NVC April 2010 Edition!

[TatyanaR 6]

Agreed.

Or if your relationship goes against the cultural norms. American man with a Thai woman, no problem. American woman with a Thai man, more questions. Or if there's a large age difference where it's not common for that culture. Or if the age difference is reversed. MIL is just 2 years older than FIL. Eyebrows were raised when they were dating.

Look at other couples in your SO's culture. How do you compare and contrast to them? You might find some "yellow flags" to prepare answers for in case asked. You never know when the CO is going to play hard or if you're going to be sent to FPU for a Stokes interview. We all hope and pray that we don't, but it can't hurt to be prepared anyway.

Isn't that crazy?!

[estrellademiel 7]

Guess what I found cleaning my house? The cause of my rfe ... I just can laugh when I was looking for it nothinggggg .... Well I will add it to my evidence

[MSPtoYYZ 0]

Guess what I found cleaning my house? The cause of my rfe ... I just can laugh when I was looking for it nothinggggg .... Well I will add it to my evidence

Unbelievable...it always happens that way!

[TatyanaR 6]

Guess what I found cleaning my house? The cause of my rfe ... I just can laugh when I was looking for it nothinggggg .... Well I will add it to my evidence

Oh wow

[mrs. wife! 3]

Murphy's law

[estrellademiel 7]

Hhehehe the good thing is that I found some stuff that may add weight to my evidence package such paystubs from my works when I was j1 and it has the address of my husband the envelopes of the social security card also has the address , money transfer back from 2004 2005 phone bills 2003 04 05 with my husband number and the funniest one a big envelope where my husband send me a bday gift in 2003 hehheheh

Edited April 27, 2010 by estrellademiel

[mrs. wife! 3]

Great!

[TheBears 9]

Nice!

I'll have to ask Husby to do some exploring in old boxes and see what he finds.

[Cixelsyd 1]

The reason I asked is because (sorry to say which I am sure you are aware of) Russia got the whole mail order bride thing (don't know how active is still is) so when it comes to evidence I think you would be required a lot (that also is if you wore to be American)

No need to apologize, I think it would be foolish to pretend it doesn't exist. Sometimes it's even fun to poke fun at people when they ask me how we met (I know they've already made up their mind) and I say "It was love at first page 36".

I'll spare the details, but suffice to say the going stereotype wasn't in the least our situation. As for the mail order bride issue, it has apparently died down drastically. Without a doubt, it still exists in decent numbers however. There are actually other countries now that have a larger number of women migrating via the mail order bride ordeal than FSU (Former Soviet Union) countries.

However all that aside, I've found there are a lot of interesting factors that go into a consulates judgment of a legitimate relationship. For one, you need to declare if you met your SO through any form of dating/marriage agency.

Another interesting fact I read somewhere (no idea where/when, so no citation) is that they're not trying to determine if the foreign immigrant has less than honorable intentions when it comes to the USC. They're only trying to determine if the USC truly believes it is a legitimate relationship. As long as the last part holds true, they can't deny the petition based the questionable nature of the foreign immigrant. However, they could find ways around the rule by letting the petition sit in purgatory until it expires.

I wish I could remember more of the article and it's location, since it was written by a former consulate.

Another factor that goes into this is that (no offense to them) K-1 petitions carry the majority of fraudulent claims. The previous article I mentioned was advocating doing away with the K-1 petitions, since they are not being used in the way they were intended to be used. Their original design was to provide a legal method for cultures who believe in arranged marriages to bring their future spouse to the US. Marriage visa's are not well known for fraudulent issues since historically they were a longer and more in-depth processing period (I know that's changing a bit now).

On to the evidence portion. You still need only to make sure you satisfy the requirements. If you will, imagine a check list of requirements your SO will be tested on. For example, proof that you have met within the past two years etc... You only need one plane ticket showing you arrived in said area. Providing multiple receipts to show you were in the area is excess information to support an already fulfilled requirement.

