Will a Visa Officer know if you have been rejected in the past? Can they see your visa history?

If you have been rejected, the visa officer will know that you've been rejected. If you've been issued a visa, the visa officer will know that you were issued a visa. If you've had any encounter with a U.S. embassy or consulate in the past, that record is right there in front of the visa officer as you're applying for your visa. Now, why would one visa officer make one decision and one make a different decision? I think maybe that's your question. Well, the answer to that is that they all are empowered and have the authority to make whatever decision they choose for every single visa applicant within the law, okay? If you were refused 214B in your first visa interview, that's not a permanent ineligibility. It's a one-time denial of your visa. And so if you go into your next visa interview, the next visa officer is not required to make the same decision as the previous visa officer. In fact, they are supposed to consider all the merits of your application and then make a decision based on what you present in that visa interview. Now, procedurally, many visa officers will make that same decision that their colleague made two weeks ago, a month ago, six months ago, a year ago, and that's because, well, that's the easiest decision to make. They've got a lot of pressure on them. They're trying to move quickly. Their colleague, who they work with on a daily basis, has made a decision. And so they will just rely on that decision. And they're backed up by their managers in doing this. They will rely on that decision to refuse your visa without giving you as much consideration as they might the first time that you apply. Now, how do you avoid that happening? I think I may have, I know that I did advise you on exactly how to do this. You do need to be prepared to proactively advocate for yourself when you go in for the visa interview. If they just say to you, were you refused before? And you answer, yes. Has anything changed since the last time? No. These answers do nothing to change the thinking of that new visa officer. You have to have something that's going to change their mind, that's going to spark the thought, huh, maybe I should issue them. Maybe they shouldn't have been refused last time. Maybe I'm going to get the, maybe I'm going to get it right this time when my colleague didn't get it right the last time. Okay. You've got to spark that thought and inspire them to do a little bit of extra work on your behalf, because you actually do qualify for the visa. That's the key.