FLORIDA DREAM IS NOW OVER

This is going to be a very long and drawn out story but I don’t think anyone could form a real opinion of it unless I include everything from start to finish.I originally applied for an L visa in 2002 to transfer from my UK Company “SH CPI LTD” to my new US Company “CANNOT GIVE NAME AT PRESENT”. I did the premium processing for the 15 day turn around but they came back requiring more information.

It then took 12 months to receive an approval notice. During all the waiting period, I did not visit the US to make any efforts to start this business. I did not want to risk doing something that would jeopardize the visa. Within the application I had stated that the company would use sub contractors for virtually all the necessary works for the first 12 months and that when the visa was renewed for the following 2 years, I would bring all the work in house directly for the company.

This would mean employing people directly for the Company and purchasing trucks and phones to go with it.The visa was approved on 28 October 2003 for 12 months. However, I never received the notice of approval. After much aggravation with my Immigration Attorney over the next 3 months due to him telling me I had to apply for a duplicate and wait another 10 months, I decided to e mail the premium processing center as a last and hopeful resort. They came straight back to me and issued another approval notice.

Wow, success at last you think. Not quite, I received it 2 weeks later dated 28 February 2004 to run until 27 October 2004. By the time I had booked flights, organized all our belongings to be sent over and gone over to organize the office, I had lost another month. This left me ONLY 7 months to build the business and prove it was worthy of a visa renewal for 2 years. At this point I had sold everything in the UK (house, furniture & cars) to finance the Florida venture. Here is one of the good parts to the story. I acquired no less than 45 contracts in the first 6 months which is phenomenal when you consider that most Mgt Co’s run about 15 to 35 properties. I was employing at least 7 people albeit as sub contractors. Plus, there were the other non specific sub contractors that were being employed. I had the business booming. This should have proved that I was doing the job I had transferred to do.

Grow the business and create employment. The L visa renewal was sent in on time with all the relevant documents. I thought it would be a formality. Wrong again. The L visa renewal was denied. I could not believe it. Part of the reason given was that I was not employing anyone directly for the Company. This begs the question of why I was issued one in the first place as I had clearly stated the intentions of the building and growth of the Company in the original application. I appealed the decision and it was denied again. At this point it was sent to Washington from Texas for review. I was advised by our Immigration Attorney that it would probably take 12 to 18 months to get back and that it is very rare that they overturn a decision. I asked what my next step should be.The US Immigration Authorities do not have anything within their system that allows them (not that they want to) to treat each case on its individual merits. If they are not quite happy about a couple of things that you are doing within your business, why don’t they just point these things out and explain that you will not receive another renewal if you do not put these things in place? But they don’t, they just deny and there is no door you can knock on to discuss the situation.

This was clearly a business that was growing quickly and was bound to employ more people within the Community. Also, at the end of the day, I did not receive my first 12 months visa in full.My immigration Attorney said I could apply for another L visa while the first was under appeal. She said it was totally legal. The authorities sent it back telling us this was not allowed (minus my $1000 premium processing fee). I asked what the next step was and was informed that I could apply for an E2 visa whilst waiting for the original L renewal to run its appeal course. At this point I assumed (and nobody told me otherwise) that I could continue to work and grow my business until the L visa appeal was over. I could not have been more wrong. I was informed by my Immigration Attorney 5 months after the denial and at 2 week’s notice that I was approaching 180 days over and after the L visa renewal denial date. I was told that I had to depart the US before this date or I would be in violation of US Immigration regulations.

Wow!! I decided that I did not want to become an illegal in the US and was still convinced that everything would be sorted out as I had a great business that was still growing at a great rate and providing work for plenty of people. There was nothing marginal about it. I decided to bring in a manager on a 1099 to look after things. I could still use my lap top and talk to new clients and organize things that way. However, my children had now settled well in school and I really did not want to disturb them whilst waiting for my visa to be sorted (thinking it would only be a matter of a couple of months). This is probably the only thing I did wrong (the school thing). We decided to fly back and forth so as not to overstay our legal status and keep the children in school. This also gave me a chance to keep my eye on the business and protect my interests. At the end of the day, there is only one person that really cares about a business and that is the owner. I spent most of my time speaking to new UK clients on my lap top and doing website work. This was obviously something that I could do from anywhere and I would have been doing if I had been in the UK. I also did a year’s work for another UK Company during the whole of 2005 (UK tax return to prove this).It took 6 months before the E2 visa package was opened and then it came back asking for more information.

