writing a novel - title - My Nightmare

[charmac7 4]

I am thinking of either Welcome to my Nightmare part I

or How I got screwed by the USCIS time and time again for a title to my novel.

the first chapter of the book covers how we got screwed over royally by $6,600.00 lawyer (hereafter referred to as the Moron )

the aforementioned moron cost us a mere $6,600.00 and 9 months of processing time due to his failure to file the proper papers correctly and pay the fees.

Finally after filing our petition in August of 2003 we attended our interview in Montreal, Canada on January 14, 2005. Only took 1 year and 5 months to get to the interview, now considering that everyone from Canada applying for a CR-1 Visa seem to get to in 6 to 8 months, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the moron for us getting ours in 17 months.

I had to file a I-601 and an I-212 Waiver. ( the gory details of which I will cover in my follow up novel Nightmare II or Screwed by the Border Guard ) Now I realize that the gory details lead up to the nightmare that I find myself living in, but think of this as one of those cheesy horror movie flicks where the sequel always goes back in time.

Now back to the interview at the Montreal Embassy my visa was denied and I was told to file a I-601 and I-212 Waiver. We had already expected this and had the I-601 filed out, the hardship letter and supporting documents with us ready to file that day. The I-212 waivers states on the cover that if the offense took place more than 1 year ago that the I-212 did not need to be filed. My offense was more than 2 years old - yet they made me file the I-212 at the cost of $250.00 per waiver. The accepted a personal check for each waiver and told us to make the checks out to BCP

After forking over $500.00 the consular officer was ready to accept our waivers...only problem was he was unwilling to accept our hardship letter and the supporting documents and only after some pleading would he accept the hardship letter. He also made me have my police certificate redone because mine did not include my maiden name only my current and previously married names. Since it was a Friday we rushed all over Montreal finding where we could have this done. 3 Cab rides and $ 25.00 later we arrive back at the Embassy to give them my new police certificate.

Now at this time all the waivers were being sent to the Dorval Airport in Montreal for adjudicating. When I returned from Montreal still concerned about my supporting documents, I called Dorval and spoke with the inspector there, telling him that the consular officer would not accept the documents, it took a lot of convincing to get him to believe me, he kept saying that the Consular Officer would not refuse the documents and that they were required in order to adjudicate the file after stating to him that I had no reason to lie about this... he told me to contact the embassy and request to submit them to my file.

I emailed the Montreal embassy and told them of my problem, they emailed me back and said of course send the documents by priority courier asap. $25.I am thinking 00 later and off the package went. A week later Montreal confirms getting the documents and states my file is now complete We wait.....

In February 2005 we learn that the waivers were no longer being adjudicated at Dorval they were all now being sent to the Vermont Service Center for processing. After speaking to another person who also filed a waiver in Montreal in the same time frame as we did I learned that Montreal was returning all the checks made out to BCP and requesting new checks made out to the US treasury.

Once again I contacted Montreal and voiced my concern as to the checks. Montreal stated to me that on Feb 18, 2005 my waivers and checks had been sent to the Vermont Service Center and not to worry either Vermont would cash the checks or they would send a letter to my husband (his bank account) and the checks asking for replacements. ( Never, and I cannot stress this hard enough Never listen to a government employee who tells you "Not to Worry".....they lie!!!, be afraid....be very afraid)

March comes almost to an end and the checks have not been cashed, we have not received a receipt notice from Vermont that they had received our waivers that were sent to them on February 18th by the Montreal Embassy....on March 29, 2005 I call Montreal they very nonchalantly say " Vermont sent your file and checks back to us ( not just the checks - they sent the entire f**king file back to Montreal) Montreal said that they mailed me a letter asking for replacement checks. The only problem with this is that they sent them to my OLD address from the original I- 30 petition , never mind the fact that I called, faxed, emailed and wrote USCIS to inform them of my new address.

It is now the first of April and we are feeling like the fools. So off goes my husband to get money orders made out to US treasury and fed-ex them off to Montreal, who once they receive and date stamp the checks send the file back to Vermont.

April 25, 2005 Vermont sends receipt notice that they received the file and states a 30 to 90 day processing claim for this type of case. We quickly figure out that the end of the 90 days would be near the end of July 2005 ...so I should be in the US at the latest the end of the summer....We are thrilled when we see one Canadian Waiver ( almost identical as mine) approved in a mere 17 days....Wow Vermont is fast if they are going at this rate I might be in the US in June or July.....seems there is a bit of a lull.....then in 60 days....another Canadian Waiver approved in 60 days.... What optimists we were...we lost 3 months thanks to Vermont and Montreal mailing the file back and forth but 90 days max .... How we clung to that thought....well..July 2005 was coming up in a week and we were still waiting....we decide to contact our congressman's office, and see if we could find out what was going on....

