Unfair treatment of US Citizens

[khaliss2000 0]

Hello Dear VJ Members,

I have been reading the posts for a while now and this is my first post. First a little background of my situation. I met my fiancee when she was an International student in the US. She had her F-1 visa and was in good standing. Then in December 07 she decided to go visit her mom for Christmas vacations in Cameroon. She was already registered for Spring 2008, had her class schedule, got her I-20 signed by her school, and flew home. She was supposed to come back January 22nd, 2008.

She then went to the US embassy to renew her student visa to come back and, to my shock, she got denied and she's stuck there since. She had surgery in the summer of 2007 and didn't even finish the follow-ups with her ob/gyn. We then started the K-1 process, got approved, and she finally got her interview 5/18/2009.

The interview went well. The CO said everything looks great and in order. Nothing to worry about. Then handed her the 212(g) for AP. He kept her passport, and told her to call back in three months if she doesn't hear from them.

My point here is that a US Citzen trying to bring a loved one should not be treated this way. In this country of freedom, it is unacceptable that one gets told that his/her fiance(e) is put in AP and no one even knows what that entails. It is like a "national security secret". I asked them what the AP entails and they said they couldn't tell. I read so many heartbreaking stories here and I am asking people here to organize and put pressure on their representatives (senators and congressmen). We need to pull the alarm bell here.

I have an MBA, have a good job with a good salary. No record at all. Trying to be a good citizen. So why should we have to be treated this way????

I was supposed to be deployed by the US Navy on 5/26/2009 (being in the Reserve). I sent my deployment papers to the embassy and begged them to take it into consideration but they simply ignored it. They don't care. They don't think there are real lives behind those paperworks. And people are suffering from those long separations and all the stress they go through. No one person (a CO) should have that much power to decide peoples' faiths.

There are hundreds or thousands of people here on VJ. Let's do something. Let's create a forum and get our contacts then collectively write the appropriate committees in congress and the senate.

God bless you all and keep your heads up and don't give up on your loved ones. No matter how long it will take.

[atk_721 0]

Hello Dear VJ Members,

I have been reading the posts for a while now and this is my first post. First a little background of my situation. I met my fiancee when she was an International student in the US. She had her F-1 visa and was in good standing. Then in December 07 she decided to go visit her mom for Christmas vacations in Cameroon. She was already registered for Spring 2008, had her class schedule, got her I-20 signed by her school, and flew home. She was supposed to come back January 22nd, 2008.

She then went to the US embassy to renew her student visa to come back and, to my shock, she got denied and she's stuck there since. She had surgery in the summer of 2007 and didn't even finish the follow-ups with her ob/gyn. We then started the K-1 process, got approved, and she finally got her interview 5/18/2009.

The interview went well. The CO said everything looks great and in order. Nothing to worry about. Then handed her the 212(g) for AP. He kept her passport, and told her to call back in three months if she doesn't hear from them.

My point here is that a US Citzen trying to bring a loved one should not be treated this way. In this country of freedom, it is unacceptable that one gets told that his/her fiance(e) is put in AP and no one even knows what that entails. It is like a "national security secret". I asked them what the AP entails and they said they couldn't tell. I read so many heartbreaking stories here and I am asking people here to organize and put pressure on their representatives (senators and congressmen). We need to pull the alarm bell here.

I have an MBA, have a good job with a good salary. No record at all. Trying to be a good citizen. So why should we have to be treated this way????

I was supposed to be deployed by the US Navy on 5/26/2009 (being in the Reserve). I sent my deployment papers to the embassy and begged them to take it into consideration but they simply ignored it. They don't care. They don't think there are real lives behind those paperworks. And people are suffering from those long separations and all the stress they go through. No one person (a CO) should have that much power to decide peoples' faiths.

There are hundreds or thousands of people here on VJ. Let's do something. Let's create a forum and get our contacts then collectively write the appropriate committees in congress and the senate.

