Day 169 - School Days

Image of student by Hossam el-Hamalawy,
via Flickr.com 

One group of Iranians who were very difficult to make decisions about were those who wanted to go to the U.S. to study. The first criteria any applicant had to meet was to overcome the presumption that they were intending immigrants. This was always difficult for students who were applying outside of their home country because of the length of time they would have to remain in the U.S. to complete their studies and because of the age of most prospective students. But for Iranians, it was always a mystery that they would choose to study in the U.S. if they didn't intend to stay. Why would a young adult select a school in the place that was the equivalent of the lion's den to spend 4 to 6 years if they intended to return to Iran at the end?

One applicant that was particularly troubling for me was a man I'll call Farhad. He planned to study nuclear physics. At the time, there were no stories in the media about Iran having a nuclear program, so that wasn't my concern. But the thought of what it might mean if he did study in the U.S. and then return to Iran was my concern. But instead of just denying his application on the basis that Farhad had not convinced me he intended to return to Iran at the conclusion of his studies, I kept asking him for more information. His case was the one that my boss used to help me understand I would never have all the relevant information and that was OK. It was the applicant's responsibility to make his case. If he didn't, then I should deny the visa.

Because we were interested in identifying any of the Iranians involved in the taking of the staff of the embassy in Tehran as hostages in 1979, we ran additional checks on Iranian applicants who were within the age range that the hostage takers would be. We also had to run the same additional name check on any Iranian who planned to attend university in the U.S. Instead of recognizing these checks as only applying in the case of an Iranian who appeared to be a good bet for a visa, I initially saw these checks as part of the process of gathering all available information. In Farhad's case, I ran the additional name check to see if that would give me the clear-cut reason to deny the visa. These name checks took several weeks to complete. In the end, I still had no more information about him than I had at the end of the first interview. My boss pointed out that my desire to gather every speck of information was unfair to the applicant because each additional question gave the applicant hope that he or she would get a visa. By spending so much time with this applicant, I was holding out hope to him which would make it harder for him to accept my refusal.

And that is just what happened. After Farhad had waited in Stuttgart for several weeks, I refused his application because I just wasn't comfortable with his plans. He was very unhappy. Several weeks later I saw him still in Stuttgart, probably looking for alternative student options.

Another case that eventually was revealed as a student case was a young man I will call Said who didn't bring a translator because his English was excellent, Said didn't plan to travel to the U.S. to study. He had already finished his university studies and was working. He wanted to travel to the U.S. to visit a family member. He was an exception to the rule in that he didn't pile on lots of other reasons. He just wanted to travel to see the family member.

I asked Said where he learned English because most Iranian prospective students had to attend an intensive English program before they could begin university studies. The fact that his English was excellent was very difficult to understand, especially since I had met a lot of Iranians by then, something Said couldn't possibly have known. Yet Said claimed he had never visited the United States. He claimed he learned English by listening to the BBC.

Said was quite convincing, but the normal name check revealed that there was additional information about him at the consular section in Vienna. I called Vienna and spoke with a consular officer there who said they had added the code for Said's name to indicate that they had requested the additional name check because of his prior years in the U.S. as a student.

So Said was lying to me.

Image by Dyanna Hyde, via Flickr.com

I called him back to the window to ask a few more questions, including whether he had ever applied for a U.S. visa anywhere else. Said said he hadn't. Again, I asked if he had ever traveled to the U.S. and again he insisted he hadn't. But when I told him I had information that he had not only applied for a visa in Vienna two days before, but also that he had been a student in the U.S. for six years, I saw something I don't think I had ever seen before: Said's face fell. He knew he had been caught in a lie. At that point, Said explained that he only had a month off work to travel and when the consular officer told him he would have to wait at least three weeks before he could get his visa because he had been a student in the U.S., he decided he would go to a different consulate and apply again, not admitting to his previous studies in the U.S. He assumed since he had been told he would get a visa in Vienna, but that he had to wait there, he would get a visa right away if he just hid his studies.

But since the consular officer in Vienna now knew Said was prepared to lie to get a visa, he said he would reconsider his decision if Said ever did come back for his visa.