Over 1 Year, Kids in Original K1, Now Full Custody

[Chico Carlo 0]

The story is an involved one. Birth father's mother (grandma) used lawyer to trick my wife into being trapped (Time requirements of K1 already triggered). She came to the US without her children. After a year and a half she is back in the Dominican Republic. She has hired an attorney and should be receiving full custody in a month. The grandma let the kids think they were coming, med exams were complete, all was granted ok in US file. Yet another missed school year start or still not being with their Mom when we played by the rules is certainly not fair. Anyone have any advice? (Kendry will be 10 in Oct, Amelia 8 next month.) (Note: If you click on the picture it will open full size.)

Edited June 29, 2013 by Chico Carlo

[aaron2020 11,651]

Have you filed separate I-130s for the children. Even without custody, you could still file.

[Chico Carlo 0]

I have not even looked at form #'s or anything else since the original process, so don't know what an I-130 is. Of course I can look. The general question is do we get hung in a total new process, hving to choose who has to live apart again or is their hope for any kind of reasonably rapid avenue. Thank you for any advice in advance.

[aaron2020 11,651]

The children need immigration visas.

You need to file I-130 petitions for them.

This will take 6-12 months.

What was the plan? I mean your wife cannot just bring foreign citizens into the US without visas.

[Chico Carlo 0]

Additional info: The K1 was originally applied for with the minor children included. The children went through the entire process with vaccinations and medical, the grandmother allowing them to believe they were coming. The birth father emmigrated to Spain before the second child was born and has a legal family there. The grandmother went through a sham of faxing legal papers back and forth to Spain for a voluntary custody status change, and convinced the children's mother that the kids needed separate passports when not true, so the passports were obtained at a different time. Plane tickets, hotel, Disney world in Orlando all prepurchased for the kids first time in the states. Then of course after the fact treat my wife like the poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Unthinkable in the US. Totally understand the DR is not the US.

Wife came to US Oct 2010. Green card actually issued less than a year ago.

[Chico Carlo 0]

USCIS totally lost wife's medical. I suspect it's because all 3 were tied together and her's never left Santo Domingo. Yet more $ to do over. Biggest reason for change of status delay.

[Chico Carlo 0]

After all the high level fear of prep for the whole process, and all the money spent, when it finally came time in Santo Domingo and I was there at the immigration "cattle call" when it came time a 25 yr old took a cursury look at the file and just looked at me. "Well I believe it's sincere on your part. You're a big boy, you can do what you want." I later got called back up, only one I saw in the hours I was there, she hadn't even paid enough attention to see the 2 kids in the file. For the money, time and effort I've been through to this point giving status away to 10 million plus - not a big fan of our US immigration system.

[Chico Carlo 0]

Oops, I'm sorry. Not Oct 2010. Oct 2011. Been here 1 & 1/2 years.

[aaron2020 11,651]

Blame the grandmother for perpetuating a fraud in you and your wife and costing you time and money. The US immigration system didn't cause your problems, she did.

The US immigration system operated the way it should because it is illegal for the US to issue a visa to a child without both parents' consent. The US does not want to assist the immigrating parent from depriving the other parent of custody. The US will not participate in a case of parental kidnapping.

There is no rapid process. The K-2 is foreclosed because it has been over a year since the K-1 was issued to your wife.

You need to move on filing the I-130s. Expect to wait at least six months.

Edited June 29, 2013 by aaron2020

[Chico Carlo 0]

Thank you for the information Aaron.

[Cathi 5,807]

After all the high level fear of prep for the whole process, and all the money spent, when it finally came time in Santo Domingo and I was there at the immigration "cattle call" when it came time a 25 yr old took a cursury look at the file and just looked at me. "Well I believe it's sincere on your part. You're a big boy, you can do what you want." I later got called back up, only one I saw in the hours I was there, she hadn't even paid enough attention to see the 2 kids in the file. For the money, time and effort I've been through to this point giving status away to 10 million plus - not a big fan of our US immigration system.

It isn't the US immigration system that lied and scammed you, it was the children's grandmother. There are laws that USCIS and the consulate have to follow, they did their jobs. You let the original K-2's expire, and that is the fault of their grandmother, not US immigration, you lost time and money because of her. Now you need to move on file I-130 petitions for the children, there are guides at the top of the page for you to follow. Should you have any further questions about the I-130 process I am sure the members here on VJ will be happy to help. If all goes smoothly the process to get them here should be about 6-9 months. Good luck.

