California Service Center To Texas Service Center

[nab 74]

oh here's some articles that will chill you to the bone

http://www.nytimes.c...migrant?&st=cse

and this one has worksheet they use that could also be simply profiling:

http://graphics8.nyt...erral_Sheet.pdf

http://www.nytimes.c...ationservicesus

http://www.nytimes.c...ationservicesus

the "over submissions" one reminded me of the people who say "i submitted so much stuff! IDK why they sent us an RFE" or "gave us such hard time in interview" etc and i have wondered about that in the past because i have seen so many of those i've often wondered if officers were getting PO'd at being given extra paperwork or if it was simply suspicious to over-compensate (i.e. "look, i am not guilty, i can prove to you by providing for you so many things for which you did not ask!!"). i guess we know now!

[nab 74]

I have contacted the author of those articles.

------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Nina, it appears that you take an interest in immigration stories. I know of hundreds of couples that are going through our own USCIS purgatory. If interested, please read the complete thread from this website and contact me as well.

http://www.visajourn...service-center/

My user ID on that forum is SqdnGuns.

Thank you for considering.

Wade S. Grant

USMC, Retired

------------------------------------------------------------

Always worth a shot.........................

Looks like she specializes in immigration stories but none since August 2010.

http://topics.nytime...?inline=nyt-per

she could get so many countries, so many family dynamics, so many stories from VJ petitioners.... hopefully she was only taking a break for the holidays and will be getting back to writing again

[SqdnGuns 21]

she could get so many countries, so many family dynamics, so many stories from VJ petitioners.... hopefully she was only taking a break for the holidays and will be getting back to writing again

If we could get more VJ'ers to hammer away at the media....................I can see some traction coming about. What is the saying, Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[spcarm 9]

If we could get more VJ'ers to hammer away at the media....................I can see some traction coming about. What is the saying, Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I agree. The squeaky wheel does get the grease. I wrote her a letter with lots of detail about my perosnal experience with USCIS and the experience of the 36,000 and our family members whose petitions are in limbo. I really hope she takes up our story so that people like us can get some recognition.

Here's my letter:

Hello Ms. Bernstein,

I recently read a few of your articles published in the NY times in May and June of 2010 about US citizens that marry foreigners. I was particularly impressed by your article titled Strict Reading of Visa Rule Trips Up More Couples, published on May 14, 2010 because it reminds me of my own personal experience with my wife who is from Nicaragua. We met 2 years ago in El Salvador and it was love at first sight. I go down to Nicaragua every chance I get, even if it's only for a week, just to be with her. Almost a year after meeting, I filed an I-129F Petition for a Fiancee Visa on her behalf. Everything was going smoothly until the day of our interview at the US Consulate in Managua, Nicaragua. We made the mistake of getting married in Nicaragua 6 days before the visa interview. When the interviewer asked us for a certificate from the Nicaraguan Civil Registry proving that my wife was single, we told him that we were married and gave him a copy of our marriage certificate instead. The interviewer then informed us that my wife was no longer eligible for the K1 visa and that we had to reapply and file an I-130 Petition for an Alien Relative. Needless to say, we were absolutely devastated. Not only did we spend over $1,000 for nothing and have to pay the expensive fees all over again, but we were forced to be separated again for another 6 months because she did not have a visa.

Now I don't consider myself to be a stupid person. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Languages and Linguistics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County that I earned with a 4.0 GPA, but like Mr. and Mrs. van Sander, I found the papers for the I-129F too complicated. They say that if you are married, that you just simply have to put your spouse's name in the boxes that say fiancee. This is why I thought it wouldn't matter if we were married when we went for our interview. If we had known that being married would disqualify us, we would have never gotten married in Nicaragua. We would have waited until we got to the US.

To add insult to injury, we have to wait all over again while USCIS reviews our I-130 petition for a conditional residency visa that is supposed to prove that we are legally married. Yes! Their exact words to us when they denied my wife the K1 visa were, "Now that you are legally married, you do not qualify for this visa." Unbelievable! They denied her the visa because we were legally married, but now we have to prove that we are legally married!