Our congressman's office sends an inquiry on the status of our case to Vermont.....On July 27th Vermont answers that our case is pending due to mandatory security checks. I had already undergone RCMP and FBI name checks and fingerprints and both were clear....so we really did not understand why another check was required....but waited it out...On July 28th Vermont told our congressman that they were awaiting specifically a FBI name/birthrate check. Well we figured not as bad as it sounds....the processing time on those is 30 days ( according to the FBI, at this time I will point out that the FBI also lies)

The summer of 2005 comes and goes and still we are hopeful ...I might be in the US by Halloween or Christmas at the latest, we continue to pester our Congressman for most of the summer they keep getting the same answer from Vermont " we are awaiting completion of the FBI name/birthrate check.

Finally on September 9, 2005 the congressman contacts the FBI inquiring to the status of my name/birth date check. Now either the congressman did not get a reply or his office just failed to tell us if they did....but they had good news ( or so we thought) for us on September 22, 2005. His office called me and said they had just heard from Vermont and our cases were with an officer for a decision to be made as of September 19th and that they assumed that meant the FBI clearance had come back. .....we thought thank god it is almost over being in the US for Christmas was a distinct possibility. So we continue to wait.....hell it had only been 2 years and one month since we filed our application and only 8 months since we had filed the waivers ( which in case you forgot were supposed to be processed in 30 to 90 days)

Mid October comes nothing from Vermont....once again we pester the Congressman...this time he writes a letter to Vermont requesting they adjudicate our waivers as soon as possible due to the loss of the 3 months processing time caused by the Montreal Embassy and the Vermont Service Center. Once again we were lulled into the false sense of security....finally we thought this has to be nearing an end.

November arrives and with it a call from the Congressman's office....Vermont says they received the Congressman"s letter and it along with all our information and it had been passed from the Congressional Unit to the Officer who was adjudicating our waivers for his review. We thought now we will get some action...a letter from a congressman given to the adjudicator....hell they will rubberstamp it through now....how naive we were...would we never learn....

Well on November 16, 2005 the Officer replied to the congressman's letter with a message that he was sending us a Request for Evidence ....guess that letter had him shaking in his boots....so the waiting for the RFE. starts.........on the 30th of march they typed the date on the RFE....then it took that long trip to the mailroom......it was a 2 day journey for that envelope to finally reach that mail truck and get stamped on December 2, 2005 .

I spent most of November and early December racing to the mailbox.....the poor mailman would not even get his key in the box to put the mail in and I was there breathing down his neck....I am sure the poor man thinks I am insane....and at this point I wonder the same myself.

December 8, 2005.....it is here!!...not one but 2 official looking envelopes from the Department of Homeland Security.......I rip them open thinking they want something stupid....something I can send right back in a few minutes......Now you would think by now I would have stopped fantasizing that something might actually go my way.....but of course simple it was not to be......2 pages of ####### for each waiver......everything I had previously submitted.....and the questions.....just insane......the first question......prove to us that you are inadmissable to the United States....I re-read it......I re-read it again.....They want me to prove I am inadmissable!!!!.....I thought Hell you people said I was inadmissable as far as I am concerned I am admissible....it went further downhill from there......Do you have an approved I-30 petition - ####### you people approved it in April of 2004 and how the hell could I have had an Embassy interview without it....the more of this I read the more I had this awful feeling of dread come over me......I called the congressman's office and sent them a copy of the RFE.'s ( the same ones for each waiver) congressman's office states that it sounds like they misplaced or lost our file....so 8 months after telling the Congressman's office that the file is complete they suddenly have no information!!

Then I notice the Department of Homeland Security envelopes and I know that hubby will want me to keep the envelopes....sometimes I think he is a little ####### in keeping all this what I deem #######....but in reality it has saved our butts on more than one occasion....anyway I look at the envelope and notice it is addressed to me at my street address ....the city I live in.....but the province is Quebec.....problem there is I live in New Brunswick...that would be like sending something to the city of New York in the state of Maine....

I see that they say Canada....but there is no postal code.....so here I have to give Canada post credit...somehow they got a letter with the correct city...wrong province and no postal code to me in less than 7 days....that is amazing...being the optimist that I am I took this as a sign.....maybe we had turned a corner and things were finally going our way.....on further thought I realized not quite yet....it was December ...one year since I had my immigration medical.....Now I am really pissed....I realize that my medical will expire this month. This means I will have to have another one.....so since the nearest doctor is 268 miles away I will have gas, hotel, doctor fees, lab work and chest xray fees.....so there we go and plan on another $500.00 to toss in immigration money pit.

Husband manages to get a few days off and comes up to visit for Christmas....poor man drives for 12 hours with 2 pugs in the car for company.....he and the pugs arrive in the evening on December 23rd.....

