[Psycho_Bunny]

"The attitude of the INS agents last week was the same as the Syrian police. The only difference is that the INS agents didn't beat me."

And that's all the difference in the world, isn't it?

There's more to this story, I don't know what it is but, there's definitely more to it.  My wager is that he lipped off at some point, or he didn't actually apply for the new visa when he says he did.

Something else is involved.

[Adder]

"Something else is involved"
Lets hope you are correct; otherwise it sounds like this guy is getting treated pretty shabbily. If it happened to me I would be fighting mad.