Hacker News Reader

Comment by t344344 | Hacker News Reader

> ridiculous US travel visa obtaining issues

Ridiculous? This is pretty common issue for anyone who travels to US. Visa may be denied for whatever reason and tough luck on appeal. I am EU citizen and had similar experience just for visiting Iran on tourist trip. Do not even ask about guys from India, Pakistan or less fortunate countries.

And it got even worse with pandemic. US required vaccination for very long time, long long after it was relevant. Maybe they still do, frankly I do not care to look at this point!

I think biggest WTF here is why international organization like Mozilla is organizing company wide meetup in US, and not in country with liberal visa entry policy such as Mexico!

View on HN

I applied for US travel visa as a citizen of Poland in 2012 and was denied travel due to "wrong type of visa". I was planning to visit my employer and spend 1-2 weeks traveling across the country. Apparently both business and travel visas were inappropriate for these purposes. To add, I was questioned in a US consulate/embassy (can't remember) in Warsaw by a person who repeatedly refused to speak in English, insisted on Polish and I, as a native Polish speaker, had issues understanding them. Poor experience.

This was not a case for Swedish citizens, which is mentioned at the beginning of Daniel's linked post. Sweden is a member of ESTA[1] and Daniel traveled to the US multiple times before being denied travel (with still valid ESTA) and only then applied for a visa.

[1] https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/

I believe that B1/B2 should work just fine for these purposes.

Probably you answered an officer (or airline worker) that you were gonna "work" there, not just visit your employer for an event?

Absolutely not. I had, and still have, my own small business in Poland and I was clear (in writing) that I am planning to visit my main client.

You mentioned both employer and client, are they the same?

Yeah. I treat one-man small business serving mainly one big client to be comparable. On paper it's B2B, in reality it's working for the client and if the client is small business' main source of income, it's pretty much an employment.

Differences, in Poland at least, are that small business owner in this scenario is not protected by employment laws (3-months notice layoff, max 3 months salary-equal damages liability etc) and uses company's (EU)VAT registration number instead of personal social security number equivalent (PESEL number). It eases abroad contract agreements, invoicing and allows serving more clients easily. Company existence can also be validated on EU VIES[1] website quickly.

In the visa case, I have of course used the "paper" phrasing as in reality I was, and am, only employed by my own small business.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/#/vat-validation

Ridiculous does not mean uncommon. Situations can be both common and ridiculous (absurd).

I'm American, but I have enough friends and family from other countries (my wife is an Iranian passport holder) to know what you're talking about and how difficult it can be.

While it’s true that US visa applications can be difficult, the same is true for any first-world country.

I was born in a third-world country, and ended up getting tourist visas to the EU, US, and Canada. US was by far the easiest - for me anyway.

If you want a large global meeting in a safe country (I would never in my life go to Mexico) there will be visa issues.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com