He spends the next day trying to recover from the drive and we do laundry and nap most of the 24th....we have a nice little Christmas dinner....the pugs love turkey and got their fill....the next day we spend putting together another file for Vermont to send back with the R.E.....he leaves early the following morning for the 12 hour drive back home to NJ.

Husband copies all our documents and fed ex's the RFE.'s and documents to Vermont....we track the package online......heave a sigh of relief when we see they were signed for on December 28, 2005

Jan 1, 2006 Happy New Year.....well this is the year for us......this year we can start living a normal life...Vermont has all the information....now all they have to do is adjudicate it and it will be done....

Once again I am checking case status online every few hours.......this is good....there was a time when I was checking it every 15 minutes....including Saturday's and Sunday's.....just in case one of those conscientious employees in Vermont came in and worked on a file over the weekend....I told you I was an optimist....but will admit that perhaps optimism is not really correct....perhaps insanity would best describe it...Anyway I continue to check....and I am rewarded on January 3rd.....Vermont states they have received our response to the RFE. and " It is taking between 30 and 90 days for us to process this kind of case. However because preliminary processing was complete, the remaining processing time will be less than the maximum stated in this message..... a little less of an optimist now I think, Yeah right the 90 day mark was up 5 months ago.....but maybe just maybe it would go right in front of the adjudicator and would be dealt with immediately.....

Now the I-601 got this message, but the I-212 was not changed or touched......panic set in...the I-212 evidence was in the same package as the I-601....why is it showing that they have not received it....well we were told not to worry before....we were not about to make that mistake again....I contacted the Congressman's office and hubby complies another package for the I-212 and ships it off to Vermont with our new buddies Fed Ex.....so here we go again more checking case status....I get a call from the Congressmen's office on January 27th saying that Vermont confirmed that they received our evidence for both waivers and that our cases were back in the processing area to go back to the officer handling them...this is good news....and on Feb 1, 2006.....they updated both waivers saying they received the documents and once again said " It is taking between 30 and 90 days for us to process this kind of case. However because preliminary processing was complete, the remaining processing time will be less than the maximum stated in this message....Okay at this point I am getting a little angry when I read that....we are now into month 6 past the 90 days....and still waiting.....but at least they are back to the officer....or so we think......

March 1st......checking case status has paid off again....both waivers were touched....the message has not changed....we foolishly think that the officer must be reviewing our file and a decision would be coming any day...( We have since figured out that our file took another trip and reached the processing area in 6 days.....that must be one hell of a huge building in Vermont 6 days to get to the processing area) we continue to wait....hell it has only been one year and 2 months since we filed the waiver....how much longer can it take............we pester the congressman again....he sends a fax to Vermont requesting they expedite our case ....we wait for a reply.....still checking case status....

March 25th....Pay dirt......the I- 601 has been touched...my heart stops as I hit the button to read the status message.....I am praying...please let it say approved.....please.....well that prayer went unanswered there was the same message and still with that same damn paragraph " It is taking between 30 and 90 days for us to process this kind of case. However because preliminary processing was complete, the remaining processing time will be less than the maximum stated in this message" Now there is no way I can ever describe how I feel when I read that message it is like a slap in the face at this point. We are now 7 months past the 90 days and almost hitting the 90 day mark of the re-submitted documents.

March 27th.....another birthday my husband spends alone.....we are both depressed and wonder if we are ever going to be under the same roof.....we had this fantasy of spending our lives together....hopefully before we were senior citizens...Our friends and family think that we have done something drastically wrong....the Russian Immigrants at my husband's office cannot comprehend why this is taking so long ...people are beginning to look at us funny and we stopped talking about immigration with them months ago....but still we cling to the hope that it has to be over soon.....how much longer could it be....they had everything they asked for....and a whole lot more....it was in front of an adjudicator....we just had to be patient and it would be over soon. Well we didn't have to wait too much longer....news arrived the following day.

I got an email from the Congressman's office. late this afternoon......they had gotten a response to the Congressman's letter asking them to expedite our file....now hold on because I am still in shook over the latest new from Vermont.....this is what the Vermont Service Center sent back as a response:

CXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX--I-601 and I-212 waiver applications--EAC 05 147 XXXXX and EAC 05 147 XXXXX -A95 XXX XXX -these cases are pending at this time, going through the security clearance process--remember that we cannot process cases until they have completed the security clearance process and any issues have been resolved.

WHAT THE F**K !!!!!!

Now this makes no sense whatsoever to me....we are now at 11 months since the FBI/name/birthrate check was submitted to the FBI....In July the file was complete and we were waiting for the FBI clearance....on Sept 19 2005 it was in front of an officer for a decision to be made... then in November they have none of our documents....they receive our re-submitted documents in January and in March the file is sent back to the Officer.....and now at the end of March they are still awaiting the FBI check!!! What the f**k is going on??? Is this a test are they trying to drive me totally insane???? How could so many screw ups happen to one person????

