Good luck!

You're just too much of a flight risk - they see you as having too little at stake in India. I've had some friends have similar issues (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=851287). I myself returned to India after 8 years in the states partly because it was practically impossible to start my own business without a green card, aka 4 years of indentured servitude.

For future reference: Try to show assets you own (real estate, homes etc) that incentivize your return; Bring literature about your conference, maybe ads etc (they need to see that its purpose is not an immigration scam); if you're married or have kids, that helps a great deal. Good luck!

Thanks for your comment. I brought a lot of documents with me during visa interview but didn't they see a single document. It's true I am unmarried but getting married just to get a US visa is too much to ask for :)

I am from Belarus. When I tried to apply for business visa to visit company doing me an offer, i was also denied. I had bunch of documents with me with assests, etc, but officer just took a look at application and refused issue of visa. So probably, from countries like mine if you are young and do not have kids, it's quite hard to get visa.

The right way to go about it is get a good lawyer to represent you. It seems like an overkill but sounds like you can afford it. My valid visa case was rejected by INS and I was asked to go through a number of hoops because the lawyer had entered information in a different format. I changed lawyers and it made a sea of difference. Learnt the lesson that never skimp on lawyers. Try talking to Aron Finklestein or Alisa Klein at http://www.murthy.com/attprofi.html. They charge 200$ for a 20 min consult and will tell you what to do exactly. I was not sure if 20 mins would be enough to explain my complex case but 20 mins is all it took for them to come up with a strategy. Best of luck.

Do you truly need a business visa just to enter the US in order to speak at a conference, for a visit likely lasting no more than a few days?

Yes. How else am I supposed to enter the US?

We don't have some kind of tourist visa?

(Ignorant American here)

Only if you come from one of these countries:

http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html#...

or a few miscellaneous others (Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, etc).

Ah, thanks. I am embarrassingly un-travelled.

No, you're actually right. The comment above links to a list of visa-waiver countries, whose citizens automatically get a 3-month (IIRC) visa on entry to the US. Tourist visas are NOT limited to these nations, it just means that if you're from another country (like me) you need to get in before you leave to the US.

OP's original statement that he requires a business visa to attend & speak in a conference is just ridiculous.

The B-1 Visa is a Business and Pleasure visa.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1262.html

Unfortunately, it appears that India is among the countries hit particularly hard. Anecdotally, it is noticeably harder for an Indian to get a US visa (business or visitor's) than an average foreigner (from a country where a US visa is required).

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