Edited June 30, 2013 by mimolicious

[Chico Carlo 0]

Okay, I do appreciate the time for each of the two replies. And yes, a surprise to me as I am in California while the one thing that isn't US is going on, the Dominican family law custody issue. And the grandmother used her advantage of being there to rig a trap that caught my wife having to decide whether to leave the kids and come to states or lose the whole 1-2 years of K1 work as the clock is already ticking. It is difficult for a "typical" westerner to get the idea of a Caribbean island country, a small town in southwest interior of the country close to Haiti and almost all official governmental things have to happen in the capital, Santo Domingo. (Yes I understand many here come from difficult situations, and that k1 issuance is hardly automatic.) For me I never intended to go anywhere near an international relationship in my life. It is actually pretty wild that I ended up being in love with a women from this little country town on Hispaniola in the Carribean and I from a town in northern California. It is also common in much of the Caribean for families to start with no legal or church structure, and then the guy just decides to move on with no consequences. What is a bit surprising to my frame of reference is that even though the guy was already permanently in Spain before the 2nd child was born, family law in the Dom Republic protects the father's equal custody rights 5 and 7 years later just because his name is registered on the birth certificate.

Further what complicates the situation is that being from that small town my wife is just old enough and her town small and in the interior country enough that her father got away with telling her he needed her at home and didn't send her to school. Yes it had long since been totally not legal in the DR. While my wife is totally capable of functioning on her own in a city of over a million, Santo Domingo, she is by our civilized standards a functional illiterate. Easy prey for grandma and her attorney. I am very working class and don't have unlimited resources. In the last 3 years I've made 4 trips to the DR and my is on her second. My first was not intended for a bunch of repeats, I'd saved up frequent fliers miles. For my wife to be there, traveling back and forth to the county seat, hiring her own attorney and the young woman from the wrong side of the tracks facing down "old stock" family from the center of town I look at as pretty brave.

After I went through the K1 process (and of course one can have self doubts like should I really be doing in this even if I am in love?) I at least naively expected a level professionalism from my own US government. To have all the work boil down to a decision point that is a less than 10 minute cursary glance at a file and be patronized through a 2X4 window by a bad attitude woman 1/2 my age was not what I expected for an event of such importance. And her attention to detail so poor that she had to call me back because she didn't even notice the two K2's in the file. Having to come back multiple times to the 7:30 AM line with hundreds of people because I am convincingly given exactly opposite answers from people in the same facility to an important proceedural question. Twice. To spend over a thousand dollars for a slew of medical stuff at the only facility that approved. Delay, delay in the states, travel to the nearest USCIS for the final interview and them act like it's my fault the file isn't complete, there's no medical for my wife. How am I supposed to know that, I did everything by the rules. Oh well, it happens regularly, no I can't try and find it. Shouldn't be much trouble. None of the approved docs want to truncate anything, they can't take anything in the USCIS letter to change anything. A full medical needed, all the vacinations over again, another grand please. The vaccinations could have been done at the local health dept for a few dollars by comparison.

I just expected better from the USA. Naive.

It's not my intent to be discouraging to others. After the second "They did their job" post in response for my asking for help, I'm sorry but difficult to take.

If I understand the rules correctly, since I am married to the children's mother (a legal permanent resident) this makes the chidren by definition my "stepchildren". This means they are defined as an immediate family minor child of mine in the eyes of the USCIS. I can file a I-130 and an adjustment of status concurrently without a visa number required. People regularly travel to the US on a tourist visa and stay 6 months and often get an extention and stay for a year total. I've followed all the rules to date, I should be trustworthy to say the kids will go back at any time such as is legally required and them be granted tourest visas for a stay with their mother instead of growing up without her and her (and my) marraige damaged. Seems morally reasonable. Any advice?

My wife's best friend here in my town is a Guatamalan with a very cute 2 year old, Sophie, that has become attached to me. Sophie's father is an immigrant. He is living as a family unit with another immigrant. I like Sopie's mother. And she tries hard to work and survive. To call all three of them undocumented is really being willfully blind. They are all documented. Soc Sec numbers and California driver's licenses with paid insurance. All the "documents" bought and paid for from a fraud mill in San Francisco. The woman Sophie's father lives with lies about him living there and earning wages at a job. She lives in Section 8 subsidized housing and pays $100 for a $900 apartment. The family receives food stamps based on the 3 children in the house. She is pregnant with her 4th by Sophie's father. And the mayor of Los Angeles indignantly calls for his city to be a "safe haven".

On one of my trips I was in a taxi that had a fiend of the driver riding in the front seat. He spoke good English and I asked some about his story. He had emmigrated to New York many years ago, become an entreprenuer and obviously made a lot more money than I ever will. He had both of his daughters in college, one at Columbia University, don't remember the other. Here he is in a cab in Santo Domingo with me bitterly complaining about how hard he's worked to get where he is, 2 kids in private universities, and the government doles out money like crazy to people just because they're there with his tax dollars. It really was ironic funny. Kinda hard to take for a guy that's played by my government's rules all my life.