Frustrated with the wait and mad as He11!!!!

[Bob g 11]

I really feel sorry for people that do not find "Visa Journey" or a similar website. The thing about hiring a lawyer, is to find a good one, that fully understands this process, and understands the process in which country that is to be dealt with. It is difficult to keep up with what the "real requirements" are to get a Visa. Good Luck, everyone.....

[Fandango 1,440]

Thank you everyone for the kind words.

After I read the first 3 posts I sat down and cried and cried and cried.

As a result I do feel better. I guess there is some comfort from knowing that others are in the same boat. True we are all in the same shitty boat but at least we are all together.

Thank you again to the VJ community.

****************************************************************8

to Lisa C:

And, just as a side note, I did not say never hire an attorney, I gave 4 qualifiers, and obviously if you are not filing the typical K1 and have police records, are a child molester...... an attorney might be the way to go.

However, most of us here are average people in love and have no unusual circumstances. I am careful with my words and seldom use "never".

(notice I did not say "never use never". LOLOLO)

I hope you don't think I was being harsh. It's just that it's very important that we are distinguished as a community of anecdotal information...not UPL (unauthorized practice of law), and the last thing vj needs in its google search history is blanketly telling people they don't need a lawyer. Or a person who may have a complicated case thinks they can do it him/herself when an atty may be neccessary. I do understand your position, and I'm not trying to upset you, but it's very important to make those disclaimers

Not to split hairs, but that is the first thing you said. 'Don't bother with a lawyer'

I'm not saying every person needs a lawyer or doesn't...that's an individual choice for that person to make.

Now that that's been said, I do hope your NOA2 comes soon!

[Shenzhen 34]

wow! i understand exactly what you are going through and how you feel. and since you asked us not to give you words of encouragement. i will just share my story with you. i too agree that it is a total WASTE of time and money to hire an attorney,(unless absolutely necessary) i wish i had known about visa journey a long time ago as well. i too hired and attorney to file my case and i paid that son of a gun $4500 to do a job that i am not satisfied with. he has not prepared me and my husband for our interview, and now my interview date is here and i am so scared that we may be denied because that hog of an attorney had not told us. that we needed to have pictures, phone bills, joint accounts. affidavits and all else that we should take to our appointment. all we were told by him is that we CAN'T be

denied because we are married ( what a load of crack) he didnt even tell us that we had to front load pics and evidence so that we may put out any doubts before it even come into the mind of whoever will interview us. he didn't even tell my husband to file joint taxes..and add my names to bills or anything. i am so angry at him. knowing what i know now. i know i would have done a better job than he has. and to make matters worst, his assistants or whoever did the paper works made so many mistakes so many times on my documents. i had to be paying courier fees 3 times to send them back documents which they made mistakes on, with my signature.and then again when everything finally arrived at the NVC after over one year plus of dealing with the stress and the separation from my husband. the documents still had mistakes and again i had to pay courier fee to send back the corrected documents. and never once did they apologized to me or my husband for the amature job and sh*ty service that we got.in fact they treated us like we were nobody's. so i know how you are feeling and i do agree that if you can read and have understanding DO NOT hire an attorney. (not saying all attorneys are bad)save them for when you really need them. and yes the stress from the whole process can leave you bitter and aggressive.i too am very stressed from the whole thing, when i wake in the mornings i can see the stress on my face, and when i speak on the phone with my friends they told me i sound horrible.and i snap at the people in my house because i am so stressed out.and still am, because my interview is in february and i am just not fully prepared. but thanks to VJ, and other forums. i manged to accumulate some evidence that will bona fide us, just not sure if they are sufficient. but at least i will not go into that room with zero evidence. and i probably would have, if it was for my attorney alone.

Sounds like the guy I hired and did nothing! L Tod Shlosser or something like it. Pure scammer! I wanted to sue him for the money he stole. He sent me several emails which would probably negate any return of funds.

