I was looking for our thread and we were on page TEN.
Not a good feeling guys. We cannot give up. WE CANT.
I know so many of us are mad. Mad that our very own government doesnt care about us. MAd that we have no control. Mad that we are allowing this process to cause us to lose hope. Mad that we arent getting approved.
I know we are hurting. Hurting because we wake up each day alone. Hurting because we cant even be joyful for those that are approved. Hurting because our marriages are starting to suffer from the separation and stress.
I know we just want to crawl in the fetal position and give up. but we cant. WE CANNOT GIVE UP.
"When you feel like giving up...remember what kept you holding on so long in the first place".
There are times when I wonder if my marriage is even going to make it. Because we aren't strong enough? absolutely not. Because we dont love each other enough? Absolutely enough.
Because we are stuck in the middle of a Hell that neither can explain to the other? I think so.

I am praying for you all. I hope you are praying for me too.
I know we all have different beliefs but at this moment, I cry out the great God Almighty. I pray that he hear the cries of His people and that He give us the desires of our hearts. I pray FAVOR and SPEED with those of us stuck in this Hell. I pray new determination in our marriages. I pray that we wake with a new hope and a new love.
I PRAY FOR APPROVAL. and I boldly pray for it to happen NOW. I pray that this is our week guys.

It really does make me question the intelligence of getting married. Go K-1, accept a single person working for a while, pay the extra bucks and be together. Apply for advance parole if you want to leave the US. Just do the extra paperwork and pay the extra money and avoid trying to be responsible and intelligent. Apparently the US government doesn't value either of those things.

both of my cr1 + k3 were touched on 5/8 and 5/9, but website shows still pending. i've read here that someone got prior touches and approved but website still shows pending and received no e-mails. I hope i am one of those fortunate people. I hope that tomorrow when i get home from work, my NOA2 will be resting in my mailroom awaiting for me to open. i am praying so hard for this miracle and i will continue to pray for you all. i have just past my 180 days.
i am so sorry that when someone annouce that they got approved, i seldom congrat anyone. I am really happy for them, yet i am very very very very depressed seeing mine is probably stuck in the mailroom somewhere or underneath someone's coffee mug. i just hope that one day the officers would also find an oversea SO, so that they can feel what we are all going through here. maybe then they will come to realize what kind of hell we live in now.

Shrewdie: We're not giving up anytime soon!! Not on the petition, our lives, nor our husbands. Hang in there girl, we have to be stronger than them!! Thank you for your kind prayers, I am praying for us toooo. We'll get thru this one

Ms Z: Maybe what we see as responsible and intelligent, USCIS perceives as cheap and is leaving us behind cuz we didnt want to pay the extra monies involved with K-3 and K-1? Just a thought. Seriously, if i had to do it over again.. I'd do the K-1. Here's another thought, let's divorce our husbands, cancel the I-130, and file for K-1!!!!


Day number: 207

I have been waiting for NOA1 since Oct'07. When I enter EAC number from the back of cashed check at USCIS website Case Status online, I get "Case Status Retrieval Failed". Anyone in the same situation. What is the next step? Thanks for your help.

10/17/07 I-130 Mailed (Vermont Service Center)
01/16/08 Check Cashed
Waiting for NOA 1

I got that until they put me online (even AFTER noa1). I dont know what to tell you. I would tell you to call USCIS but thats pretty useless..
maybe your only real bet is to talk to a congressman and see if they can see whats up.

I hope someone else has a solution!

They were about 1 number off on the NOA1's so try the same number as the number on the back of the check except go one number higher on the last digit... that might work...

i should get my approval anytime this week or next week. i have my fingers crossed. waited 6 months and still waiting.

good luck! we all felt that way at 6 months and then we all watched it go past us. hopefully that wont be your luck

i got my approval last week on 05/08, exactly 180 days since I mailed out my cr-1. Good luck to you all!

yeah. we need it.

