US visa question-sorry to ask here-suspended under the Section 221(g) of the U.S

[samanta60]

Hi everyone,

I apologize for asking this US visa question here. I needed urgent help and thought some people here may know about it or experience with it.

I had applied for a US visa from withing Canada, to attend a conference where I had to present a paper. I am a citizen of country A, and US visa applications of people from my country always goes under "Administrative Processing". So was mine, and therefore now after 2 months from my application day they are still processing my application.
I am also citizen of country B, which is a European country and visa-exempt for entering US. So normally due to this I should even be allowed to enter US without requiring visa, but due to country A I need a visa to enter US!


Anyways, the conference in US that I was going to attend is passed a month ago! and today I received the following email from US embassy:

________________________________________________________________________________________

This is an update of the status of your application for a non-immigrant visa, which was suspended under the Section 221(g) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended, for a legally mandated administrative review.

Your visa application is ready for final adjudication. Please confirm or provide updated travel information. This information should include:

a) What is your purpose of travel?
b) What are you travel dates?
c) Where in U.S. will you go and how long will you stay?
d) Who will you visit in the U.S. (please provide name, address and contact number)?

Please send in the information by replying to this email.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Question 1) As the purpose of my trip which was attending the conference is not valid anymore (the conference was in December and I didn't receive the visa by then), is it better to cancel my visa application?
Still if they give me the visa, I am interested to use it to attend another conference in near future. Is it a good idea to mention another conference as my purpose in response to this email?

Question 2) What does it mean "suspended under the Section 221(g) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)" ? How often people may receive this from US embassy? Does it mean that my visa application was not a normal case? I had received 2 US visas in the past with no problem, although still took about 2 months each time.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[bellaluna]

1. Sure, it looks like they are prompting you for updated travel information, in case your plans change. You can still use this for your future conference.

2. I think it just means delayed in this case, like the 2 months for your previous applications.