Bulky I-751 Application

[daru 5]

14 hours ago, Family said:

You are wrong about not being able to negotiate debt allocation as an LPR, in divorce proceedings. Even an undocumented immigrant has same standing in family court. 
 

Dividing joint marital debts ( including IRS) is best accomplished in the MSA / marital settlement agreement…cause court won’t hold him ‘ accountable “ for being a poor provider or go back and tally up who did what or where they fell short. 
 

I am sure you are aware, you described a man in the throws of a serious and often fatal disease : addiction. Hope he gets help . 

 

I can't negotiate an IRS debt that I paid off. If I pay it off now I'll just be shifting the debt to my credit cards which would be a terrible judgement call.

That means I shouldn't just pay the tax debt off, but at the same time, I filed for naturalization so I need to be careful to not be found to lack GMC in not outright paying the tax debt off.

 

Also an agreement is not feasible when the other party can't be reasoned with and/or has unsafe demands (such as shared custody of pets that he abused).

Court will hold him accountable in a settlement for SOME of the debt that I care for, will give me full custody of the pets, a long-### full order of protection, and a judicial acknowledgement of what I went through which might be useful down the line given that he is a licensed social worker who currently works with children and has been routinely working with vulnerable populations in the past.

These things will never happen without court involvement.

Court will also hold him accountable for the portion of the rent that he didn't pay this year while absolutely wanting to stay on the lease despite not living there.

I was going to go to small claims court for that but my lawyer said it would be simpler to just include that in the divorce proceedings.

 

I spent 3 years trying to have him get help.

Two years in I started to attend Al-Anon near daily.

Therapists of relatives of addicts often say that their roles is that there only be one casualty instead of two.

And there's mental illness involved, it's not "just" the addiction itself.

 

[daru 5]

14 hours ago, Family said:

You are wrong about not being able to negotiate debt allocation as an LPR, in divorce proceedings. Even an undocumented immigrant has same standing in family court. 
 

Dividing joint marital debts ( including IRS) is best accomplished in the MSA / marital settlement agreement…cause court won’t hold him ‘ accountable “ for being a poor provider or go back and tally up who did what or where they fell short. 
 

I am sure you are aware, you described a man in the throws of a serious and often fatal disease : addiction. Hope he gets help . 

 

I can't negotiate an IRS debt that I paid off. If I pay it off now I'll just be shifting the debt to my credit cards which would be a terrible judgement call.

That means I shouldn't just pay the tax debt off, but at the same time, I filed for naturalization so I need to be careful to not be found to lack GMC in not outright paying the tax debt off.

 

Also an agreement is not feasible when the other party can't be reasoned with and/or has unsafe demands (such as shared custody of pets that he abused).

Court will hold him accountable in a settlement for SOME of the debt that I care for, will give me full custody of the pets, a long-### full order of protection, and a judicial acknowledgement of what I went through which might be useful down the line given that he is a licensed social worker who currently works with children and has been routinely working with vulnerable populations in the past.

These things will never happen without court involvement.

Court will also hold him accountable for the portion of the rent that he didn't pay this year while absolutely wanting to stay on the lease despite not living there.

I was going to go to small claims court for that but my lawyer said it would be simpler to just include that in the divorce proceedings.

 

On the bright side, his two main incentives to avoid(/evade?) abuse-related divorce litigation, besides money, are (1) because he's a social worker, that would be a long-term threat to his career and (2) he's in a rush to marry his next victim and to buy a house with him and has stated so.

 

I spent 3 years trying to have him get help.

Two years in I started to attend Al-Anon near daily.

Therapists of relatives of addicts often say that their roles is that there only be one casualty instead of two.

And there's mental illness involved, it's not "just" the addiction itself.

 

[daru 5]

(I posted twice by accident above, if an admin could delete the first of my previous two comments, thx)

 

To get back to the topic of this thread, I went through a call and a chat with a live agent through Emma and I tried to fill an inquiry but didn't go through because none of the options of that last one seemed to fit.

