Fiancée threatened with deportation by customs agent after arriving at airport for false accusations. How concerned should we be?

[Gary Rich 291]

 Discretion of CBP. They are the judge and jury. One time( I visited my fiancee now wife.) and when I returned to the States and was entering customs.. they questioned my whereabouts. and I'm a U.S. citizen 

[aerokkaido 0]

2 hours ago, Rocio0010 said:

Not needed. What they need to do is to actually get very acquainted with the process themselves. Nothing an attorney can do that you can't.

 

Not really. Why do you say this? If she has a visa she can enter, as long as she leaves on time and answers questions truthfully.

 

Also not true.

To be clear, I did talk to an immigration attorney and since she was let in, this does not affect the K-1 visa. Only denial of entry or denial of visa will affect the K-1 visa. 

Therefore we are doing what most people and the attorney suggested and waiting until she gets the K-1 visa to visit in the USA; or in the scenario where the K-1 visa is not processed within a year, we will compile a ton of documentation to prove her ties to Ecuador (lease, transcripts, bank statements, etc) and make a brief visit. Therefore we are waiting twice as long as our cumulative time together this year. But ideally, we will wait until the K1 is approved.

Theres a lot of misinformation on this thread, so if anyone reads this in the future I highly recommend getting a free consultation with an attorney. If you are poor, you can use free services like the Catholic church's immigration office or the volunteer legal association, 

Edited 33 minutes ago by aerokkaido

[aerokkaido 0]

23 hours ago, Rocio0010 said:

That's the key word in all your narrative. B1/B2 visas are NOT meant to live in the US. And CBP knows that. Just because the visa has a six month validity it does not mean she's entitled to stay the full six months. CBP does not own her anything, and any entrance until you're a resident is at their won discretion. So, whether you like it or not, don't push them because they will deny her entry next time, and that will result in a bar. Go to Ecuador or meet somewhere else until she gets the K1. Keep those encounters to a minimum.

This experience has led to me believing that there should be better defined rules on the B2 visa. It's not very clear to anyone what exactly is "living" vs "visiting" and it's entirely subjective, to us, we believed it was clear that my fiancee was visiting because she would need to go back for college and leases an apartment in Ecuador. To others, that she is sleeping in my apartment constitutes "living" with me. 

I had no idea this was such an important distinction and a mistake we made was not being prepared how to answer CBP about this. Still, the two of us are very organized and plan a lot. The official documentation on the B2 visa is very lacking: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visitor.html/visa

Edited 21 minutes ago by aerokkaido

[Rachel n Tyler 90]

13 minutes ago, aerokkaido said:

This experience has led to me believing that there should be better defined rules on the B2 visa. It's not very clear to anyone what exactly is "living" vs "visiting" and it's entirely subjective, to us, we believed it was clear that my fiancee was visiting because she would need to go back for college and leases an apartment in Ecuador. To others, that she is sleeping in my apartment constitutes "living" with me. 

I had no idea this was such an important distinction and a mistake we made was not being prepared how to answer CBP about this. Still, the two of us are very organized and plan a lot. The official documentation on the B2 visa is very lacking: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visitor.html/visa

This is the case with all visas. One simple misunderstanding or a wrong version of a word and your visa can get denied. In the future, I'd make sure you read up on what can cause a visa to be denied, because I'm sure there's a lot of documentation on examples like 'living'.

But I understand your frustration. I was going to be in the US for 3 months on my ESTA and called it a temporary move to friends too. Would I have said that at the border, they likely wouldn't have let me in. I never did the 3 months as my K1 got accepted before it though, so I  thankfully never had to experience it.

My husband always says that anything to do with the government and immigration is vague, hard to understand and a mess. Welcome to the journey 😞