[Lisa & Vinko 9]

Really feeling for you...I really like your story as a couple. It is so frustrating to find the one you really love in this life and not be able to be with them. I found out I have an RFE on my I 129F, but I have yet to receive the hard copy and it has been 2 weeks since it happened!!! Will start tracking this down, tomorrow. Anyhow, I was wondering what your possibilities were for being there with him? Would that be something that would work? I think about doing that all the time, but I don't want to leave my kids completely to my ex, they are the only ones that keep me here. Regardless, I've taken my sadness and decreased will to live as of late and have turned it into "fighting" mode. I look at it as, "I deserve to be happy, and I will do anything it takes in order to make it happen...even if it gets others in a tiz"...in other words, there will be a solution to my problem and it may take some alternative ways and some thinking outside the box to do...

I know you didn't want "encouraging", but I just wanted to tell a fellow despondent what I am doing to "make it work"!!

[WARREN-IRINA 1]

The first of July I completed all the paperwork and forwarded it to the attorney to double check. The attorney gave his OK and I sent in our K1 in mid July. Our K1 was returned because of a simple error that the attorney should have easily caught. (I checked single on my status yet provided a divorce decree from my former marriage which ended in 1983).[/

Carla I hope this helps you feel better; I made about the same mistake. I marked divorced and printed the Adobe PDF then clicked widowed on the PDF also. (Why it allows you to do both is beyond me and the USCIS instructions are as clear as mud.) I came back and without thinking about doing it and made another correction reprinted and sent it to CSC. This was when they were changing to sending them to Texas and had not told anyone yet. So it went from CSC to Texas and they sent it back me because widowed and divorced were both marked. I had the death certificate and divorce papers included. I found the reason for them refusing it made a new first page and returned it to Texas who sent it to CSC. I sent it the first time on July 14 and finally got the NOA1 from CSC on Aug 11. The last touch was Aug. 18 when I suppose the put it in file 13 (trash can).

Even more frustrating Irina sent me 4 invites to get a home stay visa in Russia to visit her. Having been conned by 3 American women after my first wife died I wanted plenty of time with her so as to try to see just who she was and that was the reason for the 90 day home stay visa. As she had moved to be near her brothers we had a year lost as she did not have residence to apply for the invite in Kaliningrad. The first failed because I had to have my left hip replaced, second because my both of my knees had been replaced and not healed enough. The third somehow became lost in the mail and did not arrive until after I should have been in Russia. I blame the local postmaster for the delay as she had a friend that kept coming to my house even though I told her I was not interested. Finally on the fourth invite sent by FED EX not mail I finally received the visa. In all we lost 20 months in just getting the invites and visa plus the year residence. I am sure if she had been a scammer she would have been long gone before the last invite.

I hope this helps you feel not alone in the frustration department. We both should be getting our NOA2’s soon. I wish you success in your endeavor.

[schretel 0]

I'm with you! I have been so depressed and little things now make me so upset and angry. My fiance must be wondering if he's getting married to a psycho! haha

I wonder if we can get the case expedited if we claim medical emergency? I'm not thinking this just to get a quicker response, but it is literally making life had to handle. Every day my life is consumed with checking USCIS for a response and freaking out at every chance I get. I'm at my wit's end and I wonder if anything will ever get better. Does anyone else have problems with the depression associated with this waiting endlessly?

[joevegas 67]

I'm with you! I have been so depressed and little things now make me so upset and angry. My fiance must be wondering if he's getting married to a psycho! haha

I wonder if we can get the case expedited if we claim medical emergency? I'm not thinking this just to get a quicker response, but it is literally making life had to handle. Every day my life is consumed with checking USCIS for a response and freaking out at every chance I get. I'm at my wit's end and I wonder if anything will ever get better. Does anyone else have problems with the depression associated with this waiting endlessly?