For context/reminder, I mailed in a 428-page request to add a battery/extreme cruelty waiver to my joint I-751 filing.

That request was received via FedEx on 9/11/2024 (so it's been a month and a half).

The original joint filing was received in early Aug 2023.

 

On the phone it was recommended for me to mail an inquiry to the service center and that I would get a response to it within a month.

I haven't done that yet.

On this past Saturday I received an automated e-mail from USCIS saying that they received my non-delivery inquiry and that their target response time to those is 72 hours.

I don't know from which source they picked up an inquiry so I don't know how much of my problem they're already aware of.

 

Also, it's all in the California Service Center, which I recently found out had moved to a new facility.

I filed my amendment request at the old address during the overlap time so my request is acceptable as far as timing is concerned but I'm thinking it could have been lost in the move, or they might simply be struggling with a huge backlog in scanning. The lady on the phone did tell me that right now the ingesting time tends to be 30-60 days which seems huge to me.

 

[Family 4,015]

26 minutes ago, daru said:

(I posted twice by accident above, if an admin could delete the first of my previous two comments, thx)

 

To get back to the topic of this thread, I went through a call and a chat with a live agent through Emma and I tried to fill an inquiry but didn't go through because none of the options of that last one seemed to fit.

For context/reminder, I mailed in a 428-page request to add a battery/extreme cruelty waiver to my joint I-751 filing.

That request was received via FedEx on 9/11/2024 (so it's been a month and a half).

The original joint filing was received in early Aug 2023.

 

On the phone it was recommended for me to mail an inquiry to the service center and that I would get a response to it within a month.

I haven't done that yet.

On this past Saturday I received an automated e-mail from USCIS saying that they received my non-delivery inquiry and that their target response time to those is 72 hours.

I don't know from which source they picked up an inquiry so I don't know how much of my problem they're already aware of.

 

Also, it's all in the California Service Center, which I recently found out had moved to a new facility.

I filed my amendment request at the old address during the overlap time so my request is acceptable as far as timing is concerned but I'm thinking it could have been lost in the move, or they might simply be struggling with a huge backlog in scanning. The lady on the phone did tell me that right now the ingesting time tends to be 30-60 days which seems huge to me.

 

Not clear if you are DIY your immigration case or divorce, though you do have legal counsel of some sort. Good. Hopefully for divorce, since direct negotiations in heated splits are usually unrealistic. ..ending in f-bombs in most attempts.

 

Your request to amend hopefully included both divorce and abuse waiver, but regardless, stop calling them for your own mental health. 
‘As long as you have proof of mailing , it will be acknowledged at final decision time. ..your status and life will go on undisturbed…no matter how long the process. Yes, N-400 will force a decision on I-751, so kudos for putting that in place.

 

You seem to have dug in your heels on expectations from divorce court…ok , go for it. BUT…you may want to seek bifurcation and get marital status dissolved before awaiting the long drawn out slow-bleed of family court proceedings. ..even though tactic is usually reserved for asset battles.

 

Double kudos for seeking support .
 

 

 

 

 

 

[daru 5]

1 hour ago, Family said:

Not clear if you are DIY your immigration case or divorce, though you do have legal counsel of some sort. Good. Hopefully for divorce, since direct negotiations in heated splits are usually unrealistic. ..ending in f-bombs in most attempts.

 

Your request to amend hopefully included both divorce and abuse waiver, but regardless, stop calling them for your own mental health. 
‘As long as you have proof of mailing , it will be acknowledged at final decision time. ..your status and life will go on undisturbed…no matter how long the process. Yes, N-400 will force a decision on I-751, so kudos for putting that in place.

 

You seem to have dug in your heels on expectations from divorce court…ok , go for it. BUT…you may want to seek bifurcation and get marital status dissolved before awaiting the long drawn out slow-bleed of family court proceedings. ..even though tactic is usually reserved for asset battles.