The agony does not stop there. After the crushing emotional blow we were dealt by USCIS in the US consulate in Nicaragua, and after they took $710 more of our money for the I-130, we are now being forced to wait a ridiculous amount of time for USCIS to process our I-130 case. We submitted our petitions, one for my wife and one for her son, in July of 2010. According to the USCIS website, they process these petitions in less than 5 months. The only communication we've received from USCIS so far was an email stating that our petitions were transferred from the California Service Center to the Texas Service Center on November 2, 2010 and another email on November 24, 2010 that informed us that our cases were being processed. It is now January 22. We've been waiting for 6 months and we are growing very impatient; especially now that we are separated again. What angers me even more about our situation is the fact that people who filed their I-130 petitions in September and October of 2010, 2-3 months after we filed, are already receiving approval notices while my wife and I seem to have been forgotten.

I contacted my Congressman, John Sarbanes of district 3 in MD, this week and he got in touch with the Texas Service Center to inquire about our case. They told him that my case was only one of about 36,000 cases from July 2010 that had been transferred from California to Texas. So, 36,000 other US citizens and their family members are not being attended fairly in the order that they filed and are being forced to wait. To top it off, my Congressman's contact at the Texas Service Center told him that a request was being made that my file be assigned to an officer and that I could expect a reply in 45-60 days. So now we’re talking about an 8 month total wait when USCIS says it only takes 5 to process an I-130 and people who filed months after us have already had their cases processed. To me, these types of processing procedures are unjust and inexcusable and need to be brought to the attention of the American people.

That’s where you come in Ms. Bernstein. Some of the 36,000 people whose cases in limbo at the Texas Service Center and I have been clamoring about how unfairly we are being treated in online forums for people in the immigration process, in repeated attempts to communicate with the USCIS through phone calls to their national service center and email, and communication with our elected officials. So far, nobody really seems to be taking us seriously and I feel we have gone completely unnoticed. I was hoping that you could take my personal experience with USCIS and their immigration procedures for spouses of US citizens, and that of the 36,000 others in this situation, into account when you sit down to write a new article for the Times. Based on your articles, you seem to be the only person in the world right now that seems even remotely interested in people like us. For 36,000 US citizens and their families abroad, you represent the only hope that people will become aware of the hardships we are currently experiencing because of strict visa laws and unfair processing methods on the USCIS’s part.

If you actually took the time to read this entire letter, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because I feel as though no one cares about the pain my wife and I are feeling right now because of how tough it is for us to be together and how a little plastic document called a visa is getting in the way of our future together and the future of the family that we would like to have. And if you actually take the time to write an article about my story, or any one of the 36,000 others in my shoes, I think I can speak for them and tell you that you would be our greatest hero.

If you would like anymore information from me about this matter, you could contact me by email at (email address) or you could call me at 555-555-5432. You could also take a look at this forum on the internet where you will find stories from some of the other forgotten July 2010 filers whose cases are lost somewhere in the Texas Service Center: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/281110-california-service-center-to-texas-service-center/ .

I truly hope that you will take interest in our story, Ms. Bernstein, and I will look forward to reading any articles that you publish in the future. Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Sean Carmody

[spcarm 9]

Ms. Bernstein says in her "Strict Visa Laws" article that when she started to ask for info about Mr. van Sanders cases that USCIS released him from the correctional facility where he was being held. Maybe she can scare USCIS into getting their act together with this TSC fiasco and get them to act on our behalf.

[SqdnGuns 21]

Ms. Bernstein says in her "Strict Visa Laws" article that when she started to ask for info about Mr. van Sanders cases that USCIS released him from the correctional facility where he was being held. Maybe she can scare USCIS into getting their act together with this TSC fiasco and get them to act on our behalf.

Thanks Sean, I always have a helluva time putting into words that are in my mind, especially when I am angry. I have been stewing all day about our situation, it seems like nothing gets done with our Government unless someone does "something over the top".

