Why the hell should a Brit or German get to the USA without a visa over a Brazilian who had nothing to do with Sept 11? As an American in love with a Brazilian I can say that unless she has lots of assets and money she cannot even get here on a tourist visa. Where is the justice in the system? The people at the US embassies are so rude and crude to these people to such a loving, peaceful people as Brazilians. They no nothing of war. Why give so much grace to Mesico and not Brasil? I am totaly frustrated with the unjustifiable predjudism againts Brazilians. Life is about humanity and love and not about lawyers and what they believe is right. Rich people who come to the embassy can get a visa tp the US. Brazilian people are good people. There is no reason why they should be treated with such disrespect.

cb

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Are you simply pissed off that she couldn't get a tourist visa or is there more to the story? Are you simply questioning why some countires are allowed to participate in the VWP and others aren't? I don't think anyone here can provide a satisfactory answer for you.

Many many many people cannot get tourist visas from all over the world. It's not just Brazil. My niece-to-be was just denied yesterday - she's a 14 year old student who wanted to be able to visit me and her uncle in the US next year. She has significant ties here considering her parents live her and she has to return to school after any vacation. Her family makes more than enough money, owns property, etc. and proved all of this. Yet she was denied. It happens everyday. At least your fiance will be able to come eventually, permanently, on a Fiance Visa.

Very hard for Filipinos too. . not only Brazilians.

I have same problem being from Kazakhstan... ask US Government... for example Kazakh peacekeepers serve in Iraq along with US troops fighting against World terrorism, but we still need to obtain a tourist visa

Yea im pissed off at a lot of things regarding this immigration crap. And yes, Im questioning everything. Noone here will be able to give me any kind of answer but Im going to speak my mind. I dont think you may understand that yes, i know the system is unfair. I know fully that its not just Brasil. Why should an Italian for example, be able to come here without a tourist visa and a Brazilian has to have one? Any American citizen has the right to be with the one they are going to marry without her having to go through a humiliating gyno exam. What business does the government have getting into her private parts? The government makes our future spouse pay a high price for that OUR right. No wonder our government is so hated abroad. Embassy employees are very cruel and rude to applicants for a visa and its so unnecessary. Its a bunch of crap that those with Cuban fiances get their approvals so fast and others have to wait and submit RFE's for no reason. Good for them however, but the system can obviously move faster for us all too and not just because our fiance would be a Cuban. If a faster approval can work for them it can work for us all. Consolidating service centers doesn't help any either. The government wants to take more money from us and at the same time give us worse service. I havent heard squat from Uncle Sam since I applied on June 5. Thats all i got to say for now.

CSofA

Well, first let em say, my fiance was denied a Tourist visa as well...and to her country is not on the Visa Waiver Program either...however it is because her country does not meet the requirements for it, just as your SO country does not meet the requirements for it...as well as you, I don't like Cubans receiving extra benefits, faster service whatever...just like the VSC guys, yet there is nothing that is going to be solved by getting on here bashing others as well...you are in for a long wait, I suggest that you find a hobby...weight lifting worked for me...

I am irritated that I cannot get a tourist visa for my Thai fiancee but I understand why it is easier for some rather than others. That's just the way it is, some deal with it, some don't.

Having been stuck in this process for a year and a half I can tell you based on my experience that yes, there are many things that feel unfair. Why does the CSC take so much longer than VSC? Why didn't USCIS comply with the IMBRA law last year instead of providing zero information to petitioners and making us wait for an extra three months for petition approval? Why have I been waiting for 8 months for waiver approval when my consulate now has a program to process waivers in one day, but I don't qualify since I filed prior to the program? Why are immigration employees so misinformed and rude? The only answer is that it's not a private company, it's the US government. As for why some countries are processed faster than others - who knows? Why does the Dominican Republic have a 2 year wait for an interview? Is that fair? No, but that's the way it is.

As for the government making our future spouses pay a high price for something that is our right -- well I differ a bit in my thinking there. It's not exactly a right - it's a privilge. And if they have to do a gyno exam to ensure that the beneficiary isn't carrying a communicable disease, so be it. I'm sure my fiance didn't exactly appreciate having to get naked while some idiot nurse looked him over from head to toe and asked him personal, invasive questions. But that's how it works. Best to accept it and let go of the hatred -- this is a long and difficult process requiring a great deal of patience. It doesn't mean you have to like it or agree with it, but it's a hell of a lot easier if you focus on the end result.

Kitkat,
Have I told you lately that I love you?

Maybe because of conventions, prior to sept 11 BTW, like The Hague Convention, 1961, maybe?

Edited to had the list of countries participating in the convention, linke here >Clicky<

• Albania
• Antigua & Barbuda
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Australia
• Austria
• Bahamas
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Belize

• Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Botswana
• Bulgaria
• Colombia
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• El Salvador
• Estonia
• Figi
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece

• Honduras
• Hungary
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• Kazakhstan
• Latvia
• Lesotho
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Macedonia
• Malawi

• Malta
• Marshall Islands
• Mauritius
• Mexico
• Netherlands (Aruba)
• Niue (Savage Island)
• Norway
• Panama
• Portugal
• Romania
• Russia
• San Marino
• Serbia & Montenegro
• Seychelles
• Slovak

• Slovenia
• Spain
• South Africa
• Suriname
• Swaziland
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Tonga
• Trinidad & Tobago
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom & Northern Ireland
• United States of America
• Venezuela
• Yugoslavia

You do have the option to move to Brasil, and participate in their immigration process.