It's probably just me,but why the depression?..you've been apart all your lives because you never met each other..whats an extra 6-7 months???..talk on the phone..talk on the computer,be happy and look forward to your marriage...It took us over a year from the time we send in the K-1 papers till the time we were approved for the K-1 visa,never once were we depressed,just looking forward to our lives together...and so far it's been everything and more..smile

[Casprd 167]

We can all relate to the frustrations of waiting for the NOA2. I wonder if there is some recourse against this attorney for giving you such blatantly incorrect information. Probably not enough to make it worth while and not worth the hassle of having to deal with them again. As others have said, unless your case has something unusual then hiring a stateside attorney is a waste of time and money. In our case, we hired an attorney in China. The cost is significantly less thatn what it would have been for a US attorney, and he has been incredibly helpful and quick to respond. He was recommended on another forum specifically about the city in China where my wife lived and many people had used his services so I was fairly confident, but even with the attorney, double and triple check everything.

Since you are at 145 days, hopefully that means you are getting close. We got our NOA2 in a little over 155 days. The wait without hearing anything is maddening but hang in there. Seeing the doctor is definately a wise decision. We hope that the doctor is able to help you in the short term and that everything is soon resolved at the service center so you two can be on to the next step.

[Didisan 0]

Word of advice for those just getting started:

1. Don't even bother with hiring a lawyer as long as you have internet access, are computer literate, can read and follow directions.

2. Refer to this site for all timeline information.

3. Confer with others that have been through the process.

4. Expect the worse-case scenario so you don't set yourself up for later disappointment. (Of course you should hope for the best, but expect the worst.)

I paid a lawyer to assist with filing the K1 visa in Jan of 2010. He told me that after getting all the paperwork together we would be approved in 6 weeks to 8 weeks and the embassy would take about 4 weeks more.....in total the processing time would be 3-4 months tops!

The "love of my life" and highschool sweetheart began gathering all the paperwork together in Chile to file for a K1, however Chile had a 8.7 earthquake and many of the government courthouses where they store historical documents were damaged and unsafe to enter.

Because it is time consuming to get a tourist visa to the US and we were told that the separation wouldn't be too much longer, I made a 5 day journey to Chile and returned April 1 2010.

Daniel finally got all his paperwork together and sent it to me in early June. The first of July I completed all the paperwork and forwarded it to the attorney to double check. The attorney gave his OK and I sent in our K1 in mid July. Our K1 was returned because of a simple error that the attorney should have easily caught. (I checked single on my status yet provided a divorce decree from my former marriage which ended in 1983).

I made this little change, and did my research which found that there were other little errors and resent in the K1. Our NOA1 date was August 12, 2010.

We were discussing Daniel visiting the first week of September 2010 as September was 4 months since we had last seen each other, however family members in Chile had been turned down for a tourist visa and afterwards were unable to apply for a visa for a year. We were very afraid of that happening, so I asked my PAID attorney who had no idea yea or nay about this. I contacted the Chilean embassy but got a garbled response that was ambiguous. We decided not to chance it as the visa would be coming through shortly.

Unfortunately I had not yet located visajourney.com and since my PAID attorney told me we would receive our NOA2 in 6-8 weeks we checked the USCIS status page every single day beginning at week 3. Those of you in this process are very aware of the sense of frustration, anger and hopelessness that resulted from seeing no updates, no touches, no nothing, day after day after day.

I left a couple of voicemails for the Attorney in October to ask why it was taking longer than he advised and never got a response back from him...and still haven't to this day.

When I was at my wits end and feeling very desperate in late October I finally found this website and discovered that my attorney was very uninformed about his job and not fit to be paid to do it. I also discovered that I submitted more than was requested and required for the K1 visa and if not for this I would have been able to get an earlier NOA1 date. (remember the earthquake in Chile and difficulty of obtaining paperwork).

And here we all are waiting and waiting and waiting. We are currently at 145 days (21 weeks) and no NOA2 in sight.

We finally got to where we should have been initially, to put it another way,we gave up and are expecting the worst case scenario. Daniel is attempting a 10 day visit on a tourist visa-his interview is Jan 31. He can show he has sufficient ties to return, and the visajourney community assures us that the year denial of a tourist visa will not affect the K1.

I am trying not to think any further than the tourist visa. We are both middle aged farts with clean police records, assets and no conceivable reasons exist to deny us a K1 visa, but having hope only disappoints and hurts every single day.

