Section 214(b) of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Act does not have an appeals process.  This Section states that in order to qualify for a U.S. visa, an applicant must demonstrate to the satisfaction of the consular officer that s/he intends to return to his or her residence abroad after a short trip to the United States, and that the applicant will use the visa in accordance with U.S. laws while in the United States.  The applicant must show evidence that s/he has strong economic and social ties abroad, and that plans for the intended trip are credible.

Consular officers evaluate the totality of the circumstances of each and every visa case.  In addition, this and all visa denials are reviewed by a supervisory consular officer, who in this instance concurred with the interviewing officer’s decision.

Your denial is not a permanent ineligibility for a U.S. visa, and you are welcome to reapply in the future.  If you reapply, you will need to complete a new DS-160 application, pay the machine readable visa (MRV) fee, and schedule a new appointment.  However, please keep in mind that a new application is not a guarantee of visa issuance.

There is no restriction on the number of times a person may apply for a visa.  However, without additional evidence of social, familial, or economic ties that demonstrate you will comply with the terms of a U.S. visa and return to your home country following your visit to the United States, a second visa application and interview may result in the same decision.  It may be prudent to wait until your circumstances have changed and you can demonstrate stronger social, familial, or economic ties before reapplying.

Everyone who applies for a U.S. visa anywhere in the world must pay an application fee, which covers the cost of adjudicating the application.  As stated on the application form, this fee is non-refundable regardless of whether the visa is approved.  If your application was refused under Section 214(b) and you choose to reapply for a visa, whether at this Embassy or elsewhere, you will be required to pay the application fee again.

Additional information on visa denials is available here.

No.  Under U.S. law each applicant must qualify for a visa based on personal ties to his/her home country.  Therefore, a third party cannot vouch for an applicant by word or deed in such a way as to guarantee visa issuance.

Yes.  U.S. visas in expired passports are valid, provided you travel with both the expired passport and a valid passport of the same nationality.  Note: If, when canceling an old passport, an immigration official damages the U.S. visa in any way (e.g. clips the corners), that visa is no longer valid and cannot be used for travel to the United States. 

EXCEPTION:  A visa becomes automatically invalid if it is inside a passport that has been reported lost or stolen.  If you later find a passport that you previously reported lost to the Israeli Ministry of the Interior or to the U.S. Embassy, both the visa and the passport remain invalid.  In this case, you must submit a new application with your new passport. 

If your visa has been damaged in any way, it is not valid for travel and you need to submit a new application.  There is no automatic re-issuance process: you must be found qualified for a visa each time you apply, regardless of whether you previously possessed a valid visa.  

If your passport containing a U.S. visa is lost or stolen, you should report the incident to the U.S. Embassy.

• If you do not intend to apply for a visa, but only need to report the loss or theft of your passport that contained a U.S. visa, email jerusalemniv@state.gov for U.S. Embassy Jerusalem or nivtelaviv@state.gov for Branch Office Tel Aviv. Please have the following information:

• • A police report documenting the loss/theft
  • A completed Lost or Stolen visa (PDF 470kb) report (one per person)
  • A valid government-issued ID

• If you plan to apply for a new visa, please follow the standard application procedure and report the loss or theft of your previous visa at interview.

Please check your visa as soon as you receive it to ensure that all biographic information matches the information in your passport.  Mistakes will be corrected free of charge if you notify us before you use the visa for travel or, if you have no immediate travel plans, within one year of the visa’s issuance date.  If you have already used your visa for travel, or a year has passed since your visa was issued, you need to submit a new application.  To notify us of errors, send an email to JerusalemNIV@state.gov for U.S. Embassy Jerusalem or NIVTelaviv@state.gov for Branch Office Tel Aviv with a scanned copy of the visa.

Abandonment of Legal Permanent Resident Status

Any individual with Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status may file Form I-407 to formally abandon LPR status.

You should send the I-407 by mail to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
and include your signed I-407 form, the Green Card (Form I-551, Permanent Resident Card), a self-addressed stamped envelope, and a cover letter explaining your intent to abandon your LPR status.

Please show the copy of the I-407 to U.S. immigration officials when you arrive in the U.S. and mail a copy to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.  Abandoning your LPR status does not prevent you from immigrating to the U.S. in the future and may not relieve you of U.S. tax obligations.  We advise you to consult with a tax attorney about your tax obligations.  If you wish to immigrate to the U.S. in the future, please contact USCIS.

Israeli citizens do not require passports to be valid for six months beyond the intended length of stay in the United States, but the passport must be valid for the duration of your stay.

Travelers with Palestinian Authority or Jordanian-issued passports do require passports to be valid for six months beyond the intended length of stay in the United States.

Note: The Department of State acknowledges the International Civil Aviation Authority Organization (ICAO) deadline, requiring all travelers have a machine readable passport by November 24, 2015.  Please note that under U.S. law a machine readable passport is NOT required for visa issuing purposes. So long as an applicant presents a valid passport, a visa can be placed in it.

Foreign visitors to the U.S. arriving via air or sea no longer need to complete paper Customs and Border Protection Form I-94 or I-94W.  The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency of the Department of Homeland Security now gathers travelers’ arrival/departure information automatically from their electronic travel records.  Because advance information is only transmitted for air and sea travelers, CBP will still issue a paper form I-94 at land border ports of entry.

If you returned home with a Form I-94 (white) or Form I-94-W(green), it is possible that your departure was not recorded properly.  If this is the case, you should send it, along with any documentation that proves you left the United States to one of the following addresses:

By U. S. Postal Service:
Coleman Data Solutions
Box 7965
Akron, OH 44306
Attn: NIDPS (I-94)

By FedEx or UPS:
Coleman Data Solutions
3043 Sanitarium Road, Suite 2
Akron, OH 44312
Attn: NIDPS (I-94)

Please do not mail your departure Form I-94 or supporting information to any Consulate or Embassy, to any other DHS CBP office in the United States, or to any address other than the one above.  Only at this location is CBP able to make the necessary corrections to its records to prevent inconvenience to the traveler in the future.

For more information and for answers to frequently asked questions, see the I-94 Fact Sheet.

The CBP INFO Center offers questions and answers for I-94.

If you have been found inadmissible under Section 212(a)(9)(A) or (C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) you can submit an I-212 permission to reapply as per the instructions on the website of the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services.

All L1 beneficiaries covered under a blanket petition are required to pay a $500 Fraud Prevention and Detection fee.

If the petitioning employer has more than 50 employees in the United States, more than 50% of whom are on H1B or L status, there is an additional $4500 fee.

The fees are payable only the Embassy’s cashier upon the interview and are accepted only in cash. These fees must be paid whether or not a visa is issued.

L-2 derivatives are not subject to the fee.

These one-time fees are associated with an I-129S: re-issuance based on the same I-129S of a visa that was lost/stolen/expired within the I-129S validity period will not incur repayment.  Subsequent L-1 visa applications based on a new I-129S are subject to the fees.