I detest US immigration policy, too, but there is no way a foreign national could sue the State Department for failure to grant a visa.
I didn't mean the immigrant would sue the State Department, but seems to me someone (US citizen or organization) could sue the process, the people, under some sort of discrimination law if every person was not treated exactly the same. If not lawsuits, a "federal case" of some sort through Congress or what-have-you. I was kind of referencing the whole "Zero Tolerance" kind of thing with a splash of hyperbole, where people are not allowed to make individual decisions any more for fear that it will fall outside accepted norms and be open for attack.
As I understand it, the policy for this sort of blanket immigration policy came into effect sometime around the Immigration Reform and Control act of 1986 when the Republicans compromised with the Democrats and legalized a number of illegal aliens then in the country, and the policy as a sort of stiffener to keep foreign nationals from entering and not leaving afterward (told to me by an official at the embassy).
Of course, the policy leaves very little discretion to the reviewing officer, unless that officer is a supervisor, I'm told.
As far as getting a spouse visa to get my wife to the States, we've been considering it. The problem is, it's a lot of effort, a lot of money. I remember seeing some estimates on the web of more like $2000 or so, given all the different fees that end in a successful applicant getting granted a residency. We will do that one day, there's no doubt, but with the time and money involved, and a whole family down here, it's something that we don't have time for at the moment.
And I have a friend whose wife is Argentina, they married here, and they went through the residency process with her in the States afterward, successfully. They actually live here and vacation there about 6 months out of the year. For two years they just barely made it in the 180 days and they were a day or two short this year. My buddy was told a couple of months ago when they went back for a visit that he couldn't treat the residency as a vacation visa and on one or two more entrances they may get into a situation where an officer files a petition with a court to get her residency revoked.
We are going to go live in the US one day, but I don't want to screw that up for the future. I've got kids here to help raise and take care of for the moment.
I'll have to satisfy things for the moment by visiting my folks myself. All of this happened last year, our last visa attempt and the news of my father's cancer, and since then my father is showing good signs and has a good prognosis. Still worried about my mother, but she's relatively healthy other than the circulation problems. There's time (yeah, I know, famous last words).
I had a long talk with a guy at the embassy the last visa attempt. She went twice before without me and I decided this time to see if there was anything I could do. Never been through the process, had to see. I refused to leave (very politely, didn't cause any kind of a scene) until I spoke with someone regarding at least the policy behind things so I could have some sort of idea why my government sucked so bad. It is, after all, my government and my embassy, someone can damn well tell me a little more about what was going on. One of the guys behind the window for notary, passport replacement and other stuff (i.e., not the visa interview windows) was working on something - the window was actually closed, but he was on the phone so I waited until he got off. He told me he was working on getting some information for some high-up and when he finished he'd talk to me. Actually surprised the hell out of me, and even more when, after waiting about 20 minutes, he came back to the window and motioned for me to come talk to him. I explained my situation and he gave me a few ideas of what the deal was, including the one about my wife being an immigrant to Argentina and that being a big strike against her. He said the marriage was a problem - but could be resolved as long as she could qualify on her own as well. The letters and other data that didn't include property and family in the country (etc) wouldn't help unless she could talk to a supervisor and supervisors won't talk to an immigrant normally, unless they're already at the window.
We've thought about going through the citizenship process with her here in Argentina, which would make her no longer an immigrant. Shouldn't be a difficult thing - she's been a legal, productive resident for quite awhile. May take a bit of time but should be relatively easy. Of course, she's a bit proud (exaggeration) and due to the way she's been treated here by many Argentinos, has mostly refused this idea. We've thought about going to Paraguay where she has some family property in her name and trying the visa process there. We've thought about going for one more visa trip here after she turns 30 (end of this year) and if she gets turned down, reapplying again within 90 days - as the one gem we got about procedure from the guy in the embassy was that a reapply within 90 days is required to be handled by a supervisor and we can state our case and have some hope of a sympathetic ear from someone who can make a decision.
Those were the suggestions of the guy I talked to, in case anyone else would like to know about that as well.
The US immigration policy is as dumb, or dumber, than the War on Drugs.