OMG I received 2 emails from CRIS!!!
Finally our K3 and CR1 are approved!!
I'm soo happyyyyyy!!! yupi!!!!

congrats!!!!




shrewdie kity jobbless what happened.. wats going on with VSC.. was i the last approval out of vermont? did u all call using RFE to find out whats going on..

any luk? this is realy getin out of control its unfair that yal are past the 6month line..

yal r in my prayers i realy hope oct nov and previous months ppl from VSC gett approved...

i havent seen any VSC approvals lately?/w hy??

Congrats

It took a long time, the wait is over for you....the rest of the visa journey seems to be less difficult, wish you smooth sailing! It seems as if the August filers had to wait the longest, then the September filers, then the October filers etc....The farther away you are from that fee increase in July 2007, the faster the processing is going to be. I am an October filer, somewhere in the middle, hit with the receipt delay and probably also paying for the fact that naturalizations application processing time was shorten by two months recently...well guess where they got the extra officers for processing those. Before I start going like some of our parents 'well....back in the day we walked 10 miles to school and still had all A's....', I want to say that the recent filers are not experiencing receipt delays...and can truly hope to be out of the USCIS much quicker. Me, I'm on my day 219, and wish that others won't have to go thru this, and I believe they won't have to if I'm right, and I'm always right . Eventually it will all straighten out, and the bitter feeling in the stomach will just be a fading memory...and a reminder how we became distanced from each other, almost as if there is a Chinese wall between me and the USCIS person on the phone, as if we have nothing in common, when in fact we have everything in common....We need to take these walls down, and the world will change...the hope will come back. Good luck everyone, the journey is not always easy, but hardly anything worthwhile is easy to achieve....

Thanks for checking up on us Hyd, we're still here in line waiting! Im now on day 209, tomorrow will be 7 months of waiting with not a single touch. The RFE line is not working well anymore.. guess they caught on. Now some refuse to help and ask us to call again without entering our case number they say.. but they will get around to us soon.. right Shrewdie?????

Congratulations to all approved recently!!

Shrewdie and Kity, Why don tyou get approved?

I dieing to congrats you on your upcoming approvals

I know that once Kitty and Shrewd get approved I will feel some hope for me. Since we are all mixed up in the same thing, the march of pettitions as I like to call it, going from VSC to the lockbox and then back again, I think that when I see their approvals mine should be coming soon after. Its strange that I look more for a post from them saying they are approved than I look at my own case. Following bread crumbs here..........trying to put together this puzzle.

Congratulations!!! I am happy that you FINALLY got an approval! I hope the rest of your journey is smooth sailing!

I feel exactly the same way - we're probably all in the same filing box somewhere!

I truly bet we are. I think when one of us gets it we all will.
I wanted it to be this week

It still could be this week. This is only Wednesday, You can't give up hope now, you are so close to getting approved and I want to congratulate you when you do get approved very soon! Hope is all we have right now, you can't lose that.

about a month ago I learned that hope only lets us hurt. (in this case..not in all of my life and while there is a part of us that will never give up hope.....there is a bigger part that realizes it feels better not to hurt...

Every day I come in here I just want to see lots of approvals.. just keep them coming I say. But the sad truth is that when I see jan/Feb filers whizzing by, i get discouraged. This week I've been seeing some cleaning up of those long forgotten filers from july/sept.. im happy for them. It makes me feel better tho i worry for my own petition. Today I came in as always.. lets see who got approved dreading to find that march filers being approved ... and I came accross your posts. Yes, i feel a bond with certain of us still in wait.. and I too looked to hyd, to jay80 and to lsma, shrewdie, to delicia, to 00 tho i think ur nick was different b4, Ms Z and many others... for approvals. I figured we'd go in a group one by one single file but that has not been the case. Tho i am happy for those that have moved on!! So when i read your posts today.. i got a warm a fuzzy feeling that we are not only caring about our own petitions, but trully wish that our group here gets approved too.
It was such a nice feeling... thanks guys My prayers are always for us, we gotta stay strong thru this.. USCIS can't take that from us.. no way!!

