OUT of ten people that go to the United States Embassy with a visa application in hand, seven of them walk out with a visa on their passport, says Len Kusnitz, the US Embassy’s Charge d’Affairs.

Kusnitz gave the statistics as he met with members of the National Muslim Women Organisation at the Bamboo Mosque yesterday.

During a landmark speech at Cairo University in Egypt on June 4, US President Barack Obama said he was seeking to foster stronger ties with followers of Islam worldwide.

And following his president’s call for a ’new beginning’ with Muslims around the world, Kusnitz, along with two other officials of the American embassy, Ebony Custis and Matthew Cassetta, yesterday met with the members of the local Muslim community to begin dialogue on our shores.

’There are a lot of misconceptions about the embassy; it is being reported that 65 per cent of the people are being denied visas, but that is not the case, in fact, it is the complete opposite; seven out of ten people get visas, that is 70 per cent,’ Kusnitz said.

However, Kusnitz’s figures did little to appease several attendees who recounted personal accounts of visa denial and embarrassment while trying to enter the US.

One of those who complained of victimisation to Kusnitz yesterday was Farouk Khan, public relations officer of the Trinidad Muslim League (TML).

Khan, a former primary school principal, told Kusnitz that during one of his annual vacation visits to the US in December last year, he and his family, including his 83-year-old mother, were interrogated by US security officials for hours, eventually had their visas revoked, and then, were sent back home.

’It is not my intention to make you uncomfortable; I’m not even begging for my visa back, but I just need to have my good name cleared,’ Khan said.

However, Kusnitz said he, too, was a victim of his country’s harsh security measures and assured that it was simply not a case of discrimination against Muslims.

’Since 9/11, (the World Trade Centre bombings on September 11, 2001) the US has become more security conscious, I myself have been pulled into secondary (security checkpoint), along with my 14-year-old son, and had our shoes searched,’ Kusnitz said.

Although the meeting was the brain-child of the women Muslim devotees, several of their male counterparts were also invited to the question-and-answer session with the embassy officials, the group’s assistant public relations officer Rose Mohammed told the Express.

Kusnitz said yesterday’s session was the first of many meetings to come with the local Muslim community, in order to begin ’dialogue between the two parties.