Vashezzo

Is this a new policy? I don't see anything forbidding links in the website ToS. It even has multiple sections describing outside content. ("Third-party content may appear on VisaJourney Websites and Services or may be accessible via links from VisaJourney."; "The VisaJourney Websites and Services contain links to third party web sites that are maintained by others. ")

Should ask what their priorities are before blanket recommending a Zoom marriage and CR-1 - there are tradeoffs. Some people care more about time together than cost or time-to-greencard. K-1 processing has improved immensely in recent months, it's probably down to ~12-15 months total for recent filers. CR-1 can have long delays for the NVC and embassy stages, especially for certain countries. In terms of entry to the US, using VJ data: Difference in US Entry Percentage of Filers 31-100 days faster for CR-1 12.6% 1-30 days faster for CR-1 13.5% 1-30 days faster for K-1 16.7% 31-90 days faster for K-1 22.8% 91-180 days faster for K-1 9.0% 181-360 days faster for K-1 15.9% 361-650 days faster for K-1 9.5% I'd certainly want to know which group someone was in before pushing one visa over another on them.

I think a lot of couples have one visit the other and stay at their place - no hotel records at all. You should be fine with boarding passes and passport dates to show that they're in your city. If you want to be extra super safe take some pictures together holding something like a newspaper to show the current date.

Saying "if you don't like it, leave" supports my argument - that's what many of us are doing. Again, it's up to the site owner to decide if that's what he wants.

Direct quotes from that thread, in order: "Normal people -- an oppressed minority -- to whom we owe love and respect." "Starting to see a pattern " "Yes, mentally unstable people sometimes do bad things. " "These people are insane and should be institutionalized. " The word "people" here is referring explicitly to trans people, the "oppressed minority" from the original post. Trying to claim otherwise is tone-deaf at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst.

You're asking us to report posts to the people posting them. The most likely outcome of that is the classic "we've investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing" meme. The whole argument that we should report behavior we find problematic to the mods breaks down when the mods themselves are the problematic users.

Unless VJ receives taxpayer dollars, it is privately owned and operated by private individuals who have the right to set their own policies. I will probably never check the off-topic threads again, but they still make the forum less welcoming to me. Would you want to spend your time in a community where many of the most prolific members ardently disagree with your core values? Respect is earned and mutual. I am comfortable disrespecting the views of people who disrespect mine. Is it particularly healthy? Of course not. But it's exactly why I think culture war topics don't belong here.

People do have the right to freedom of thought and freedom of speech. But private forums also have the right to enforce content guidelines, and I want to make sure that @steve is aware of the effects his content policy has on the perception of his forum. If he would rather keep that content on the site and lose some users, that's totally within his rights. This does not address the portion of my post pointing out that TBoneTX is not applying the ToS, and is directly contradicting it in other places on this forum. I honestly think it's totally inappropriate to bring non-immigration politics into this site in general, which is my point. The way you feel when reading my post is the way many of us feel when we see the off-topic discussions on VJ. To further my point - I will share a snippet from an immigration Slack I am in. Again, it's not my place to tell @steve what he should or should not do, but it is a fact that VJ as it currently exists is alienating a non-negligible portion of the people who try to use it. This thread is a symptom of that, and funnily enough the reply to my post trying to language harpy me by focusing on the word "replies" in the title is just another example of the kind of behavior that makes this website unenjoyable to use.

I originally wasn't going to post in this thread, but after seeing this post from TboneTX and clicking his profile I felt like I had to say something. The request is that users trust the mod team to handle issues with respect and to support each other, but what do I see when I click the name of the most active user I've noticed on this site? I see a smorgasbord of very political, very polarizing topics. In a single screenshot I see satirical pro-gun content (which as a teacher really isn't funny to me). I see misogyny. I see a 13-page thread of far right links (many of which have questionable veracity) where the mod talks the president I voted for. I see anti-climate posting. I see anti-vax/anti-covid posting. In essence, half of the potential user base for this site would be immediately turned off. From the Terms of Service for the site, users agree to not: Publish, post, upload, distribute, disseminate or offer to disseminate any inappropriate, offensive, defamatory, infringing, obscene or unlawful/illegal material, information or content. I speak for myself in saying that I find many of the posts I saw to be inappropriate, offensive, and defamatory. How can I trust the mod team to enforce a ToS if they won't follow it themselves? I looked at the off-topic forum in general to see if there was any more balance to the discussion and saw this: It's entirely right-wing, and some of the threads fit solidly into the far right. I live in a "blue city", my mother is immuno-compromised and has spent years worrying about catching covid from an anti-vaxxer. This is not a welcoming place for me. I know I'm not alone either - I've seen several people talk about the "politics" of VJ as being unwelcoming to them. (I'm thinking in particular about trans individuals who feel like the mods here quite literally would prefer that they did not exist.) But this is my first time checking it for myself, and it's way worse than I thought. I seriously wonder if the non-immigration-related forums are doing any good for this site. Also, to move to a new topic, I'll give another example from yesterday - the ToS explicitly states: In the discussion forums you may discuss or recommend third-party Web sites, goods or services, so long as you have no financial interest in and receive no direct or indirect benefit from such Web sites, products or services, or the recommendation of such. The VisaJourney Websites and Services contain links to third party web sites that are maintained by others. These links are provided solely as a convenience to you and not as an endorsement by VisaJourney of the contents on such third-party Web sites. VisaJourney is not responsible for the content of linked third-party sites and does not make any representations regarding the content or accuracy of materials on such third-party Web sites. If you decide to access linked third-party Web sites, you do so at your own risk. Yet this mod claims that outside links are forbidden. Why would I trust the mods to enforce the ToS if they directly contradict it in their posting? Anyway, this whole experience has disgusted me, and I certainly won't be recommending VJ the same way I used to.

