What Does a Visa Refusal Under Section 221(g) Mean?

What is a 221(g) and what can be done in that circumstance?

So 221(g) is a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act and it provides that, if the State Department when you have your interview at the embassy, if they're not convinced that you meet the criteria to get the green card, they can give you, I'll call it a "tentative denial", okay? It doesn't mean you're not going to get the green card. It could mean like you have, they don't think you've submitted enough evidence, it could mean that they think that there's something that you've done that you might not be eligible for the green card, but they're not giving you a final denial. They're going to give you some paperwork in the mail later and they're going usually you have up to a year, although who wants to wait a year, but you have up to a year to respond.

And if you can provide the additional paperwork that they don't have, like, let's say you need police clearances for every country you've been in for more than 190 days. So you've been in the Philippines, you have that police clearance, but you've also worked in Ireland for nine months, and you didn't bring the police check with you, where you may get a 221G denial, but it's a tentative denial. They're they're not they're not saying you can't get a green card. They're saying, we need more evidence that you didn't commit any crimes when you were in Ireland. And when you give that to us, then we'll give you the green card. But there's many, many reasons that you know, people get the 221 denials. And in some cases, we've we've not with nurses, thank God, but I've had people especially during the last administration in Muslim majority countries, that they're doing background checks to make sure that they're not a terrorist or something like that. And they call me and it's been nine months since their interview at the embassy. And you know, we make an inquiry if we don't hear back we go to federal court, and we sue and then they usually clear it up very quickly and give them the green card.