Actually, this is not just Russian citizens. ANY visitor to the United States--except those from visa waiver program countries--must prove that they are not planning to immigrate. (If they *do* want to immigrate, there's a completely different system.)
Usually, the easiest way to prove that is to prove that you have significant ties to the country from which you're traveling. Yes, this usually means have some money in the bank, a decent job, and (perhaps) some immediate family who are not accompanying the person(s) traveling.
Why? Because the assumption is that the US is a really great place to live, and that many people want to live there. Because Congress has decided to limit the number of real immigrants into the United States, it can be difficult to get an immigrant visa. This leads many people, naturally, to get a non-immmigrant visa and then simply overstay their visa, effectively immigrating illegally. So US visa law is written so that the person applying must PROVE to the officer involved that they are not intending to immigrate.
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Actually, this is not just Russian citizens. ANY visitor to the United States--except those from visa waiver program countries--must prove that they are not planning to immigrate. (If they *do* want to immigrate, there's a completely different system.)
Usually, the easiest way to prove that is to prove that you have significant ties to the country from which you're traveling. Yes, this usually means have some money in the bank, a decent job, and (perhaps) some immediate family who are not accompanying the person(s) traveling.
Why? Because the assumption is that the US is a really great place to live, and that many people want to live there. Because Congress has decided to limit the number of real immigrants into the United States, it can be difficult to get an immigrant visa. This leads many people, naturally, to get a non-immmigrant visa and then simply overstay their visa, effectively immigrating illegally. So US visa law is written so that the person applying must PROVE to the officer involved that they are not intending to immigrate.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?