 

Double kudos for seeking support .

 

The joint I-751 was done with the immigration lawyer who also filed I-130 / I-485 etc two years prior.

I looked for a lawyer for the abuse amendment but wasn't able to find one. Most private lawyer I was able to get a ballpark from were above $8k for the filing, none of them were willing to take a case where there would be a concurrent N-400 filing, and all pro-bono organizations I spoke with refused to take my case because I still have CPR status (they usually do VAWA through I-360 rather than I-751) and because my revenue is above poverty level.

So I did a lot of research and spent 8 months in 2024 gathering and compiling evidence and writing my statement and cover letter.

I think the resource that helped me the most is the PDFs from the NIWAP (National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project), which has several publications decrypting what kind of actions qualify one for VAWA. Most notably, they state that USCIS draws those in large part from family/divorce case law, hence the case law logic that makes something being abuse for divorce purposes also does it for immigration purposes. For instance, criminal mischief amounts to battery for divorce/immigration because it constitutes an imminent risk of physical harm, as does an assault or attempt thereof.

 

I did not request a divorce waiver because I am very confident that my case will be approved on abuse grounds and because I am also very confident that it will be picked up long before I get a judgement of divorce. I could still refile based on divorce if the abuse waiver is denied which is very unlikely, and provide the judgement while the I-751 is pending, seeing as in such case it won't be bumped up by an N-400 concurrent filing.

 

I am not only seeking for the existence of a VAWA filing to be acknowledged at final decision time, I am also seeking the protections granted by having a VAWA case.

I believe that he is likely to make false declarations to USCIS in order to jeopardize my immigration status if I do certain things such as pressing charges for more of the things he's done, or reporting him to the licensing body for social workers in the State he now lives in and where he is attempting to get an annulment so that I struggle to defend myself from afar and to prove abuse with out-of-state evidence.

 

On my expectations from divorce, I know that I won't get as much money as I would care for as long as I compel him to pay $10-20k out of the $50k+ he can reasonably be deemed to owe me, I'll be fine.

The non-monetary stuff (pets, OOP, etc) is much more important to me and I won't get those things without litigating for them.

He has much more of an incentive for divorce to be adjudicated first than I do.

He wants to move on with his new victim and has also shown time and again that he will very actively and overtly evade every attempt to reach him or to collect debt, as he has always done.

I want to collect as much as possible BEFORE the divorce be final, and I want to drag the divorce as much as possible in order to do so.

 

Also, I have one family lawyer in NY who filed my divorce (and said "you could bury him" when I shared my I-751 VAWA statement and evidence and mentioned some of the stuff that I didn't include in evidence for his sake) and will litigate it on the merits, and another one in TX who is fighting the frivolous TX annulment filing based on lack of jurisdiction.

 

 

Edited October 21 by daru
Lawyers

[Family 4,015]

32 minutes ago, daru said:

 

The joint I-751 was done with the immigration lawyer who also filed I-130 / I-485 etc two years prior.

I looked for a lawyer for the abuse amendment but wasn't able to find one. Most private lawyer I was able to get a ballpark from were above $8k for the filing, none of them were willing to take a case where there would be a concurrent N-400 filing, and all pro-bono organizations I spoke with refused to take my case because I still have CPR status (they usually do VAWA through I-360 rather than I-751) and because my revenue is above poverty level.

So I did a lot of research and spent 8 months in 2024 gathering and compiling evidence and writing my statement and cover letter.

I think the resource that helped me the most is the PDFs from the NIWAP (National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project), which has several publications decrypting what kind of actions qualify one for VAWA. Most notably, they state that USCIS draws those in large part from family/divorce case law, hence the case law logic that makes something being abuse for divorce purposes also does it for immigration purposes. For instance, criminal mischief amounts to battery for divorce/immigration because it constitutes an imminent risk of physical harm, as does an assault or attempt thereof.

