Comment by outworlder
10 years ago
Agreed, but be careful. * Do not lie to immigration officials, ever! * I can't stress this enough.
"Attending a conference" would have been true. The fact that she was a speaker as well is additional information that she could disclose if asked.
"A short vacation" could work, but beware. Depending on the country, this could get a flight back very quickly. Taking the US as an example: there's a "tourism" visa, and there's a "business", which includes attending conferences. For convenience, they have been issuing both at the same time if you ask for it on your application. However, if you only have the "tourism" visa, and it turns out that you are doing non-touristic activities at any time (such as going to a conference) and you don't have the required visa for that, you will be turned back.
As for the letter of invitation, if things are going smoothly, then it is not needed. If things start to look like they aren't going so well, then you pull out the letter of invitation.
Any information you volunteer opens new avenues for questioning. At some point you might be misinterpreted or be asked follow up questions that you don't recall. That never helps.
I don't wish this sort of experience to anyone. But the thing is, she's complaining as if the UK was an outlier. Her country does the same things, only worse.
Disclaimer: My views may be biased, but they are from experience.
Spent 4 hours to go through japanese immigration once - with my uncle, who is a citizen, in the next room(which I couldn't see) to check my answers. Were it not for him, I would have been sent back for sure.
Several US visas issued in the last few years, no rejections. No issues per se, other than navigating the amount of paperwork required (and double, triple, quadruple checking any information before submitting) and the required traveling. There's also the research required to make damn sure I was complying with all requirements.
Spent some time in a "yellow room" at the Atlanta port of entry. Consulate had messed up my fingerprints.
Went through immigration through Portugal a few times. No issues, even if they had to double check my info.
All good points.
If you say "here for a quick vacation", then they search your belongings and find an agenda for a conference or business papers, you can be sure you'll be denied entry.
Exactly. And that's not theoretical.
In Japan they did just that (after a few hours had passed already). They asked for some document (don't remember what), I pulled it from something similar to a file folder and handed to them. Was then asked to leave everything in the room and escorted back.
They found a list of phone numbers and addresses and asked what those were. They were for Prometric test centers. I was trying to get a Compaq certification at a time, Had already done two tests, was missing the third. I couldn't wait until after I came back from vacation due to a deadline, so had to take the third one there. Had to explain all this in Portuguese to a Spanish translator, to get that translated to Japanese.
I'm still amazed that they let me in. Took the test in Tokyo. Then HP bought Compaq. Poof the certification went.
I was even asked if I was religious. I had this postcard with a christian theme from my grandma to my aunt.
"Taking the US as an example: there's a "tourism" visa, and there's a "business", which includes attending conferences. "
No one will check you visa at the conference. So, while not lying about it, there is no reason to be open about it either since you will never get "caught".