God bless you all and keep your heads up and don't give up on your loved ones. No matter how long it will take.

I absoultely agree.....An F1/H1 can bring their spouses right away and citizens keep waiting to reunite.This system is indeed too cruel and tests our patience.

[TBoneTX 46,188]

They don't think there are real lives behind those paperworks. ... No one person (a CO) should have that much power

Agreed.

Let's create a forum and get our contacts then collectively write the appropriate committees in congress and the senate.

It won't work. The only solution is to rip the consular system out by its roots, which means that everyone in the Department of State who rose through the consular ranks (probably a goodly percentage of them) would have to be canned. Furthermore, anti-ALL-immigrant sentiment is so high that few or no elected U.S. officials would want to raise a finger to make immigration (ANY immigration) "easier."

[aaron2020 11,651]

Hello Dear VJ Members,

I have been reading the posts for a while now and this is my first post. First a little background of my situation. I met my fiancee when she was an International student in the US. She had her F-1 visa and was in good standing. Then in December 07 she decided to go visit her mom for Christmas vacations in Cameroon. She was already registered for Spring 2008, had her class schedule, got her I-20 signed by her school, and flew home. She was supposed to come back January 22nd, 2008.

She then went to the US embassy to renew her student visa to come back and, to my shock, she got denied and she's stuck there since. She had surgery in the summer of 2007 and didn't even finish the follow-ups with her ob/gyn. We then started the K-1 process, got approved, and she finally got her interview 5/18/2009.

The interview went well. The CO said everything looks great and in order. Nothing to worry about. Then handed her the 212(g) for AP. He kept her passport, and told her to call back in three months if she doesn't hear from them.

My point here is that a US Citzen trying to bring a loved one should not be treated this way. In this country of freedom, it is unacceptable that one gets told that his/her fiance(e) is put in AP and no one even knows what that entails. It is like a "national security secret". I asked them what the AP entails and they said they couldn't tell. I read so many heartbreaking stories here and I am asking people here to organize and put pressure on their representatives (senators and congressmen). We need to pull the alarm bell here.

I have an MBA, have a good job with a good salary. No record at all. Trying to be a good citizen. So why should we have to be treated this way????

I was supposed to be deployed by the US Navy on 5/26/2009 (being in the Reserve). I sent my deployment papers to the embassy and begged them to take it into consideration but they simply ignored it. They don't care. They don't think there are real lives behind those paperworks. And people are suffering from those long separations and all the stress they go through. No one person (a CO) should have that much power to decide peoples' faiths.

There are hundreds or thousands of people here on VJ. Let's do something. Let's create a forum and get our contacts then collectively write the appropriate committees in congress and the senate.

God bless you all and keep your heads up and don't give up on your loved ones. No matter how long it will take.

You have my sympathy on the long wait to reunite with your wife in the US. However, the system is not engineer to screw over US citizens. It's a government bureaucracy that is overwhelmed by the backlog of immigration applications, underfunded and inefficient. The system is to vet foreign nationals before letting them take up resident in our country. From the number of 9/11 hijackers that made it into the US, you can see the need for the vetting. Everyone has to be screen - including the spouses of US citizens. In the post 9/11 world, I don't think anyone is going to give up security for the sake of expediting visas for foreign citizens. To catch a few bad apples, unfortunately, everyone has to suffer with delays in their cases.

[elkfarmer 4]

I have to agree with the last poster. Yes, it is very hard to be apart from your wife and kids for over a year. That is my case. I hate it. But I also want every SOB that wants to bomb hell out of us stopped. What I really hate is the paperwork that is involved. Sometimes you send in everything they ask for. Get RFE, for things they already have. Sent in Originals when asked for. Will I ever get any of these originals back. Hell no ! So far 6 birth certificates. (Mine) 3 for my wife, 3 for each child, and marriage certificates, 4 to date. And translations to USCIS and NVC at $25 per page for translation. They seem to think they grow on trees. Just venting, sorry. Still the best country in the world after living in Colombia for almost a year.