 

I did not request a divorce waiver because I am very confident that my case will be approved on abuse grounds and because I am also very confident that it will be picked up long before I get a judgement of divorce. I could still refile based on divorce if the abuse waiver is denied which is very unlikely, and provide the judgement while the I-751 is pending, seeing as in such case it won't be bumped up by an N-400 concurrent filing.

 

I am not only seeking for the existence of a VAWA filing to be acknowledged at final decision time, I am also seeking the protections granted by having a VAWA case.

I believe that he is likely to make false declarations to USCIS in order to jeopardize my immigration status if I do certain things such as pressing charges for more of the things he's done, or reporting him to the licensing body for social workers in the State he now lives in and where he is attempting to get an annulment so that I struggle to defend myself from afar and to prove abuse with out-of-state evidence.

 

On my expectations from divorce, I know that I won't get as much money as I would care for as long as I compel him to pay $10-20k out of the $50k+ he can reasonably be deemed to owe me, I'll be fine.

The non-monetary stuff (pets, OOP, etc) is much more important to me and I won't get those things without litigating for them.

He has much more of an incentive for divorce to be adjudicated first than I do.

He wants to move on with his new victim and has also shown time and again that he will very actively and overtly evade every attempt to reach him or to collect debt, as he has always done.

I want to collect as much as possible BEFORE the divorce be final, and I want to drag the divorce as much as possible in order to do so.

 

Also, I have one family lawyer in NY who filed my divorce (and said "you could bury him" when I shared my I-751 VAWA statement and evidence and mentioned some of the stuff that I didn't include in evidence for his sake) and will litigate it on the merits, and another one in TX who is fighting the frivolous TX annulment filing based on lack of jurisdiction.

 

 

Hats off to good sourced research. 
Be aware that DV/abuse claims in family courts get stale dated ( unofficially) if ‘ not recent” ( so let’s say 90 days) and most effective for restraining/protection orders. You seem to have those orders in place, so that will cement the immigration abuse claim.

 

Personally, I don’t see the benefit of planning a drawn out divorce. ####### 😂…has physically moved out , the pets are with you and what he does with his privates or in private should not ruffle your feathers. 
 

Annulment after 2 years of marital bliss , colored by DV protective orders….aside from Who Knows What Jurisdictional challenges, won’t fly even in Texas.

You are right about staking an abuse claim for I-751, if he is likely to cry foul to USCIS. ..but keep the divorce waiver option in your pocket and pull it out if you rethink the speedy Get That Man Out of My Hair option.

 

 

 

[Boiler 45,585]

I have never thought about how VAWA companies with a Fraud Waiver, and I have never seen it discussed.

 

Please keep this threat updated on developments.

[Family 4,015]

11 minutes ago, Boiler said:

I have never thought about how VAWA companies with a Fraud Waiver, and I have never seen it discussed.

 

Please keep this threat updated on developments.

@Boiler…what fraud waiver are you referring to? No waiver for sham/fraud marriage and certainly no hint of marriage fraud in this thread

[daru 5]

I don't think the annulment would stick on the merits (also because I'm fighting it; I'm extremely confident that he was heavily relying on a default judgement because he's done it before in unrelated civil cases) but the case would convert to divorce eventually and I don't want to litigate the divorce in Texas.

 

Even for the matter of lack of jurisdiction, my TX wants me to provide him with certified copies of the OOPs and I'm having a hard time getting these because apparently the criminal court clerk's office and the DA's office are not very familiar with the procedure. The opposing lawyer in TX could keep them out of evidence if they're not certified, and hinder me from making the point that there is abuse to litigate. My TX lawyer says the TX court is much more likely to waive their presumed subject matter jurisdiction if the OOPs are included.

If they don't waive it, they will still be lacking personal jurisdiction and will be able to adjudicate the divorce but not the split, so I will be litigating in TX and it will take a while and I'll have to get everything certified and go back and forth etc, for the split to then not be done while that's what I care for the most.