I'm still here rooting for you guys too. I come in every morning hoping to see a new post of an approval. Keep the faith you guys. I am sooo glad that you all are supporting each other. I know this is such a difficult time. Just know that there are many many of us in the shadows rooting you along the way.

I sure do hope that there will be a LEAP in the October (and before) filer approvals out of Vermont. But I'm through holding my breath.

It *is* discouraging seeing others who have filed well after being approved. And I'm sorry I read the Ombudsman's report because that confirms everything we have seen and provides no comfort that things will improve. When USCIS gets called on a practice that sucks, they implement another one that sucks just as bad and call it an improvement.

One more week and I'm sending in a 129F.

My name before was Jason&Danielle, but i messed up in editing my profile and you can only change you name 1 time per year so now Im stuck with 000, I guess I could send a message to the admins

I kind of like 000. Mysterious.

I'm wondering what people's Plan B is and what their timeline is for going to plan B. While my eldest would have gone to Canada w/o protest earlier in the year, she's now certain she doesn't want to leave her school system and she begins HS in September.

Delicia sat in Canadian immigration hell so even Plan B doesn't look so hot for us.

If we pool all of our money, how about we buy an island somewhere for those caught in immigration hell. We can have an awesome tourism industry that everyone who is anyone will want to visit... only we do background checks and if you work for one of the service centers, you are banned for 10 years from reapplying to visit. We won't tell them that though. We'll do RFEs and "touches" on their applications or we'll lose their stuff for 3 months in limbo and then give them nonsense answers when they call our 900#. (800#? Hell no!)

OK. So maybe I'm not handling this visa thing well...

Irrespective of your name we are all on same boat .going through..this lousy process.by the way your current name is OOO or 000 who gave that name to you??

May be you can start new profile but your service center won't change ....lol

My real plan was to go to Brazil until they apporved us if we havent heard anything by the time I come back from Brazil in June. I had worked off my credit card debt and am now in the process of looking for jobs there that are available to people who are not fluent in portuguese. Limited as they may be they are there. Now I have a bit more money to pay off because the other day after another frustrating call with USCIS I became "that guy", you all know what I mean, the guy that is so pissed off he drives like he has some sort of mental problem, the one that flies past you and you say "I hope he gets stopped by the police or wrecks his car". Well I bet a few of those people wished they wished for a million dollars after they saw that I wrecked. So now I have to pay off the repair bill on my car ( I had a DUI in 2005 so my insurance is high enough) and my airfare for Brazil. Thats it. I have found someone that I trust to rent my house, make sure my car still starts every few months, only working on what to do with my dogs, do I take them or ask a family member to care for them. Lord only knows how long I will be gone. I am worried about leaving my job because things are difficult for everyone in America now and when I come back will I be able to get back on my feet in a manner that can support both of us. The I 864 I am not worried about because I have a family member who is willing to take care of that for me but I am worried about really supporting us if I cant find a job fast enough.

I thought about I-129F but I dont think it will help...if I thought it wouldnt HURT then I would do it..but they would do something psycho like give you a date right NOW and then just add to the chaos




I would move to JA...but a little thing called STUDENT loans that I wouldnt even make enough to pay..more less RENT and FOOD.

I gave that name to me by mistake but once you change your name on here you cant change it again for another year.

My Plan B: oh wait, I am on Plan B right now, waiting for USCIS. Plan A was for me to immigrate to Canada and that whole thing tanked.

Ok, so Plan C: immigrate to Chile as my husband is a Chilean national. Doesn't sound very appealing and going through any kind of immigration process (let alone for a 3rd time) is almost certainly out of the question. *discards Plan C draft into the trash*

Plan C (revised): go on a nice Mediterrean Cruise with my husband this winter. Enjoy the nice weather, shop at a few ports, but spend most of our time alone doing adult things in our state room. Near the end of the cruise, we can climb to the upper levels and jump off the ship. It seems like that is our final option for spending our time together. Although of course, we would be spending our time as ghosts among the underwater remains of an old Spanish Armada that was sunk during a hurricane in 1602. But, hey, at least we can haunt the fishes together!

