{"id":302828,"date":"2017-03-18T16:23:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T16:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=302828"},"modified":"2017-03-18T16:23:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T16:23:05","slug":"ghana-among-countries-with-most-bounced-us-visa-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=302828","title":{"rendered":"Ghana among countries with most ‘bounced’ US visa applications"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ghana is among the countries with the highest United States visa application denial rates, according to the U.S. State Department.<\/p>\n

Ghana was among the 13 countries with a denial rate of over 60 percent according to figures from the 2015 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

The highest rates were found to be in African and Middle Eastern countries, including Syria and Somalia, whilst Cuba and Laos also had high denial rates.<\/p>\n

\"visa-denials\"<\/p>\n

The Visa acquisition process<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the Donald Trump administration’s attempted travel bans, the application process for a US visa can take up to 12 months, and they mostly end up in denials, per the figures.<\/p>\n

The typical process begins with the submission of the non-immigrant\u00a0visa application\u00a0online followed by the payment of the application fee\u00a0at a designated bank to sign up for an interview.<\/p>\n

The applicant has to have documents \u00a0to indicate a stable life and the unlikelihood of a visa overstay.<\/p>\n

This is followed by an interview\u00a0with a Foreign Service officer which can take up to four months to secure in some countries.<\/p>\n

The applicant’s information is\u00a0checked against American and foreign databases with officers from various U.S. agencies also conducting interviews and further research into one’s background.<\/p>\n

The Visa is then issued if everything is deemed satisfactory, though a successful applicant may undergo an additional round of\u00a0behind-the-scenes screening by American customs officers at the airport. Upon arrival, one may be questioned by customs officers\u00a0and may be screened again.<\/p>\n

Visa Waiver programme<\/strong><\/p>\n

Visitors from the 38 countries that are members of the visa-waiver programme don\u2019t follow all the steps above.<\/p>\n

But they still have to provide personal information to the American government before they can travel to the United States.<\/p>\n

There are however no African countries on this programme.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana with files from nytimes.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghana is among the countries with the highest United States visa application denial rates, according to the U.S. State Department. Ghana was among the 13 countries with a denial rate of over 60 percent according to figures from the 2015 fiscal year. The highest rates were found to be in African and Middle Eastern countries, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[3,5241,5242],"class_list":["post-302828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories","tag-ghana-news","tag-rejected-us-visa-application","tag-us-empassy-us-department-of-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}