[BradnKim 0]

Nothing in this process seems to be fair... We all wait with no answers just dangling from their string. It's frustrating to say the least!

Hello Dear VJ Members,

I have been reading the posts for a while now and this is my first post. First a little background of my situation. I met my fiancee when she was an International student in the US. She had her F-1 visa and was in good standing. Then in December 07 she decided to go visit her mom for Christmas vacations in Cameroon. She was already registered for Spring 2008, had her class schedule, got her I-20 signed by her school, and flew home. She was supposed to come back January 22nd, 2008.

She then went to the US embassy to renew her student visa to come back and, to my shock, she got denied and she's stuck there since. She had surgery in the summer of 2007 and didn't even finish the follow-ups with her ob/gyn. We then started the K-1 process, got approved, and she finally got her interview 5/18/2009.

The interview went well. The CO said everything looks great and in order. Nothing to worry about. Then handed her the 212(g) for AP. He kept her passport, and told her to call back in three months if she doesn't hear from them.

My point here is that a US Citzen trying to bring a loved one should not be treated this way. In this country of freedom, it is unacceptable that one gets told that his/her fiance(e) is put in AP and no one even knows what that entails. It is like a "national security secret". I asked them what the AP entails and they said they couldn't tell. I read so many heartbreaking stories here and I am asking people here to organize and put pressure on their representatives (senators and congressmen). We need to pull the alarm bell here.

I have an MBA, have a good job with a good salary. No record at all. Trying to be a good citizen. So why should we have to be treated this way????

I was supposed to be deployed by the US Navy on 5/26/2009 (being in the Reserve). I sent my deployment papers to the embassy and begged them to take it into consideration but they simply ignored it. They don't care. They don't think there are real lives behind those paperworks. And people are suffering from those long separations and all the stress they go through. No one person (a CO) should have that much power to decide peoples' faiths.

There are hundreds or thousands of people here on VJ. Let's do something. Let's create a forum and get our contacts then collectively write the appropriate committees in congress and the senate.

God bless you all and keep your heads up and don't give up on your loved ones. No matter how long it will take.

[baron555 934]

A better solution would be for us to not be allowed entry into the country where your SO is from. That way we would never have to chance to meet and then feel put upon. We'd have to just search around our own country for our love.

[Anonymous 57 0]

I agree that it's not fair that United States citizens are treated like this. I think it's kind of ridiculous that ANYBODY gets precedence over those of us who live here. And yet, while they provide expedited services for foreign people seeking jobs, they take their time with our applications. Look at the processing time, even without the optional expediting it's still half of what we're expected to wait.

What I want to know is why they won't expedite *our* cases for an additional fee. Were there a fee involved they would surely make enough off of those of us who want faster processing to employ the people needed to process the cases faster. I don't know about you, but I would have been more than happy to pay any amount to get faster service. That's one of the things I'm really mad about, silly as it may seem.

I also would REALLY like to see some accountability from them. I would be willing to wait for longer than six months as long as I knew exactly how long it would take. Now that my visa is outside the standard processing time, I called them up and they basically told me that they're not going to take responsibility for anything and that they can take as long as they want and I can't say anything to change that. They refused to update me about my case status even though I have not been updated ONCE since my NOA1. I wish that there were some consequences or reciprecations when they took too long to process a case. There are absolutely no guarantees that they are even actually going to process any given case. Nothing happens to them if they don't.

And I met my SO here in America while he was here working so I'm not so sure that your plan would work for everyone, Baron...

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

A better solution would be for us to not be allowed entry into the country where your SO is from. That way we would never have to chance to meet and then feel put upon. We'd have to just search around our own country for our love.

C'mon, Now THAT would really be unfair and we all have to marry American women? Surprised the feminists haven't pushed for THAT law yet.