Plan "B" ya I liked my hubby's country.. most of it has a seaside view!! The ppl are a bit stylish for my laid back look but I guess I can adjust. Food is yummy.. oh yeah.. I almost forgot.. there is fighting and the hezbollah militia took over most of beirut at gun point! Hmmm the rocket propelled grenades could be scary to me.. welll there goes my plan B Nothing left but to fight here.. with the pen!!

Jason&Danielle vs. 000, the first one is nice of course, but like sgr mentioned.. 000 is a bit mysterious.. a bit like james bond I like it!!
Jason... stay strong..u love your wife so much, think about her when u get angry or dissapointed.. she would hate to know that you are suffering this much.
You are right in thinking things over.. weigh ur options.. if it makes more sense to remain here.. do that for a bit longer. Go to visit her, enjoy every moment u have together and come back roll up ur sleeves and start getting agencies involved. Something's gotta happen. I was completely devastated the first time I had to leave my husband's side, it started affecting my relationship and my life. The second time I knew what to expect, so I prepared myself.. yess it hurt.. and yess i miss him sooo much. But this is where he needs me to be for both our benefits so I when I get discouraged I think about this, and I start to think about all my blessings and soon I feel better.
Now I started to think about all the husbands and wives waiting for their spouses serving in the military with 2,3 and even 4 times deployed! Yes my husband is in turmoil, but he's a civilian and I believe he will be ok or I'd go mad!
I guess all this is a way to survive. Good luck and my prayer are always with you and all our big gang here in VJ.

OMG, I was APPROVED Today!! Even now as I write it, it's surreal.

Congratulations. I bet it feels good to get the news. Happy for you..... I look forward to the same news as well. Good luck on your next stage.

guys.... stay strong..
dont let them beat us.

Yesss if feels wonderful, tho I can say now I have alot of work to do... NVC is alot more work in less time.. Thank you for your kind wishes.. I hope your case gets approved next week!! Too many ppl have been waiting tooo long!

Do they take this long just hoping that some people will give up? Sorry...my mood sucks today.

You are 1 day behind me, and im still waiting too. Looks like it does take this long

I've read an article about this before. Time is one way to weed out some sham marriages
What about real ones??? Its a big strain on us

Even real marriages can lose patience with wanting to actually begin LIFE together.

Look at our case :

We're in our 40s. We each have 2 children. We each have houses and stuff and jobs. When he moves here his job will transfer him to the US so he's ready to work. BUT. He can't do that now and so we both spend our pay on two places to live, and all of the things that go with it -- utilities, food, insurance, etc. etc. etc. We spend a ton of $$ polluting the environment so we can see one another. I've got over 60K miles on a 2006 vehicle to prove it. He's got a truck which is even more expensive to run. So naturally we're thinking about buying another car for him -- just so he can save some $$ on the drive but a car that we'd otherwise not want or need.

Instead of selling both houses and buying something for all of us, we're wasting time and money waiting. Instead of paying taxes to the good ole US of A, he's paying Canada. (You'd think the US would like his money, ya know?) Instead of saving more toward our childrens' educations and retirement we're spending money living separately and visiting one another. Instead of doing all of the things that we are very capable of doing right NOW if only they'd let us, we waste time and resources while Vermont twists American values and priorities into something horribly unrecognizable.

Oh, we're a bonifide marriage all right. But we're also sad that this process is causing two otherwise intelligent people to act like idiots in the name of love. Because nobody in their right minds would elect a marriage under these conditions. So if we were to split up Vermont could conclude that we weren't a real marriage from the start. But they'd be wrong. Love is a lot but it isn't everything. We have other responsibilities, too, namely to the children we have.

