While the number of people applying for U.S. visas has soared, visa approval rates have fallen sharply across the board. (Fotolia)
[The Epoch Times, July 29, 2023](Epoch Times reporter Xue Mingzhu interviewed and reported) Three years after the epidemic, both the social environment in China and the social environment in the United States have undergone great changes; especially in China, The cultural revolution in the political environment and the overall degradation of the economic environment have caused more and more Chinese people to leave their hometowns. Those who have money emigrate, and those who have no money go online.
However, with the deterioration of Sino-U.S. relations and the confrontation as a foregone conclusion, what changes are there in the prospects of Chinese visas and immigration to the United States?
A few days ago, immigration lawyers Zhou Mei and Cai Jingming, as well as current affairs commentator Lan Shu, shared their views with The Epoch Times reporter on the status quo and prospects of Chinese visas and immigration to the United States.
The number of visa applications has soared, and the visa approval rate has dropped sharply across the board
Lawyer Cai Jingming mainly handles L1 visa, which is a non-immigrant work visa, suitable for executives or full-time personnel of multinational companies.
He said that compared with before the epidemic, the number of cases he accepts for L1 visa applications has increased by 20% to 30%.
However, Lawyer Cai said: “Compared to when Trump was in power, during the Biden era, business visas for senior executives of multinational companies have been tightened.”
He used to think that there should be no problem with the cases that he believed to be very sure, but now he has to submit supplementary materials repeatedly, and even be rejected by the Immigration Bureau; and these cases “completely meet the standards and meet the legal requirements”, but the Immigration Bureau just refuses to approve them. Shi refused for no reason at all. Lawyer Cai said, “This is a phenomenon.”
Coincidentally, lawyer Zhou Mei is in charge of handling various visas. She also said: “Chinese people are going abroad very quickly. The US government may be a little scared and is curbing visas.”
Now Chinese people apply for US tourist visas, and the pass rate is only 15% to 20%. Before the epidemic, the pass rate of tourist visas was as high as 70% to 80%.
Moreover, not only tourist visas have been reduced, but all visas have been tightened across the board.
Lawyer Zhou gave an example, such as student visas, which were relatively easy to pass in the past. Even during the epidemic, the CCP closed the customs, and some people went to Singapore and Ecuador with visas, and they were successfully signed into the United States.
But now, 80% to 90% of the student visas are not approved. Even if you go to Singapore and other places to apply for a visa, you will not be able to get it.
Attorney Zhou also mentioned the L1 visa, which was very easy to get in the past.
But now, one of Lawyer Zhou’s clients is the general manager of a restaurant in San Francisco. He has already obtained the green card qualification, but he is just waiting for the green card. He has signed a similar work visa before. I have been waiting in China for 8 weeks, “just to examine him and not give him a visa.”
Attorney Zhou sighed, “There are more and more cases like this.”
Just a few days ago, an L1 visa client of Lawyer Zhou told Lawyer Zhou: “The U.S. Guangzhou Consulate has run out of L1 visa quotas, and will not issue L1 visas within two months.”
Another client of Lawyer Zhou has already been approved by the US Immigration Service; however, he has to go to the US Consulate in Canada to apply for a visa. He told Lawyer Zhou: “The US Consulate in Singapore and mainland China are not considered.”
China’s economic outlook is one of the reasons
Lawyer Zhou said that the reason why the United States curbs Chinese visas is related to China’s three-year epidemic blockade and severe economic deterioration.
Two days ago, the general manager of a listed company jokingly said to Lawyer Zhou: “China’s economy is rotten to the bottom, and Deng Xiaoping can’t save it even if he crawls out of the grave.”
Before the epidemic, Lawyer Zhou had many clients with very good financial conditions and a net worth of tens of millions of RMB in China.
However, the three-year closure of the city by the epidemic has ruined the fortunes of these customers, especially those who are in the catering industry.
Lawyer Zhou said that one owner may have had two large restaurants, because during the epidemic period, he had to pay the rent and pay the employees, and he went bankrupt after the epidemic.
“I have lost tens of millions of dollars, and now I am telling me that I want to come to the United States to work as a nanny; I have met four or five such people.” Lawyer Zhou said.
Lawyer Zhou said that China’s economy is bad, and the U.S. government is afraid that Chinese people will use tourist visas to come to the U.S. to work and immigrate. “Americans know that there are not many Chinese people who really want to travel. All visas have become very difficult.”
Current affairs commentator: The reduction of visas to the United States is just the beginning
Current affairs commentator Lan Shu is an expert on China issues. He believes that one of the reasons for the large number of visa refusals in the United States is related to the fact that the CCP is going further and further down the road of totalitarian rule.
He said that the CCP has long used various people, including students, businessmen, scholars, company executives, etc., as spies, using so-called academic exchanges as a cover to wantonly steal American scientific and technological achievements.
Among them, the most typical example is the CCP’s military-civilian integration plan.
In 2015, Xi Jinping personally ordered Tsinghua University to study the military-civilian integration plans of the United States, Japan, Israel and other countries; and in January 2017, the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China formally established the Military-civilian Integration Office. military-civilian fusion.
The military-civilian integration plan of Western countries is to apply the high-tech and sophisticated technology used by the military to private enterprises and serve the society.
The CCP’s military-civilian integration plan is just the opposite. It conducts so-called “exchanges and cooperation” with universities, large companies, and scientific research institutions in Western countries under various names through Chinese universities, large companies, scientific research institutions, and private enterprises. Advanced Western technology is provided to the CCP military to develop high-tech military weapons such as rockets, spacecraft, and aircraft carriers.
Lan Shu said that what the CCP has done in the West has aroused general resentment and vigilance in Western countries.
In this general environment, Western countries, especially the US government, are getting more and more stuck on various visas for the CCP.
As for what changes will happen to the US visas to China in the future, Lan Shu said that, to a large extent, it depends on how far the CCP will go on this political line of turning left.
If the CCP continues on this road, it is very likely that China will be the same as North Korea and Cuba on the issue of visas to the United States. U.S. visa reduction), is just the beginning.”
According to media reports, according to the 2022 visa data released by the US State Department, in terms of the total number of visas, visas from all countries to the United States have basically returned to the level before the epidemic.
However, the data on Chinese visas to the United States is appalling. The total number of non-immigrant visas approved by the Beijing embassy, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenyang consulates was only a little over 120,000, while the total number of non-immigrant visas approved in 2019 before the epidemic was as high as 1.21 million Said: 2022 is only 10% of 2019, and a large number of visas have been refused. ◇
Responsible Editor: Song Jiayi#
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2023-07-29 17:00:00