I am filled with anger at the way this is all working out. If we had done this the illegal way we would be together now and creating invaluable memories for our old age. I fully expected Christmas 2009 to be my last alone.

I live in Texas and run across illegals every single day. I swear this process has made me hate every single one of them because they are here and Daniel is not!

I am becoming hateful, vicious and despondent. I have am become a burden on my coworkers because of my attitude. Normally I am sunny, likeable and cheerful but that disappeared completely the end of November in the midst of the "holiday" season. (the " indicates sarcasm)

I am calling tomorrow to make an appt with my doctor and ask for anti-depressants, the truth is that without Daniel I see no reason for continuing. This is not living - it is existing and existing at a low level. Life has no joys, no happinesses nothing to look forward to.

I know this community understands exactly what I am saying, and I ask that the members please don't try to give me words of encouragement, I am way beyond that.

Just call me "48 and losing precious time together every day"

I completely agree with all you said... all goes around, comes around...

[4ever mine 9]

I'm with you! I have been so depressed and little things now make me so upset and angry. My fiance must be wondering if he's getting married to a psycho! haha

I wonder if we can get the case expedited if we claim medical emergency? I'm not thinking this just to get a quicker response, but it is literally making life had to handle. Every day my life is consumed with checking USCIS for a response and freaking out at every chance I get. I'm at my wit's end and I wonder if anything will ever get better. Does anyone else have problems with the depression associated with this waiting endlessly?

The longest part is waiting for USCIS processing. You will make it! Hang in there! I did the same checking my case status everyday, sometimes three times a day. I found that the best thing that I can do is get involved with projects, hobby, repairing things at home, preparing my home for my husband. Focus on that instead of going crazy. When you feel the worse, remember the reason that you started this crazy process. Remember the fun times that you had with him that made you fall in love with him. You will make it!

Edited January 3, 2011 by D & H 4ever

[Nicole-N-Nattoy 24]

I really love this site and thank everyone for making all these wonderful post. It's nice to get personal with each other and say what we are going through on an emotional level. Reading these post made me feel I'm not alone.

I was lucky enough to work with a Lady who just went through the K-1 process and told me about this site. I couldn't afford a lawyer and without this site I wouldn't have got this far with no major set backs. As long as u research, research, research, post, post, post, and check everything 10 times over, the average person can do this well. Minus those who may have difficult cases and unique issues.

We did however have a hick-up with packet 3 and some misinformations and it was probably one of the most stressful times in my life. When ur entire future is in the hands of of an interview. Questions like what if he gets denied. My world would be crushed!!!!

I was so lucky to have spent 3 months with Natoy while going through this process. I would just stare at him in admiration for hours. I saw how he lived and how different it was from me. Not better or worse just very different. I maybe checked VJ once while I was with him and hardly thought about it. Unlike when I'm away from him I'm on here every single day just about. When i came back to the states a week later there in the mail-box was an approved NOA2. The downside is that we didn't have constant internet access in Jamaica and we were not prepared. Now that I have everything together and sent to him it is like a huge weight is lifted off my sholders.

It's in God's hands now. I cried happy tears last night becuase I pictured him being here with me, and the being away from him is almost over!

I cried becuase I was going to help in the furfilling of a wonderful, deserving, amazing man's dream. I cried in disbelief that my fairy tale could actually come true. I am younger than some on here and it is so exciting

to be finally in an adult good serious relationship. I never knew it could feel so good. PLEASE LET HIM BE HERE SOON!!! I too couldn't handle any

major set backs...It would break my heart to be so close and have my future with the man I love takin from me. Who would be better than Nattoy? Who or what could ever come close to filling that gap of not being with him ? What the heck would i do then? How could I get over it? Would i be strong enough to go on and try something else that could take another 7 or 8 months and still no semi garantees. AHH i don't even want to think about it.

Even though Nattoy says I will go there and be with him, I don't think I would becuase there is so much I want to do here still.(but I might just have 2 to be with him) Sometimes I think why couldn't I have met him here? Why am I going through this? It takes it's toll for sure, but I know there is a good reason.