Of course, we're not giving up on one another. But if we did I'd tell Vermont to shove it where the sun didn't shine if they were to conclude that the end result determined the content or quality of our relationship.

Sham marriages dont care how long it takes. If all they want is the green card there is no hardship for them. The person who filed for them doesnt care when they come so they dont have any emotional distress, life goes on as always. The person who is filed for wants to come here but again no emotional distress because they have something to look forward to. All they have to do is go about their normal life and wait. If USCIS takes this long it is only because they dont want people to immigrate here and just want people to give up. The people who care about the time the most are the people who do this for love, so if the love is gone so is their desire to leave their entire life and family to go to a country that can be seen going down the drain anyway. There was a time where everyone wanted to come here , "the greatest country in the world", that time has come and gone for most countries that are not dirt poor or communist. My wife talks everyday about seeing people on the news coming back from living in america and saying that there is no more american dream. We have to work harder and longer and live with more stress , doesnt sound so great to me and to a lot of those people living in those countries too. If I wasnt an american and didnt have this sick thought that what i have makes my life great, I really think the idea of being with my family and enjoying life as well as being able to live with decent things ( food, clothes, refrigerator , the basics in other words) i would love it. I see my wife and her family and they have nothing, no big screen tv, no ps3, no name brand clothes, no jewlery, none of the things that we strive to get in this country and they are the happiest people i have ever seen. They work 8 hours a day but for 2 of those they go home eat and take a nap. I never see them stress, sure they have problems, but you wouldnt know it. What im saying is, those of us that are doing this for love know that our SO is not coming here for this country , to be away from their family and everyone they know, in some cases leave a country that we take vacations to because we consider them paradise. They are coming here because we asked them to. If our government thinks that making people that are doing this only to get to this country wait a long is doing anything they would have to be complete idiots. Those people dont care how long it takes. As long as the get here.

hey everybody....still hanging in there?
Ms. Z?
Pecky?
000?
Delicia?
roll call...who did I miss??

I leave to see my husband on June 6 for 6 weeks. I wanted to have all my NVC stuff enveloped, ready to go INCASE I was approved while I was gone so my sister could mail it in..but I dont think thats possible with case number stuff..is it?
Anyone have any idea how I can do this?

guys..this is it for me. If I come home and we have had NO movement I just might die. I just have this fear that everyone will get approved and I will be like poor HOHOHO waiting forever.

Hi Shrewdy, im happy that time is nearing to go on your vacation! If you happen to get approved while ur gone.. the DS3032, can be sent via email its faster. You can check your status online when u can, for approvals. And although its a long distance call, or maybe u can have your relative do that.. u can call nvc using ur uscis case number to obtain your NVC case number and listen to the automated. The payments can be done online also, :yes:utilizing your checking account.. so u need to have ur routing number and account. Then there is the I-184 which that you can leave ready.. with copies of docs required. After they've received your online pmt and processed it.. u will be able to have ur relative drop it in the mail... have them date it.. u just sign it. U might want to go over the list of docs required to mail in with ur ds 230.. if u are missing some.. u can get that while on vacation. Plus .. VJ is always available.
Try to keep your mind on enjoying ur time spent with ur hubby. When u are approved... then since u are prepared.. it will be a pleasant time. Plus, if u get the good news while there.. u can celebrate!!! Also work on your evidences that ur hubby will be taking to the embassy.

I will keep my fingers crossed for you. Have fun and relax with your husband and try and forget about USCIS for a while. We are right behind you at VSC at 193 days since they received our I-130, so I feel what you are going through. I pray they approve you...that way maybe we will be next.

Still here, still waiting, I leave June 11th for Brazil, on the downside......I have poison Ivy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what timing

thanks guys.
Thanks kitty
I will try to get all that stuff sorted out to mail, etc., the only problem is I dont have a guarantee of internet access there but I will worry aboutthat if the time comes.

soon guys...soon