New(ish) MENA member looking for advice

[smoahmad 0]

Hi MENA folks! Newbie with three posts to my name. I’m filing for a K-1 visa, currently pulling evidence together and filling out documents for my petition. I have a few questions, and figured I should ask here, since my questions are pretty regional specific. Disclaimer: bit of a long post.

First: front-loading. It appears that people tend to front-load the application with evidence of an ongoing relationship for three reasons. A) The consulate they’re going through is notoriously difficult B) The beneficiary is from a high-fraud country or C) Their particular case has a few “red flags”.

Is Abu Dhabi considered a difficult embassy to go through, and is the UAE in general considered a high-fraud country? I'm guessing not, but you never know. Also, it seems like most young male beneficiaries in the MENA region end up facing AP; would front-loading my petition with evidence have any effect on the likelihood of AP?

Also, I would be grateful for an honest assessment of things to keep in mind prior to filing, and any potential red flags for the CO that I could try and combat in my petition. Background: he’s a UAE citizen, a year older than me. We’ve been together for a year and half, and I’ve been a resident of Dubai during that time. He’s met my mother and sister during their visits to the UAE, and I have met his immediate family and members of his extended family in the UAE and Zanzibar.

As proof of being in the UAE and seeing him in the last 2 years, I have my residency visa, monthly statements from my bank in the UAE proving I was withdrawing money from UAE ATMs, visa stamps from exit and re-entry after visits home and vacations, and a hotel receipt with both our names on it where we went for his birthday.

As proof of relationship, so far I have boarding passes and visas from our trip to Zanzibar together along with photos from Zanzibar, random photos in Dubai together, a few emails (we don’t really email since I see him usually 3-4 times a week), and the aforementioned hotel receipt. Though we call each other somewhere between 5-10 times daily, we don’t have any phone records of our calls thus far, since both of us use the prepaid system, as most people in the UAE do. Once I move back to the US in a few weeks, I’ll definitely have phone bills to show with his number on it!

If there’s anything else you see I should work on, or should include, or should watch out for as a potential red flag, I’d be grateful for your responses. Thanks everyone for reading!

Also, in the front loading part... that was meant to be B, not some random emoticon with sunglasses looking cool. Whoops!

[Y's_habibitk 2]

I think frontloading is a good idea simply because the CO sees all of your proof before they even start the interview. I think it can change the tone of an interview if they open the file and see that you have tons of proof that the relationship is ongoing and yada yada before they even set eyes on the interviewee. I dont think it has anything to do with AP though.. if they really need to do more namechecks, they will no matter what. The type of AP where they just use it because they dont have enough proof to deny(ya, i think it happens alot)...who knows?

Your case is a bit different than many here as you lived there but not with him. Most cases that I have seen here on VJ is where the woman lives abroad, they get married there and file DCF or she comes home and files immediately.

Anyway, it sounds like you have a lot of good proof and have thought all of this through pretty well. the fact that you have educated yourself so far will help you in the long run.

Good luck and I wish you a speedy journey