US Visa Applicant Marks Herself 'Terrorist' On Form, Mistake Costs Her $1,000

A 29-year-old cancer patient was forced to cancel her dream holiday to New York after she accidentally marked herself as “terrorist” on her visa waiver form.

Mandie Stevenson, who was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in 2015, accidentally answered "yes" when an online Esta (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) form asked if she ever engaged in terrorist activities or genocide. She only realized her mistake two days later when the application got rejected.

Stevenson, who was from Falkirik in Scotland, rushed to the United States embassy in London to try to convince them she was not a security threat, and was eventually granted a visa after a few rounds of interview. However, she was advised to rebook her dream trip as the officials could not guarantee if the visa would arrive on time. She had to spend over £800 ($1,000) to rearrange the trip for the following month.

Speaking on the BBC's Mornings with Stephen Jardine on Friday, Stevenson said, "At first I thought it was a bad dream and then I realized what I had done.”

One of the questions in the form reads: “Do you seek to engage in or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities, espionage, sabotage, or genocide?"

Stevenson said her tablet crashed while attempting to answer the question, due to which she had decided to complete the form the next day at work.

"I believe I ticked 'no' and then when I have scrolled down to click confirm, I think it has nudged and moved. That's the story I'm sticking to,” she said.

Calling the mistake embarrassing, she said, "A lot of people have said 'how on earth could you do that?' but to me I've done it really easily." Stevenson, however, thought it would be easy to correct the error.

The American embassy in London told her it was "the worst box you could have ticked." She then went to London and paid £320 ($417) for an appointment to get a full visa. She got the full visa but was told it would take around three to five days for it to be granted. When she informed them she would miss the flight, they advised her to re-schedule the trip. "I pleaded but they just said 'change your holiday',” she said.

She thought the embassy would be sympathetic towards her.

"I live in 12-weekly cycles because I get scanned every 12 weeks. I book my holidays in very specific times and this New York trip was going to be before I get another set of scan results, so I was really looking forward to it. t was stress that I didn't need. I thought because it was a genuine error it would be quite an easy fix but I was quite wrong,” she said.

Simon Calder, travel editor of the Independent, was of the opinion that the question on the form was "completely pointless" as anybody who engaged in terrorism would never deliberately mark themselves as terrorist.

"America is completely unforgiving. If that box gets ticked for whatever reason, immediately it's as though the alarms go off, the shutters go down and you are into a spiral of despair,” he said.