Imagine all the others out there that don't belong to VJ or another similar site, what could be going through their minds?

[Tina.Benoy 2]

Something that stuck me on the "TSC Service Center Stakeholders’ Meeting – 10/21/2010" PDF posted earlier.

277 F/T + P/T employees (263 F/T, 14 P/T)

3 shifts, 24 hours/day, 5 days/week

So are these 277 employees taking care of all the petitions sent to TSC!! They are so outnumbered!

[OuterX 5]

I agree. The squeaky wheel does get the grease. I wrote her a letter with lots of detail about my perosnal experience with USCIS and the experience of the 36,000 and our family members whose petitions are in limbo. I really hope she takes up our story so that people like us can get some recognition.

Here's my letter.....:

My wife and I would like to thank you for your eloquence and much needed efforts.

[jennie ann 15]

Very nice letter. Thank you so much for taking the time to write that. Hopefully we will soon have Ms. Bernstein on our side!

I agree. The squeaky wheel does get the grease. I wrote her a letter with lots of detail about my perosnal experience with USCIS and the experience of the 36,000 and our family members whose petitions are in limbo. I really hope she takes up our story so that people like us can get some recognition.

Here's my letter:

Hello Ms. Bernstein,

I recently read a few of your articles published in the NY times in May and June of 2010 about US citizens that marry foreigners. I was particularly impressed by your article titled Strict Reading of Visa Rule Trips Up More Couples, published on May 14, 2010 because it reminds me of my own personal experience with my wife who is from Nicaragua. We met 2 years ago in El Salvador and it was love at first sight. I go down to Nicaragua every chance I get, even if it's only for a week, just to be with her. Almost a year after meeting, I filed an I-129F Petition for a Fiancee Visa on her behalf. Everything was going smoothly until the day of our interview at the US Consulate in Managua, Nicaragua. We made the mistake of getting married in Nicaragua 6 days before the visa interview. When the interviewer asked us for a certificate from the Nicaraguan Civil Registry proving that my wife was single, we told him that we were married and gave him a copy of our marriage certificate instead. The interviewer then informed us that my wife was no longer eligible for the K1 visa and that we had to reapply and file an I-130 Petition for an Alien Relative. Needless to say, we were absolutely devastated. Not only did we spend over $1,000 for nothing and have to pay the expensive fees all over again, but we were forced to be separated again for another 6 months because she did not have a visa.

Now I don't consider myself to be a stupid person. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Languages and Linguistics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County that I earned with a 4.0 GPA, but like Mr. and Mrs. van Sander, I found the papers for the I-129F too complicated. They say that if you are married, that you just simply have to put your spouse's name in the boxes that say fiancee. This is why I thought it wouldn't matter if we were married when we went for our interview. If we had known that being married would disqualify us, we would have never gotten married in Nicaragua. We would have waited until we got to the US.

To add insult to injury, we have to wait all over again while USCIS reviews our I-130 petition for a conditional residency visa that is supposed to prove that we are legally married. Yes! Their exact words to us when they denied my wife the K1 visa were, "Now that you are legally married, you do not qualify for this visa." Unbelievable! They denied her the visa because we were legally married, but now we have to prove that we are legally married!

The agony does not stop there. After the crushing emotional blow we were dealt by USCIS in the US consulate in Nicaragua, and after they took $710 more of our money for the I-130, we are now being forced to wait a ridiculous amount of time for USCIS to process our I-130 case. We submitted our petitions, one for my wife and one for her son, in July of 2010. According to the USCIS website, they process these petitions in less than 5 months. The only communication we've received from USCIS so far was an email stating that our petitions were transferred from the California Service Center to the Texas Service Center on November 2, 2010 and another email on November 24, 2010 that informed us that our cases were being processed. It is now January 22. We've been waiting for 6 months and we are growing very impatient; especially now that we are separated again. What angers me even more about our situation is the fact that people who filed their I-130 petitions in September and October of 2010, 2-3 months after we filed, are already receiving approval notices while my wife and I seem to have been forgotten.