The foundation of our relationship is so strong and we treat each other so well! We have such a love and respect for each other, and if we can get through this what couldn't we get through.

For everyone going through this process I wish them nothing but to be with the one they love!! From one VJer to the other..... I feel what it

feels like to have bad nerves and not know if you will have ur happiness. I won't be able to truly smile until I hear APPROVED! It does

make me feel better to know I'm not alone and to really get out what i'm going through.

[Daniel1980 0]

We wish you the very best, Carla. Hang in there and do what you have to in order to maintain sanity, hope and reason. You can do it!

At your request, my words are not meant to be "encouraging", but simply supportive and admiring of your tenacity and determination.

Channel your anger into energy that will push you through to the finish line. You will persevere.

ps, your story is AMAZING that you first met D. in HS, and are trying to be together again despite thousands of miles and decades later.

Not many people I know have the fortitude that you are showing. Peace and best wishes to you.

Thanks for your words.... our story is really amazing....and we just want to continue it...

Daniel y Carla

[delidana 0]

So, I see you are giving tourist visa a try. We are also going to try this route. We have today applied for the Tourist Visa and hope to get an appointment for an interview in the next few weeks. Have you seen any examples that this may work?

[carla1 4]

I have read of others on the site that have been able to get a tourist visa while awaiting a K1.

However, you truly have to show strong ties to the home country in order to achieve it.

In our case Daniel has a successful auto-body repair shop, has 2 sons, (one of which will be coming with him on the K1 visa) and owns property and 2 cars. Daniel's sons will not be coming with him on the tourist visa.

I also wrote an invitation letter stating how incredibly stupid, and expensive, it would be for Daniel not to go back home and legally complete the K1 process.

Our plans are to frontload the he11 during the interview to prove that our chances of being refused a K1 are zilch and I am gathering reams of proof right now. Our interview for the tourist visa is Jan 31.

In the event that we are refused we have only lost some time and right now we have time.

[Daniel1980 0]

Hello Carla,

I hear you and agree with you. At 53, I am no spring chicken either and, just like you, I have no time to play the government's idiotic waiting game..

There are some things you can do about it, but unfortunately not much. I already contracted my Senators and Congress Member even though I have not reached the 5 month mark. But it helped, maybe not now but it probably will once 5 months comes. At that point, they will already have files open on me, so I can spring them into action in a day or two instead of in a week or two. They already contacted me and told me about the 5 month deal, which I already knew, and I thanked them for the information even though I knew it already. I just wanted them to open files so they would be ready when I needed them.

The other thing you can do is to be firm, yet polite, when 5 months comes and you need to call them. Most of us reported zero help with this step, but some made progress in doing this, and since the only cost is some of your time, it is worth a shot to see what happens.

The third thing you can do is to fire your lawyer, The one you have seems to do this very badly, but even if you had F. Lee Bailey, the fact remains that you simply do not need a lawyer to do this. If you can read, write, and use a computer, a lawyer is useless.

And now for the most important thing, some advice from one angry petitioner to another: Find a constructive use for your anger. First, make the aforementioned Congressional contact like I did. Then research on the internet as much as possible. I learn new things every day, including knowledge I can use when the embassy interview phase comes rolling around. And then use what you learned to help other petitioners. I am following my own advice right now. You will be surprised how much satisfaction you will get channeling your anger into a productive exercise like this.

Estimated

I'm Carla's fiance, and I thank you for your comments.

It is true, your words are not consolation, but give us new energy to continue learning, documents and prepare everything at our hands..

Sometimes, the wait exceeded all capacity of resignation, and to read your words I understand that all this anger should we use in our well-being and future welfare of others who will pass through it.

I copied and pasted your letter on my desk, and every day I log on to the Immigration Department, hoping to see something new .... ...... I read is what keeps me from grabbing my head against wall .. jajajajaja (lololol)

I always try to give reason to laugh, to Carla, during this long process, but I ran out of reasons, and not find motives to joke with this, and the measure I've lost that ability .... We both have become sad.

You have given me motives to joke, because for now we have no many more options! ....

(In any case will be a great story to tell in our old age!)

Daniel