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I was applying for an Ireland tourist visa. One of the questions asks whether I have been refused a visa for any country and, if yes, details of the refusal must be given. It further states that concealment of visa refusals will result in refusal of an Irish visa application.

I was denied a US F-2 visa. However, there is NO stamp or indication of the visa refusal on my passport.

How could the Irish embassy and/or immigration officers know about my visa application history with the United States? l

Are there agreements between the two nations to share such information?

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    Various governments share information, and they do not always publicly admit it. So if you want to know if it is safe to lie on your application, the answer is no.
    – o.m.
    Nov 23, 2016 at 17:05
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    They could ask the US, for a start.
    – CMaster
    Nov 23, 2016 at 17:06
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    Suppose someone tells you that the Irish authorities will not have access tothat information. How credible is a random stranger on the internet? What's the chance that person is wrong? The outcome in that case will be verynegative indeed.
    – phoog
    Nov 23, 2016 at 17:43
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because we do not give advice on how to lie. Nov 23, 2016 at 20:02
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    No need to close a question because there is a potential to give bad advice, lets just give the right advice: do not lie! @DavidRicherby
    – mts
    Nov 23, 2016 at 21:53

2 Answers 2

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I was denied a US F-2 visa. However, there is NO stamp or indication of the visa refusal on my passport.

You may remember as part of the F2 application process an attendant asked you to place your hand over a something like a miniature photocopier? And then the other hand? That made and recorded an electronic scan of your fingerprints. The scan was digitised and put on to a database. Part of the rationale for doing that was to match up any future visa applications you make so that all your stuff is linked to a single record that you can't tamper with. This so-called 'biometric enrolment' became fashionable in the early 2000's to help combat people who lied about their immigration history. Incredible to relate there are people out there who entertain such notions.

How could the Irish embassy and/or immigration officers know about my visa application history with the United States?

When you apply for a visa to Ireland, part of the process is... you guessed it... biometric enrolment! Once captured, the digitised biometrics are stored on a computer and the visa officers can run them through a matching program to see if you show up anywhere else in the system. What this means is that the person's passport is relegated to a somewhat secondary level in finding out exactly who the applicant is. If they find a match on the person's biometrics they will get to learn if the applicant is an honest person or not.

Are there agreements between the two nations to share such information?

The route is a bit circuitous because the UK acts as a proxy for nations in the Common Travel Area...

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The US and the UK are connected by the "Five Eyes Treaty" and the UK and Ireland are connected by the 2011 Agreement. The amount and type of data that gets flushed through these connections is indeterminate; the various governments do not make that information public.

Even if the agreements are not explicit in 2016, one must assume that future politics may forge new agreements which in turn will open up more national databases which in turn may reveal heretofore hidden parts of a person's history.

So as a general rule where nations in the Western Hemisphere are concerned, it's best practices to assume that everybody knows everything or alternatively it's a matter of time before everybody knows everything. Consequently this site endorses the strategy of total transparency on the part of the applicant. You didn't ask that question specifically, but it's inherent in almost all 'does A know about B's refusal' type of questions.

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Do not disclose if you are refused. I tried to be honest with the British Embassy 19 years after I was bounced. I went for another visa even in Europe where I have permanent resident, but they gave me stupid excuse. It's better to lie and get what you want. Don't try to be honest, they aren't God.

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    Not only is it local policy not to advise people to lie in immigration matters, it's foolish for them to do so. The UK will ban you for ten years if they catch you in a lie, the US will ban you for life, and many other countries get very unhappy also. We have any number of posts here from people who were caught in what the authorities consider to be a lie, and it's ruined a substantial portion of their lives. Advising people to expose themselves to this may not be great advice.
    – MadHatter
    Sep 14, 2018 at 6:35
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    @MadHatter has covered my reason to downvote this answer.
    – B.Liu
    Sep 14, 2018 at 6:42
  • Very bad advice!
    – NicolasB
    Sep 14, 2018 at 8:41
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    While I agree with the downvotes and the comments, I disagree with the vote to delete this answer. Let the answer stand and let the downvotes and comments serve as a warning to anyone who would heed it. The site is more useful to people when it presents opposing viewpoints and allows them to choose for themselves; that's one of the underlying design principles, after all, and the reason for having both up and down votes.
    – phoog
    Sep 14, 2018 at 19:19
  • +1 Agreed. No need to reveal what you strongly believe immigration cannot find out. Five Eyes embassies don’t automatically have access to each other’s data. They have to ask based on suspicion. Feb 16, 2019 at 11:43

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