Without warning or explanation, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has rejected an unprecedented percentage of Russian university students applying for visas to take part in the State Department’s popular Summer Work and Travel program this year, dashing hopes and placing the program’s future in doubt.
About 80-90 percent of the estimated 1,000 applicants who have applied for visas in Moscow since mid-March have received a green rejection slip, according to five Russian agencies that arrange the interviews. Last year, the number was 35-40 percent, they said, and more than 6,300 in all were approved.
The embassy refused to directly comment on the allegations, but agencies say the reasons sometimes provided by consular officers to individual students — that the applicant’s employer is “unreliable,” or that the applicant’s English is not good enough — are bogus.
An unprecedented 80-90 percent of recent applicants to the work and travel program have been rejected, agencies say.
“We don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s a result of the Magnitsky list, maybe it’s a bad consular official. They’re simply mocking Russian students. We don’t know what to do,” said Boris Samaryanov, general director of STAR Travel, one of 28 local agencies approved by the embassy…
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