I could not believe the time lapses between correspondence and why I was being given so many obstacles to cross as my business was still growing and employing more people all the time. I kept meeting other people who had much smaller businesses (small pool, lawn, pest, management, flower, embroidery businesses) and employing nobody that were all being given E visas on very marginal businesses. I had also met people with L visas that were given renewals on businesses that were not doing anything but allowing someone to live in Florida. I was convinced that it would only be a matter of time before I was approved and issued mine. How wrong could I be? At this point the business had been running for approximately 18 months and it now had 80 contracts (anyone involved in vacation property management will know that this is an unbelievable growth rate).It was obvious to me as a business man that by the time my visa would come through that I would need to step up to another level and take charge of the growth of the company completely on its own. It was also obvious that I would need a manager that cared more about the business than just employing a manager who had no vested interest in the business.

I needed someone that would be a partner in the business and care about the management service level. There was only one person I could think of that I could trust and new would do the job properly and with the conscientious care required and that was my brother. Therefore, when my information went back to the authorities, my brother was added to the application as an investor. We decided to send absolutely everything from the business so there would be no more delays through asking for more information. This turned out to be an even bigger mistake. The US authorities in London sent the package back 3 times unopened stating that we had sent too much info. On each occasion it took around 3 months. On each occasion the info was stripped down to make a smaller package. This was another reason for having to be there as I had to keep going into the business records to photocopy all the info that the Immigration required. This alone was turning into a full time effort.

By the time they opened the package it had been stripped down to the bare bones. I think they finally acknowledged opening the package in August 2006. By this time the company had its own pool cleaner + company truck & phone, its own full time maintenance man + company truck & phone and still had the manager in place. The company had approximately 15 people working for it either on W2’s or 1099’s, paying wages of over $250,000 per year. To sum this company up in terms of what it is doing for the area and the economy:1) It brings in to the US from the UK around $500,000 per year contributing to the US and local economy2) It pays out in wages of around $250,000 per year contributing to local economy by providing work for people in the community3) It pays out around $72500 per year on vehicles, insurance, tags, gas, office supplies, phones etc, contributing to the local economy, US vehicle sales and other national and local businesses4) It sponsors local children’s sports5) It contributes to cancer research6) It brings in US visitors to the Disney area in rentals that the company creates to the properties of around $400,000 per year plus all the money these vacationers spend whilst they are here within the local community (at such places like Disney, Universal, Local Restaurants and other food outlets, supermarkets, gas stations, clothing outlets and many more local businesses).Once again, the US Immigration Authorities do not have anything in place to help or deal with this kind of situation.

Apart from not having anything in the system, they probably just don’t have the resources or/and qualified resources to cope. This does not help the likes of myself and probably many others. Investment and job creation in any area is very important and should not be dismissed very lightly.THE INTERVIEW AT THE US CONSULATE 19 APRIL 2007Prior to travelling to the interview, we had asked if there was any specific information or anything else that was required for the interview. The answer was that no other information would be required apart from what was in their previous e mail asking for a number of items including some up to date documents. We brought everything they asked for with us. I even took extra info like the full 80 contracts and power of attorneys to prove these things were in place.The appointment was set for 10.30am. We arrived at 9.45am and were admitted into the Embassy. By 10.45am we were asked to a window where we were asked to remove all our paperwork from a binder which was all tagged so that it was easy to read so that you could go to each item you would want to view. The papers were now just all in a disorderly pile. Our ID and scanned prints were dealt with and we were given a number (280) to wait to be called.

We were free from the window at 11.00am. At 3.00pm (4 hours later) it was looking like we had been forgotten as all the 200’s numbers were being dealt with at window 19 and they had gone well into the 300’s by now. I went back to the original window and asked the question. The young lady went away to find out what had happened. She came back 5 minutes later and told me we would be dealt with next. At 4.00pm, an hour later, I went to another window for re assurance as most of the windows were now closed and there were only a few people left in the building and the last few numbers (598, 599 and 600) were being called. The lady at the window told me that E2 visa interviews sometimes last 3 hours and that we would definitely be seen. We were the very last people called and were sent to window 25, not 19. The Consulate Officer spent about 20 minutes with us, the first ten being dealt with standard ID etc. His main concern was that I had received money from my business even when I was out of working status. I was not expecting to be asked any type of question about this as I knew I was entitled to ‘Officer Compensation’ as the owner of the business. He disagreed and said that I had been working illegally. He would not look at any of the W2’s and 1099’s that showed employees and kept saying that I was in serious trouble. I tried to dispute what he was saying but he was adamant. I even tried to show him my 2006 UK tax return showing 32,216 pounds earnings as a business consultant to a UK Company which proved that I was not working my US business.

