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If you believe that a U.S. immigration officer may not be eager to let you into the USA on your upcoming trip, you need to educate yourself so that you can protect your interests during that process, which is formally called "Inspection".
Inspection allows an immigration officer to determine whether an "alien" (i.e. a foreign national) may lawfully enter the United States. (The word "alien" simply means "foreign", e.g. an "alien concept".) U.S. Immigration laws have long required that aliens be inspected before they can land in or enter the USA, and that prohibited aliens were to be stopped and returned to the countries from which they came. Simple.
In order to lawfully enter the USA, you must apply and present yourself in person for inspection by a U.S. Customs & Border Protection officer at a U.S. port of entry. When you do so, you are an "applicant for admission" to the U.S. Through the inspection process, the CBP officer determines whether you are admissible and may enter the USA pursuant to U.S. immigration law.
During inspection, the you must:
a. Present all required documentation, including fingerprints, photographs, other biometric identifiers, documentation to support your request for a specific "Status" in the USA, (e.g. "B-2 Tourist Status" or "F-1 Student Status"), and any other requested evidence to determine your identity and eligibility for admission; and
b. Establish that you are not subject to removal (i.e. deportation) under U.S. immigration laws, Executive Orders, or Presidential Proclamations.
Various Inspection Outcomes:
The inspection process normally ends with one of the following outcomes, which are listed in order from most ideal to least ideal:
1. You are ADMITTED into the USA;
2. You are PAROLED into the USA;
3. The officer allows you to WITHDRAW your APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION and immediately depart the USA;
4. The officer DEFERS the INSPECTION to a later time at either the same or another CBP office (or port of entry); or
5. The officer DENIES you admission to the USA.
Technically, you are not permitted to have a lawyer with you during the inspection process. However, there have been cases where aliens arranged for their attorneys to accompany them at the time of travel, and U.S. CBP has allowed those lawyers to be present for the inspection process.
Since you likely won't have a lawyer, it is important that you be able to assert why you should receive a better outcome than the CBP officer appears poised to reach. In other words, the CBP officer may be prepared to deny you admission to the USA [#5 on the list] unless the you persuade the officer to let you withdraw your application for admission [#3 on the list]. The difference in those two outcomes can be colossal for you, and it may be worth imploring the officer to let you withdraw your application for admission rather than being denied entry to the USA.
If you withdraw your application for admission (which basically means that you changed your mind during your journey to the USA and now want to turn around and return home), you will not be prevented from returning to the U.S. in the near future, not even for a short period of time. However, this can easily not be the case if you're denied entry by the officer. In fact, you may be barred from returning to the U.S. for several years.
The officer may incorrectly tell you that a denial will have no consequences for you, which is why you need to educate yourself in advance of that meeting. There is something else to consider: being denied entry can cause you problems when you apply for visas to visit other countries in the future, countries such as Canada, which have electronic access to adverse immigration decisions against you in the U.S., such as denials and withdrawals of applications for admission. This means that by landing yourself in hot water during a critical interview with a CBP officer, you may be preventing yourself from being able to get a Canadian visa, even decades into the future.
If you're worried about these issues, speak to a U.S. immigration lawyer before booking travel to the U.S. You can contact this law firm by calling (888)354-6257 or (201)875-2600.
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