Judgment by the consulate isn't based on their whim. They must have sound reasoning and proof to support their claim. That being said, we're all inundated with stories of consulates being less than cordial with a SO, but they are still limited only in how strict they can be with a particular requirement. For example, they can focus on the speaking capabilities of the foreign spouse until finally they believe they have sufficient evidence to prove they are not capable of communicating with the USC. Each consulate knows if they deny a visa, there IS going to be a backlash by a very dissatisfied USC, which equates to can they supply the facts to back up their judgment.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, there isn't an extensive plethora of background information the consulate brings to the interview. The majority of the information they have to poke holes in your visa is actually provided... by you. There simply isn't enough resources to conduct an extensive investigation of each case. If there was, we wouldn't be the ones burdened with providing the vast amounts of documentation.

Now at this point, you may be inclined to believe I'm suggesting we can somehow slip one past them. I'm actually advocating quite the opposite. These consulates and other processors are people after all. My goal is to try and make their job easy. The easier their job is, the better chance I have to get through this process with little trouble. If you bombard them with an enormous amount of data, then you're not only making their job more cumbersome, but you're also providing them with even more ammunition to fire back at you. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but there's always a way for one side to twist the facts to support their agenda (see fox, cspan, cnn etc...). So on the off chance you do get that less than happy-with-their-job consulate, the less facts they have to twist, the better off you are.

Wow, sorry this is such a long post btw...

As for my personal case, I think going with sufficient data will be our best method for success. We were married here in the United States, so it would be quite the task for them to prove it's not a legitimate marriage, or to suggest there are ulterior motives. Not impossible mind you, just a steep battle for them to accomplish. That fact alone knocks out at least two requirements I'm aware of. Most of the other questionable issues they can attempt will be during the interview itself. So long as my wife doesn't answer "yes" when they say "did you know your husband eats babies in his off time", we should sail through smoothly.

Really if it came down to it, I could start pulling out some heavy hitters; in our case, the government was already aware of our marriage before the any visa agency had any clue. In fact, I know certain parts of the government have more information on it than the consulate will ever see.

All that being said, yes we are in a RFE state... rotten bastards. But this actually goes back to support my previous statement where we have to provide all the information, since our RFE is concerning a previous J-1 visa. Information they should/could/do have access to, but still they lean on us to provide the facts (even though it says on the fricken visas which I sent them, "no 2 year home stay requirement").

Final note on my evidence. I think many people would be appalled at how little supporting information I sent with the I-130. I didn't send a catalog of pictures or anything, only 1 or two documents which they stated as "acceptable" proof. No RFE's and we sailed through smoothly.

So in my opinion, try to find what they will be questioning in your case and make sure you have the necessary documentation to meet that and any other requirements. If you feel more comfortable providing a vast amount of information, then definitely do so. Really in the grand scheme of things, the min vs max probably isn't nearly as important as we would think it is. Ultimately, follow what you feel more comfortable with so you have a better piece of mind.

Now that I've bored the hell out of everyone, I'll go back to finding different ways to count days to make it feel closer.

And if I've missed some SIF, then I apologize. I've been popping in and out sporadically these past two days. I promise to be a better team player here shortly.

[TheBears 9]

Wow! That's great info, Brian! Thank you.

[mrs. wife! 3]

Wowww, great info! Thanks for sharing with us

[Cixelsyd 1]

Hey, look what I found:

http://www.cis.org/marriagefraud

I felt bad posting information without being able to supply a source.

Be warned though, it's a looong article.

Also, the tone is definitely unfavorable to international marriages so bring your thick skin.

But I read it for the same reason I could occasionally be caught thumbing through a Cosmo "know thy enemy" (joke).

[Cixelsyd 1]

I completely forgot to mention the reason this article is so interesting is because it was written by a former consular officer.

[tokyo.lovers 6]

so NO ONE got any interviews yet this week???

neither did i. maybe i will call the NVC tonight...

[englandusa18 0]

boo i got a RFB when do they schedule interviews? Is it the 2nd week of each month. I dont want to miss getting an interview!!