I contemplate getting drunk, punching something or someone, getting in my car and just driving across the border...I rant and rave to the point that I am sure my neighbors are now sure I have lost my mind....

Still in shock and really unable to comprehend this latest twist...our congressman is drafting a letter to the Director of USCIS.....but honestly at this point it is hard to get too excited about it.....I have lostwhat little faith I had left in this system ....I am tired of being screwed over time after time....and to add insult to injury my USC husband pays big tax dollars to fund this #######...

Spoke with hubby and we did manage to laugh it was either laugh or cry so we laughed that me this 115 lb, 50 year old Canadian born woman was such a big threat to the US national security that it takes more than 11 months and still no FBI clearance......but I really think the reality of this is....that the security clearance was in the file that was lost or misplaced and that we will have a battle on our hands to get them to order a new one done...cause according to them they are still waiting for the original one to come back.. ...they of course would not admit this....but it looks pretty clear to me.

If you have gotten this far in this l ong and somewhat rambling post I applaud you and .thank you for sticking through it....it feels amazing to finally vent all of this out and I sincerely hope no one ever has to go through this and good luck and I wish you all a speedy end to your journey...

Thanks everyone

Char

[aussiewench 9]

OMG Char Its been a lil while since we have had a yak. I am so sorry that this ####### is STILL going on. Am sending you a PM.

[Not Available 0]

I will never complain again.

So sorry.

[Yasi 0]

OH MY GOD... I thought my case was bad.... Like my friend tells me the elephant would had her baby by now...in your case the baby would've been 3 or 4 years old.... I'm waiting on security clearance too since early May 2005. This is ridiculous... I'm sorry for all the hassle you have been through. WOW....

I don't know what else to tell you. I hope (really really hope) this nightmare ends for you soon.

[MrMrsKnight 0]

I will never complain again.

So sorry.

I won't either....

Man that sucks!! I really hope everything gets better for you soon and I hope noone here (including me!!!) has to go through the same thing!

[AFQuaid 18]

god you guys seriously need to write that book for real...there are NO WORDS to say how strong you guys are..... You'll get through this, hang on.........it isn't over till you give up.....and when your through it and your together.....direct us to where we can buy your book in our thoughts

Fiona & Andrew

[jilanik 0]

I only read maybe 3 lines and after reading, that you got scrweed by the lawyer for 6 grand. I could just tell this is going to be a "bitching" story. Get a life, move on.

[chocolaterie 0]

That is incredible. I can not believe the lack of attention USCIS has. It angers me that you had to go through this process. I would suggest contacting your local news station. Your story is worth telling.

[Yasi 0]

Bitching story? Get a life? That's mean... You should have read the whole story. Don't judge 'till you have all the story.

I only read maybe 3 lines and after reading, that you got scrweed by the lawyer for 6 grand. I could just tell this is going to be a "bitching" story. Get a life, move on.

[aussiewench 9]

I only read maybe 3 lines and after reading, that you got scrweed by the lawyer for 6 grand. I could just tell this is going to be a "bitching" story. Get a life, move on.

You would want to get a F'n life....JERK....who do you think you are NOW PISS OFF....how dare you

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Edited March 29, 2006 by aussiewench

[chocolaterie 0]

I only read maybe 3 lines and after reading, that you got scrweed by the lawyer for 6 grand. I could just tell this is going to be a "bitching" story. Get a life, move on.

I sincerely hope fate doesn't have to put you through the same ordeal. Actually maybe I do. And if it isn't already obvious, she is trying to lead a life. But if you were more diligent you would realize that there's a big stake with the word "immigration" stuck in the middle of it. If you have nothing constructive to say keep your thoughts to yourself. For a college educated individual I would hope you would be more intelligent.

Edited March 29, 2006 by chocolaterie

[Not Available 0]

I only read maybe 3 lines and after reading, that you got scrweed by the lawyer for 6 grand. I could just tell this is going to be a "bitching" story. Get a life, move on.

Was that even necessary to say? How half-a$$ed was that? Grow up and keep your comments to yourself.

Edited March 29, 2006 by Stina

[Welshcookie 17]

I only read maybe 3 lines and after reading, that you got scrweed by the lawyer for 6 grand. I could just tell this is going to be a "bitching" story. Get a life, move on.

What's up was the milk sour this morning or what???

Edited March 29, 2006 by welshcookie

[aussiewench 9]

I only read maybe 3 lines and after reading, that you got scrweed by the lawyer for 6 grand. I could just tell this is going to be a "bitching" story. Get a life, move on.

What's up was the milk sour this morning or what???

that is more pleasant then the one I was gonna post hahahaha....Im still thinking about it

[Welshcookie 17]

go on...you know you want to!