Actually, to be honest, there are very few countries that allow this process at all, expedited (and it IS expedited compared to any other form of immigration) immigration for wives and even fiancees. Very few countries allow fiancee visas and most that allow spousal visas take FAR longer to process.

The process you are in, while frustrating and discouraging is NOT unfair treatment of US citizens. YOU are not applying for a visa, SHE is. Your petition as a US citizen was handled expeditiously. Foreign citizens have no right to US visas of any kind, you knew that going in, yes? Her medical treatment wil be handled in her own country no doubt through the "much superior" FREE medical care available there and she will not have to suffer at the hands of the inferior American Capitalist medical system (at least this is what some say, I presume you don't agree because someone you love actually has to be a patient of free medical care)

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I agree that it's not fair that United States citizens are treated like this. I think it's kind of ridiculous that ANYBODY gets precedence over those of us who live here. And yet, while they provide expedited services for foreign people seeking jobs, they take their time with our applications. Look at the processing time, even without the optional expediting it's still half of what we're expected to wait.

What I want to know is why they won't expedite *our* cases for an additional fee. Were there a fee involved they would surely make enough off of those of us who want faster processing to employ the people needed to process the cases faster. I don't know about you, but I would have been more than happy to pay any amount to get faster service. That's one of the things I'm really mad about, silly as it may seem.

I also would REALLY like to see some accountability from them. I would be willing to wait for longer than six months as long as I knew exactly how long it would take. Now that my visa is outside the standard processing time, I called them up and they basically told me that they're not going to take responsibility for anything and that they can take as long as they want and I can't say anything to change that. They refused to update me about my case status even though I have not been updated ONCE since my NOA1. I wish that there were some consequences or reciprecations when they took too long to process a case. There are absolutely no guarantees that they are even actually going to process any given case. Nothing happens to them if they don't.

And I met my SO here in America while he was here working so I'm not so sure that your plan would work for everyone, Baron...

1. She is NOT a US citizen. The OP chose to marry a foreign spouse from a high fraud west African country, no big surprise here. For others considering the same....plan on a long wait.

2. Workers are not immigrants. They are processed for a limited time, limited opportunity work visa and then return. YOU are applying for permanent residency and a expedited path to citizenship, it is not EVEN comparable. I cannot fathom anyone that puts forth this argument. "WOW, you mean someone that rents a house doesn't have to go through as much as someone that buys a house? No Fair!" Please try to use relevent comparisons when arguing a point.

3. None of this is true, except that they are under no obligation to "update you" If outside the accepted times for processing, you can contact a congressman or Senator to do an inquiry into your case, many times this helps. That YOU have not pursued you options is not their problem. Te USCIS has plenty of problems...just not the ones you mention. Neither you nor your fiancee have any "right" to these visas.

[justashooter 430]

I absoultely agree.....An F1/H1 can bring their spouses right away and citizens keep waiting to reunite.This system is indeed too cruel and tests our patience.

i have a problem with this, as well. it is unreasonable that an F1 can effectively immigrate to the US and chain their spouse in a matter of weeks, or at all, and then adjust status while in country. it is also unreasonable that F1 students don't have to complete the extensive medical history and examination, unless they AOS while in US. sure, they are viewed as transients, but they are not just passing through the airport on their way to somewhere else. they are living in the US for extended periods of time and pose a significant risk to nationals.

[Gentle 0]

"Her medical treatment wil be handled in her own country no doubt through the "much superior" FREE medical care available there and she will not have to suffer at the hands of the inferior American Capitalist medical system (at least this is what some say, I presume you don't agree because someone you love actually has to be a patient of free medical care)"

Gary and Alla,

You have the right to your opinions but it doesn't serve anyone good to spit out wrong information in a manner so confident as if you knew exactly what you are talking about. "her own country no doubt ...... [has] FREE medical care available" Who ever told you that Cameroon had free medical care?

Well, it does NOT and it's important that the world knows that.

Good luck on your case atk_721.

Gent.