A Visa Is Not An Entry Ticket

The statute provides that every alien shall be PRESUMED TO BE AN IMMIGRANT until he establishes, to the satisfaction of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa AND the immigration officers at the time of application for admission, that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status. The burden sits on the traveller, not on the officer, and it applies twice — once at the consulate and again at the border. This is why a question that sounds hostile is often just the presumption doing its work: the officer is not required to find a reason to refuse, the traveller is required to give reasons to admit.

Because the statute imposes the presumption at BOTH the visa application and the application for admission, holding a valid visa does not settle the question at the border — it means the first decision went your way. The officer at the port of entry makes the second one independently. A visa is permission to travel to a port of entry and apply; it is not permission to enter, and it is not a promise that entry follows.

The statute excepts certain nonimmigrant classifications from the immigrant presumption, naming subparagraph (L), subparagraph (V), and a specified part of subparagraph (H)(i) of the definitions section. Those categories may hold intent inconsistent with the presumption without it counting against them. The ordinary visitor categories a parent or a tourist travels on are not in that list, so the presumption applies to them in full.

Admission is recorded on the Form I-94, and the date on it is the authorised period of stay. That date is not the visa's expiry and is not automatically the maximum the category allows — an officer may admit for a shorter period. Checking the I-94 after every entry is the only way to know what was actually granted, and it is the date every subsequent deadline counts from.