Marriage ceremony in US, without legal paperwork filed

[AP16 30]

Yes. Really.

How did you guys found out about that?

[LionessDeon 2,060]

How did you guys found out about that?

Because VJers who worked with USCIS/consulates have stated that on this site.

Former IOs and other staff are members of VJ also. They can verify.

[LionessDeon 2,060]

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/234875-is-it-true-cos-read-visa-journey/ There is at least one other mention of such in the Sub Saharan forum

This is the very first page of this thread.

[AP16 30]

This is the very first page of this thread.

Oh ok, thank you... sorry I didn't notice that at first.

Well I hope they don't punish people for their personal views, since I stated here a few times that I disagree with certain elements of the immigration process.

[Ash.1101 1,756]

Oh ok, thank you... sorry I didn't notice that at first.

Well I hope they don't punish people for their personal views, since I stated here a few times that I disagree with certain elements of the immigration process.

Technically anything that is public and on the internet can be found by immigration ESPECIALLY if the person they're looking into looks shady, they can try to research that person if they feel they need too. With that said, I don't think disagreeing with the way the system works hurts you. Saying you're committing fraudulent activity could, which people do all the time here for reasons, but your feelings about the process are simply free speech.

I don't think I've seen anyone yet feel that their posting on VJ be the cause of a bad interview.

[thomahal 6]

Thank you again for all the responses. I will close the thread tomorrow unless anyone posts they would like it kept open.

I so appreciate all the good wishes as well as the good info- from both me and my wife, here's hoping everything works out great for everyone facing similar challenges.

This thread was about an awfully specific, pretty darn unique case and I would like to take a stab at making a reading through all this a little more useful for those coming to the thread with other, more usual cases. I get about as long-winded as the Mistral about things that I think are important- the charge of "novella" writing was, IMO, justified if others were, IMO, not. So that is a ton of reading with not so much benefit for many forum users.

But I think that one of the main things I will take from all of this (and that might be a good takeaway for many others) is the following:

I am betting that just about everyone would agree that the people of this forum are by and large exceptionally good people who it is obvious are spending considerable amount of their free time doing something with no great direct benefit to themselves other than the feeling of having helped others. I wonder, and would even ask people here to ask themselves, if in dealing with a subject where intense desires are up against huge obstacles if it isn't common to become somewhat jaded about the intentions of other people. As I said, I felt my story was dealt with with an unjustified, unwarranted, and kinda runaway level of suspicion, possibly assumption, of bad intentions. Whatever the reader thinks of this opinion, I supported it about as best I could above and am not going to pursue it anymore unless something new comes up.

But that is the point. If we have a sample of exceptionally good people here and there is a chance that, even with a ton of substantiated protestation to the contrary, an idea that something bad is being attempted can gain a foothold and be pretty immovable from there on, how much more can we expect that to happen with a government bureaucrat with a crushing workload, a daily routine of dealing with desperate people, and some seriously huge “what if's” that they HAVE to deal with as a part of their job.

No matter what we think of the agency (and I will ABSOLUTELY disagree with them here -monitored, unmonitored, posted on cubical walls, whatever- if I think it is important to do so) or our personal take on immigration, I don't think there is a good argument that the “what if's” could be horrific and agency people are going to be unapologetically passionate about doing everything they can to make sure one of their cases does not end horribly.

And, yep, that may include being quite jaded and quite ready to err on the side of severe suspicion.

When I think about it, I can't make any claim I wouldn't do exactly the same if I had that responsibility.

That is a main takeaway for me and I will remember it going forward. Thanks again to everyone.

[Ontarkie 14,950]

~~Thread closed as requested by the OP~~