I think your numbers are out of date for AP and EAD. Last column is most recent, both are below 6 months on average now. As I said in my post above (if you had read the entire thing), there are countries whose filers wait 6+ months longer to enter the US. These filers would be able to start working sooner off a K-1 entry than from a CR-1 entry.

K-1: IR-1/CR-1: K-1 is faster. K-1 is *much* faster (6 months+) for certain countries.

Correction - Zoom marriages are by definition proxy marriages - "a wedding in which one or both of the individuals being united are not in the physical presence of the officiant." However, the USCIS’ internal rules, found in the USICS Policy Manual, state: "USCIS does not recognize the following relationships as marriages: … Relationships where one party is not present during the marriage ceremony (proxy marriages) unless the marriage has been consummated."

People are so quick here to push for the CR-1 visa over the K-1. I don't understand it. According to the VJ trends pages, K-1 is currently about 2 months faster than CR-1. Does the OP here, who is already 4 months into the process, really want to start over? This average also hides the immense country-dependence of the CR-1, something that I rarely see mentioned on this forum by the CR-1 advocates. I analyzed the timelines pages to get a sense of how much beneficiary country matters for each visa type, my methods are below: · For K-1, I pulled the “Avg. Days btw consulate received and Interview” times for each country, · for CR-1 I pulled the “Avg. Days btw NOA2 and Interview” · To account for the difference in data presentation, I then added 98 days to each K-1 number for NOA2->NVC-> Consulate received status. · This gets me an NOA2->Interview time that’s directly comparable to the CR-1 number. Now that I have post-NOA2 numbers for K-1 vs CR-1, I’ll trim the most extreme outliers and find the difference between 3rd quickest country and 3rd slowest country. · For K-1, there’s a 148 day spread (263 in Vietnam, vs 115 in Chile). · For CR-1 there’s a 558 day spread (644 in Ethiopia vs 86 in Chile). WOW. That spread is huge, beneficiary country matters a ton for CR-1, but not as much for K-1. But wait you say – what matters is the difference in wait time between K-1 and CR-1 for any particular individual, not the spread within each visa. Well, I crunched the numbers on that too. · Using the timeline data from before, I added 43 days to the K-1 values to account for the current difference in NOA2 times (388 days vs ~345 days) · Then, for any countries that had entries in both the K-1 and CR-1 timelines, I subtracted their average NOA1->Interview times to get a “K-1 vs CR-1 wait time differential” · I’ve summarized the results in the table below Time Difference Percentage of Filers 31-100 days faster for CR-1 12.6% 1-30 days faster for CR-1 13.5% 1-30 days faster for K-1 16.7% 31-90 days faster for K-1 22.8% 91-180 days faster for K-1 9.0% 181-360 days faster for K-1 15.9% 361-650 days faster for K-1 9.5% If you were choosing between K-1 and CR-1, wouldn’t you really want to know if you were in the 25% of filers where K-1 is 6 months to 2 years faster? Even if you need to wait 5 months for EAD (the current average time), you’d still be able to start working in the US quicker on a K-1 visa than on a CR-1. For emphasis, over 25% of filers would be able to get American jobs FASTER by filing for a K-1 vs a CR-1. This also affects the cost difference between the visas - in many cases, the wage difference working in the US vs. the fiancee’s home country would make up for the extra adjustment of status costs within a month or two. For filers in those countries, a K-1 is strictly superior to a CR-1. You get to unite faster. You end up with more money in your pockets. AND your fiancée gets a long vacation off work while getting used to their new life. The only reason they would ever want to file CR-1 is if they somehow want to spend the first few years of their marriage physically apart. That’s not something I’d ever want for myself - but I guess for some, long distance marriage could be a lifestyle choice? Anyway, on the other extreme, the maximum time gain for a CR-1 for any country was about 100 days. Any K-1 filer who decides to switch to CR-1 would be delaying their approval unless they can get married, travel to their fiancee’s country, and file an I-130 all within 100 days of their I-129f NOA1. The cost of travel (and the sunk cost of the I-129f petition) counts against the cost savings of a CR-1, so overall swapping visa types is unlikely to save much time or money for the filers, and in many cases will take longer or cost MORE than sticking with K-1. Lastly, if we move past the empirical aspects of each visa, there are also personal/emotional aspects. Not everyone feels ready to immediately enter in to the financial/legal/religious (if applicable) commitments and obligations that marriage entails. Some people despise the idea of being in a lost distance marriage. Advising someone to get married just so they can petition for an (often not actually) “better” visa has always seemed to me like it discounts the human aspect of the relationship. On a personal level, when my fiancée and I started to discuss moving and visas, her questions were “how can I be with you the fastest”, not “what’s the quickest way to get a green card” or “I want to start earning US wages ASAP”. For us, a K-1 was the best visa. It’s the same for many, many other couples as well.

Do you have a source for this? The Norwegian government website says "If you plan to visit Norway as a tourist, you will normally not be granted a visa." when you specify being a Russian citizen.

In Serbia the "police" are the same as the ministry of the interior - at least according to the US website. It says to go to "the Ministry for Internal Affairs (MUP - Ministarstvo unutrasnjih poslova), also known as the police". It could have been a language issue, since my fiancee doesn't speak Serbian, and the people she spoke to at the police didn't speak great English. We'll work it out, we have time.