 

The I-751 situation is not just about frivolous accusations of fraud.

He could also make frivolous accusations of crimes and disrupt the processing of my case.

I have at least two examples in mind where he assaulted me and because I made it obvious that I was audio recording he started punching himself and took pictures of his own self-inflicted bruises.

I provided USCIS with one (transcript of) recording where I call 911 and he talks over me to say I assaulted him and then when the dispatcher asks if there are weapons at home he says we have a bunch of firearms and are ready for a shootout.

I also provided them with one (transcript of) recording where he records himself starting with something like "So you were saying you married me for immigration, right?" hoping that the gaslighting would have me confused enough to make an incriminating statement. I called his BS, he threatened to kill me if I call 911 again (he was trashing the apt a few minutes before and I had the doorman call 911 through the intercom), then assaulted me, then punched himself when he realized I was recording too, pretended to call a physician to report an assault, then when I confronted him about the criminal mischief he admitted to felony insurance fraud in an attempt to subdue me by trying to persuade me that I was an accessory to that crime (he lied to me so I would make an erroneous statement that led to the approval of his claim). On the recording he acknowledges that he fed me a lie, disregard that my knowledge and intent matter, and tries to scare me around the idea that I wouldn't fare as well as him in prison.

 

So yeah he perfectly could just send pictures of self-inflicted bruises or cherry-pick statements that he induced, to see what sticks.

With VAWA, all accusations of crimes will be ignored unless they can be corroborated by a non-presumably-malicious source.

Without VAWA, such accusations could be sufficient to complicate and greatly delay at least my N-400 case and possibly also my I-751 case.

 

Also, VAWA filings still require to prove the bona fides relationship (although it lowers the evidentiary standard, so the bona fides criterion is easier to meet).

These filings don't drop the bona fides requirement, they simply prevent the abuser from having any say with USCIS.

Edited October 21 by daru
Precision on transcripts vs recordings

[Boiler 45,585]

Abuse waiver....

 

Duh

[daru 5]

Still no update, but I ended up just uploading all of my evidence onto the joint case on myUSCIS last week.

I'm very uncomfortable with that but at least I know that they have all of it.

I also called the Customer Contact Center and the best response I was able to get was that my evidence would be looked at during adjudication to assert at such time whether it's appropriate to apply VAWA-related procedures. The purpose of my call was to assert that now that I uploaded the evidence including a cover letter that requests the addition of that waiver, rather than God knows when.

Seeing as I did apply for naturalization, I'm hopeful that my I-751 will be bumped up anyway and that I won't wait long.

 

However, no news from the amendment request packet that I physically sent in early/mid September.

I'm contemplating reaching out to the USCIS mediator or to my Congressperson because I'm still not sure that it's in my best interest to simply sit and wait.

[daru 5]

I don't have an update but I have new information.
 

Someone in an immigration-related FB group asked a question yesterday and shared about their situation.

They filed jointly in early 2023, then sent a request to amend their case to the B/EC waiver in January 2024.
 

In June 2024, they received the following notice (they provided a screen capture, I'm typing "(...)" on all the parts that they scrambled):

Quote

DECISION

On January (...) you sent a request to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to amend your Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence, (...), from a joint filing to waiver of the joint filing requirement based on a claim of battery or extreme cruelty.

To protect your privacy, USCIS administratively closed the electronic record associated with the joint filing on June (...) and created a new receipt number (...) for your waiver of the joint filing requirement. Your form I-751 will continue to be processed based on your original filing date of (...) 2023. Please use this receipt number for all future correspondence associated with your form I-751.

Sincerely,

So it seems it's protocol for them to play dead while doing something resembling a prima facie on ROC cases before they convert them (although I'm not sure they mean to play dead for this long; but they do adjudicate the amendment request separately from the amended case and only get back to the applicant after that).