I feel your pain. But just think about how Mexicans feel also. Americans used to need simply a birth certificate to get into Mexico AND Canada.
A Canadian is offered the same convenience into America but, why aren't Mexicans?

I live in a heavily populated Brazilian area and only a handful are legal. Most of them probably wanted to come here legally, but it wasn't possible.
Many I talk to said they "tried" to get a visa but were turned away.
So they crossed through Mexico.

There are a lot of countries where visitor visa denials are pretty much routine for single women in particular. My wife is from one of them. The reasons are all tied to the likelyhood of immigrant intent or using the visitor visa to get around the appropriate fiance visa process. Keyword is likelyhood.

You'll have a lot of unhappiness in life if you confuse fairness with equality. Even if you don't, you'll suffer a lot of disappointment expecting life to be fair.

Your fiancee's inability to secure a visitor visa to the US is not equal to some countries but equal to others where the threshhold of visa fraud crosses a statistical line. As such, she was treated fairly and in a way "equal" to fiancees from the vast majority of countries. Join the club.

Firstly, Not every American has the right to be married period...remember the huge debate about gay marriage in this country? Secondly, if you don't want your fiancee to go through the US immigration procedures, then you can go through the immigration procedures for Brazil. Countries have processes to become citizens, it's not just the United States. Thirdly, while you may have a RIGHT to get married, guaranteed by the US Constitution, your fiancee doesn't have that protection yet because she's not a citizen. You'd like the US to enforce their version of human rights on the rest of the world? Isn't that what we're constantly being criticized for doing? The rest of the world doesn't hate us because our embassies employ rude people. They hate us because of our foreign policy.

There is a lot about this system that isn't fair. Especially the waiting times. It sucks. But the fundamentals are the same, no one is getting through on a K-1 without that medical, No one is getting through without having to go to that interview. I can see the problem you're having about tourist visas, but as far as the fiance visas are concerned, their denial isn't as arbitrary as tourist visas.

If people don't like the fact that their SO's can't easily get visitor visas, don't get cranky at the US gov't, get cranky at all the fellow countrymen/women who came before your SO and abused the system so much that your country is considered high-fraud. is that fair? Nope. Does it suck? Yep. But that's the reality.

The OP's posts make me cranky on so many levels, but I will refrain!

Um, yes, we do all have the right to "marry" but we don't yet have the right to redifine "marriage" as something other than between a man and a woman. We have the right to marry any person of the opposite gender, we please, within certain restrictions of the law. For instance you can't legally marry your blood brother or sister or a six year old in any state, etc. A USC can't currently marry an Egyptian in Egypt (that's current Egyptian law) but they can marry the Egyption here or elsewhere.

What we don't have the right to do is dictate that our government not enact and enforce immigration laws that apply to people we marry or intend to marry.

Yes, you're totally correct. All gay men have the right to marry straight women...or gay women for that matter. But that's sort of like saying that everyone has the right to vote, as long as they vote for republicans.

No, it's like saying everyone has the right to vote or not vote but not to change the definition of "vote".

I have great love for Brazil, but i really dont see what this has to do with brits and germans

Cassie, I'm actually going to have to agree with you. I actually feel bad for those people sitting there processing our visas. i live in nyc and the number of illegal people here is astounding. i believe in a better life for people and if it means living in the usa then great. but i feel like we're all just really rolling over and taking it by going about it the legal way. the unfairness of this really bothers me.

Sorry, clearly this should be in Off Topic area, but the Constitution has not defined marriage as between a man and woman...that's why people want to introduce an amendment to do just that. The people behind that amendment believe they have the "right" to redefine marriage. This would "redefine" marriage, by defining the people allowed to marry, instead of on the act itself. For instance, in illinois, there's a statute governing marriage, which sets out the requirements to get married, with no reference to the sex of the participants, and there's a separate section that specifically prohibits people of the same sex from getting married under the marriage statute. So yes, in essence, if you define marriage as "between a man and woman," then your statement holds true. But other people don't define marriage in terms of the biology of the participants, and so my statement holds true.

Don't be discouraged. Trust me, it's worth it. It is no fun being in this country without status. (I had to deal with my husband) You can never fully benefit from or live American life to the fullest. And by that I mean drivers license, SSN, work authorization, health care, 401K, social security, bank loans, mortgage, etc.

Maybe you can get some of these things as an illegal, but not all of them.

And then, there is everyday living your life in fear of getting caught, detained and deported.

I know it's all unfair, but the simple answer is 'cus people enter US ilegally. From all over, but from some countries more than others. They make it hard for those who try to it legally, to make sure they indeed have good intentions, and are not simply in the quest of the holy green card.

Personally, being a brazilian, and proud of it, I'd have NEVER entered US ilegally, as bad as my country's situation might be, it's to me the best place in the world. Every time I heard of someone I knew saying they got a tourist visa and didn't plan to return, I expressed my opposition to this sort of thing. I rather be struggling in my country than being ilegal and treated like crap in someone else's.
I am here in Puerto Rico now 'cus my husband wanted me to come, and try and start life here, and we might move to US to get a better jobs, but I hope one day I can go back to Brazil, and live there, 'cus I miss it every single day.

My take was never that the problem with tourist visa denials was related to illegal entry. In fact, almost the opposite. That too many people enter on a legal tourist visa and never go home -- that's why one of the key requirements to prove non-immigrant intent and intent to return home.