He would not even look at it. All my work was done on my lap top as many business men do in this day and age, where ever they are in the world. He failed to recognize that the Company was always fully up to date with payment of its taxes and that tax had been paid on every dollar that I had ever been paid. These documents were presented in the application as part of the financial side of the business as it was all perfectly legal.The other points he questioned was my brother’s money trail to his investment. This was all documented in front of him, yet he still questioned it. He also said that the business was marginal but if he had read the file properly that would be proved incorrect. He also questioned our UK residency which obviously looked weak due to not owning UK property any more. I had sold mine 3 years previous to finance the US venture. My brother had sold his to finance his investment in the Company.

We both still have strong ties to the UK in business partnerships. We both stay with family whilst in the UK and are registered voters and still have bills to pay etc. We both still own vehicles in the UK and have just started another UK business to work in conjunction with the US Company to increase clientele on the Mgt side and have started another advertising campaign on the rental side. This is all in the UK. He had obviously not read the full file and documentation otherwise he would have seen that this Company was a huge viable concern and that it was complying with all requirements and doing all the right things. The Consular Officer was really only concerned with the fact that I had received money from my own business. He was adamant that this was illegal and that I had committed a very serious offence. The interview ended with the Consular Officer handing me a photo copy of a section of the FAM regulations. He had ticked these items for his decision to deny our visa:1) UK residency2) Colin’s (my brother) money trail for investment 3) Marginal business4) Illegally working in the US and claiming wages. He gave us our passports back and said that Colin could re apply with more info attached and that I was in serious trouble and that I would be ineligible to travel to the US indefinitely.

He said I would not be allowed to apply for any type of visa for at least 5 years. He did not give us any kind of official paperwork and did not write or stamp anything in any of our passports. The paper did not have written on it what he had said. The paper read that I could not travel to the US to work until I had a visa that allowed this. We were the last people to leave the building at 5.20pm. The US Consulate had had all the E2 application files for months and yet nobody once came back to us to question any of these items or ask for more information. They could have said that the money I was taking was being done technically wrong and asked for it to be changed if this was such an issue. We have never hidden anything and always tried to do everything in the way that it was required. We could have chosen the totally illegal way but did not. We wanted everything to be correct.It seems that most of the problems here have been caused by the huge delay in processing the application at London. It also appears that both my L visa renewal & my E2 visa application have been dealt with in a most negative way and most severely on small technical matters that could have been rectified by better communication and quicker processing times. I’m sure most businesses don’t change or grow as much as this one has over such a short period of time and perhaps the adjudicators thought there was something suspicious because of that.

The fact remains that this business is very real and could become even more special for the community of Davenport, Florida with the 2 owners of the business legally in place (in an executive & managerial position) to care for and nurture with their expertise.Here is the one thing I most definitely did wrong. I flew back to the US 3 days after the interview and did not declare that I had been refused a visa. I was stopped at security and deported. I am still waiting to find out what the outcome of that will be.I have tried not to be too negative about the American system as I still believe that it is ‘THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY & FREEDOM’ & ‘THE AMERICAN DREAM’ is still there for people to grasp and show the world what you can do when given the chance. However, I am going to finish with my most scathing comments and hope that anyone who reads this does not decide to punish me even further for speaking my own mind.When I first visited Florida, it was in the October, just after the horrific & tragic 9/11 terrorist attack. The Disney area was virtually deserted. Every theme park we visited, the Americans were cheering us for continuing to visit the area. They said that without our support, the Disney parks would surely have shut down. I believe that the British are still the main contributor to this area of Florida in the form of visiting as Tourists & Property purchasers. This is only helped by the British people that have moved there to work and live. My business proves that. I believe that if every British person sold their Florida properties and businesses & never went back as a tourist to visit, the World of Disney as we all know it, would most definitely cease to exist. It would be a ghost town.

While I was being held in a room by security at Orlando Airport waiting to be deported, the security staff gave me some incite as to their thinking. They said that they wished we (meaning British people) would all go home and that we were not needed there. I was flabbergasted. I told them that they would probably not have a job if it was not for the amount of British people that visited Florida per year. Has this 4 year experience changed my opinion about the United States of America? Yes, I feel that the Immigration system needs seriously revising. I know that is an ongoing thing with regard to terrorism and quite rightly. However, I feel that I have been cheated out of everything the United States stands for because people and businesses are not given individual attention and dealt with separately on each own merits.Am I bitter? If I am honest, yes at the moment. I tried to build a new business and life for my wife and children in a faraway place and just when they started to enjoy it and realize what a great thing I did, it was snatched away. It takes a lot of courage, strength, endeavor and resilience to make a change as huge as I did without fully knowing whether it would work. If I had failed in the business then I could have accepted leaving http://www.expatsvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2077

The Totally Florida Plus Staff