Wronful 221g denial

[geoff2013 0]

Hello, everyone, this is my first post. I was married to my Filipina wife in November 2010. I stayed with her from then until nowin Cebu city. We filed her immigrant visa pertition february 2013 and got our interview for december 10th. We were the last to be interviewed right beore lunch. The first thing that happened was the CO asked me why we had a proxy marriage. Well I did it because my wife was worried I wouldnt really marry her as it had already been 2 years of courtship and 8 months of acutal time together, I wanted to prove I loved her and meet my wife in the airport not my girlfreind. I told the CO this. Then he asked me how I have supported myself here, I am on Social Security Disability and told him this. He abrubtly told me to have seat so I did. Less then 2 miutes later my wife returned to her seat. I was concerened as 90% of the other people had been at the interview windows for 15-20 minutes and we got roughly 3 minutes total. We were then called to another window and were told we need and affidavit of support for Henry? I asked the girl, "who is Henry" long story short they said since my joint sponsor "(my mother) had filed her 2012 1040 jointly with her spouse he had to sign I-864a. He had already made it clear he didnt want his name on anything so I checked this out ahad of time:

http://blogs.usembassy.gov/philippines/?p=506

Why does the Consular Officer sometimes ask for both forms?

Sometimes the Consular Officer will ask an applicant for the petitioner’s income tax return and W2s. The reason for this is that your sponsor may have filed his/her income tax return jointly with his/her spouse. The income tax return shows only the total income that both the husband and wife have earned. If your sponsor signed an affidavit of support form (Form I-864), but his/her spouse did not sign a household member form (Form I-864A), the Consular Officer may want to see how much your sponsor made individually. In this case, the Officer would need to see your sponsor’s W2s, showing all the income he/she personally made over the last year.

I told them everything is already there and that my mother qualified alone, and that they are supposed to look at her W2's and se that shequalifies. The lady went in the back to see the CO and came back with the same position. I begged to talk to the CO and he refused to even come to the window, lunch was more important. We were sent a 221g email notification, we returned to Cebu desolate.

I contacted my state Senators office and they started corresponding with the Embassy on our behalf, they held their ground until the Senators office consulted with the NVC, who said that I-864 was not required, and with an immigration attorney who said the same. The Senators office told the embassy this and their reply was this:

From: Manila IV Congressional
To: (name removed)
Subject: (name removed)

Control No: 40361

Reference: (name removed)

Date: December 16, 2013

This is in reply to your December 14, 2013 inquiry regarding the visa concerns of your constituent, (name removed).

We noted your constituent’s concerns regarding the need to submit a properly executed Contract Between Sponsor and Household Member (Form I-864A) with original signatures from joint sponsors (name removed) and (name removed)

A joint sponsor is required if the petitioner’s income does not meet the requirements of 125% of the U.S. poverty guidelines for a household of his/her size. Since the petitioner and the joint sponsors live in the same household, we need to see a Form I-864A (Contract Between Sponsor and Household Member), signed by (name removed) and (name removed)

The adjudicating consular officer will assess the totality of circumstances and the adequacy of the joint sponsors’ financial resources when we receive the document. The required documentation should be sent to the Embassy via any branch of 2Go courier service (Attn: Immigrant Visa Unit), together with a copy of our December 10, 2013 221(g) notification letter.

I DO NOT LIVE WITH MY MOTHER, EVERY SINGLE DOCUMENT that asks where we intend to live in the USA etc clearly has my address in Oregon, my mother lives in California. If I lived with my mother I would be including her income as a household member with mine. They obviously never even read or looked at our documents that the NVC pre-processed and approved. I feel like because we choose to be married by proxy, that this guy, since he didnt even read our documents must just not want to give us the Visa, I am so confused. The latest response from manila is:

From: Manila IV Congressional
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 7:49 PM
To: Maier, (name removed)
Subject:(name removed)-#40386

Control No: 40386

Reference: (name removed)

Date: December 19, 2013

This is in reply to your December 19, 2013 inquiry regarding the visa concerns of your constituent, (name removed).

We are referring your communication to our processing team for appropriate action. We will provide your office with a case status update once further information is available

Subject:(name removed)-#40386

As of today they have not replied to another request for information from my Senator's Office. We have two children together, my son needs major surgery to remove part of his left lung, our holidays have been destroyed and all because of a Consular that would not take 60 seconds to flip through the documents, instead he just made some guess or possibly deliberatly did this. I dont know what to do, we cannot leave my wife and the mother of my two US Citizen children behind, not for a minute. Everything we do here requires me to fight for it, she would never survive this on her own. Now after reading alot I find out you cannot contest a CO's decision! These people can just destroy your life and theres no recourse? Is this for real? Every Attorney I have talked to says we are the classic example of who SHOULD get a Visa, married for years, Children, lived together the entire time etc etc. Any suggestions or advice would be graciously appreciated. Calling the Embassy is a nightmare, there phones dont work half the time, the two alternate numbers posted on their website both gave me (in an American male voice) "you have dialed an invailid number" strange that I called a Manila # and got that message. When I can get through to the trunk line I cannot even hear the person on the other end, its like a very bad majic jack connection totally broken up. Is this really a US Embassy? Its been like 6 months with broken down phone lines ,someone please advise us.

Edited December 26, 2013 by geoff2013

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

Hello and welcome to VisaJourney!

It is very common for the embassy to require a I-864A when a couple of married, even if one income alone qualifies.

You may need to look into your mother changing her previous tax filings, or at least file 2013 asap as married- filing separately, though even then we have had cases where the CO requires I-864A.

[Bin deeq 10]

[Pitaya 2,577]

Welcome to the forum.

[jkelly07 120]

welcome to vj