I contacted my Congressman, John Sarbanes of district 3 in MD, this week and he got in touch with the Texas Service Center to inquire about our case. They told him that my case was only one of about 36,000 cases from July 2010 that had been transferred from California to Texas. So, 36,000 other US citizens and their family members are not being attended fairly in the order that they filed and are being forced to wait. To top it off, my Congressman's contact at the Texas Service Center told him that a request was being made that my file be assigned to an officer and that I could expect a reply in 45-60 days. So now we’re talking about an 8 month total wait when USCIS says it only takes 5 to process an I-130 and people who filed months after us have already had their cases processed. To me, these types of processing procedures are unjust and inexcusable and need to be brought to the attention of the American people.

That’s where you come in Ms. Bernstein. Some of the 36,000 people whose cases in limbo at the Texas Service Center and I have been clamoring about how unfairly we are being treated in online forums for people in the immigration process, in repeated attempts to communicate with the USCIS through phone calls to their national service center and email, and communication with our elected officials. So far, nobody really seems to be taking us seriously and I feel we have gone completely unnoticed. I was hoping that you could take my personal experience with USCIS and their immigration procedures for spouses of US citizens, and that of the 36,000 others in this situation, into account when you sit down to write a new article for the Times. Based on your articles, you seem to be the only person in the world right now that seems even remotely interested in people like us. For 36,000 US citizens and their families abroad, you represent the only hope that people will become aware of the hardships we are currently experiencing because of strict visa laws and unfair processing methods on the USCIS’s part.

If you actually took the time to read this entire letter, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because I feel as though no one cares about the pain my wife and I are feeling right now because of how tough it is for us to be together and how a little plastic document called a visa is getting in the way of our future together and the future of the family that we would like to have. And if you actually take the time to write an article about my story, or any one of the 36,000 others in my shoes, I think I can speak for them and tell you that you would be our greatest hero.

If you would like anymore information from me about this matter, you could contact me by email at (email address) or you could call me at 555-555-5432. You could also take a look at this forum on the internet where you will find stories from some of the other forgotten July 2010 filers whose cases are lost somewhere in the Texas Service Center: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/281110-california-service-center-to-texas-service-center/ .

I truly hope that you will take interest in our story, Ms. Bernstein, and I will look forward to reading any articles that you publish in the future. Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Sean Carmody

[SqdnGuns 21]

Can we get some of you who have not filled out your Timelines to do so please? I know that I have sent the link to this thread to 100's of media outlets describing our situation and by having your Timelines completed properly may assist some in evaluating our problem.

Thanks!

[jennie ann 15]

Can we get some of you who have not filled out your Timelines to do so please? I know that I have sent the link to this thread to 100's of media outlets describing our situation and by having your Timelines completed properly may assist some in evaluating our problem.

Thanks!

Don't know about others, but I'd been keeping mine as CSC because on the Edit Timeline page, it says "List ORIGINAL filing location; even if petition transferred". I suppose we're beyond that now though, since we're so far off the CSC stats, so I'll go ahead and change it to TSC.

[Never_lose_hope 10]

Can we get some of you who have not filled out your Timelines to do so please? I know that I have sent the link to this thread to 100's of media outlets describing our situation and by having your Timelines completed properly may assist some in evaluating our problem.

Thanks!

[Val and Gary 29]

Monday WILL bring us the hope we need. I AM positive!!

Happy Sunday to all!

Edited January 23, 2011 by Val and Gary

[Val and Gary 29]

THE REASON we're all going through this madness....

Edited January 23, 2011 by Val and Gary

[Nataliya-Ron 7]

Well Yes Happy Sunday

My family is on Twitter and I let Bill know

@oreillyfactor of our Situation.

He is more of the person FOR US rights of Americans.

I hope all you others keep adding your issues to everywhere also

send out the message, it takes a team effort to win our approvals

if you want your freedom and right tobe with your LOVE ONES

Ron