Dr3ams

Here is the letter the Consulate Officer gave to my wife.

In 1998, after she was denied an immigrant visa, some months later we went to the States on vacation. While we were there I inquired about her status. We spent 90 days there, but before the 90 days were over I filed for an extension on her behalf. I received a copy of the paid-in-full extension application. The officer (or case worker) told me that as long as I have a valid extension application, she can stay until we receive a written answer. Maybe that information was wrong. In any case we were later informed that we could only resolve the matter in Frankfurt. So we bought airline tickets and returned to Germany. We didn't return to the Consulate...but instead we decided to stay here.

On the ESTA application was a space to provide the German ID number from an ID card. My wife put in the number from her passport instead, which resulted in an automatic denial. In 1998 my wife applied for an immigrant visa to the United States. At that time we considered moving there. The request was denied. No reason was given. Even though my wife is German, she wasn't born in Germany. She is what the Germans call Russlanddeutche...German ancestry, but born in the old Soviet Union (Krygyzstan to be exact). Her family immigrated to Germany in the late 70s. At the time the German government was trying to bring those with German ancestry back to Germany. Also, my mother-in-law was born in East Germany and she and her family were sentenced to Russian concentration camps after WW2, where her father was shot and killed in front of her. Lastly, in response to one of the above posts...the headquarters for NATO in the U.S. is in Virginia. What I said originally didn't come out right.

My wife's ESTA was denied, so we made an appointment for her at the Consulate in Frankfurt. There she was also denied. The reason was, "there was not enough proof that she was going to return to Germany". 1. I am an American. I live here in Germany. I am also disabled and my wife is my registered care giver. 2. Are kids have dual citizenship. My two sons are in the German military and my daughter is a registered nurse at a local hospital. 3. We pay rent and we have documents to show we have been paying rent for the last 30 years here in Germany. 4. My wife has a round trip ticket. 5. My wife wants to visit our oldest son in America. As a German soldier, he is stationed at NATO headquarters in Virginia. My wife took all of that "proof" with her to the consulate. The lady at the window didn't even ask for it, but instead asked irrelevant questions. Like "what was in 2005, did you travel to the U.S. then?". My wife hasn't been to America since 1998. They know that. After a couple more empty questions, they informed her that she was denied. This is ridiculous. If she had come through the southern border, she would have been given a drivers license, some cash and a voter's card.