Jon9205

Practical Tip: A business that does not charge comparable rates OR does not offer comparable services for its male and female clients falls under the definition of an IMB and is regulated by IMBRA

If the website charges comparable rates regardless of gender, then it is exempt. Or if its a free service such as Badoo.

It's funny how women who pay for services aren't considered at risk or who meet for free. This law is clearly temporary and unconstitutional. It's just gonna be around until someone takes it to the supreme court to get it overturned.

As far as the written consent from the beneficiary that she received a disclosure from that website that you provided her with your background check is beyond me or even the jokers who wrote the law.

I don't think visa officers take this section seriously because there more concerned with fraud rather than if you complied to some unconstitutional formality.

If you have the money call a lawyer. I don't even think the makers of this law have any clear answers to how to proceed if the website didn't comply with the law.

I think the disclaimer you posted is afrointroductions attempt to cover themselves from prosecution by suggesting you may have visa issues down the road if you don't complete the IMBRA section.

From a legal standpoint this topic is fascinating to me. We are seeing our rights being increasingly eroded by our ever evolving surveillance state. The founding fathers would be livid with this law.

I support providing all beneficiaries with background checks of petitioners prior to granting visas along with informing them of their rights against abuse and hot lines to call. However, demanding the petitioner submits a background check before even saying hello is unconstitutional. Because you would have to apply the same standard to both gender at sites like match.com & Badoo as well.

If you are clean of any criminal history & have never filed, I can't see how a VO would take issue with the fact you obtained a written consent from beneficiary that she reviewed your BC after you met.

WHAT IS THE INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGE BROKER REGULATION ACT (IMBRA)? The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA) was signed into law on January 5, 2006 as part of the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act.4 In an effort to prevent the abuse and exploitation of so-called mail-order brides,5 the law imposes regulations on the international marriage broker (IMB) industry as well as mandates certain changes to the process by which a U.S. citizen may petition to sponsor a foreign fiancé(e) or spouse to come to the United States (on either a K1 (fiancé(e)) or K3 (spouse) visa). The Tahirih Justice Center helped draft IMBRA and mobilize support for its passage.

2. HOW IS AN INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGE BROKER (IMB) DEFINED UNDER IMBRA? An international marriage broker is first defined broadl

IMBRAAdvisory.pdf

How you initially met will be addressed at interview. If it's a country in Africa, you will need to submit proof of bonafide relationship such as chat logs & emails. It is my sole paranoid opinion that someone in DHS will open up you skype, google, whatsapp or whatever and search key words pertaining to anything fraudulent or incriminating if it goes to administrative processing so be honest. Snowden revelations made it clear that all of us on VJ are persons of interest because of our foreign correspondence. I also believe that unexplained denials are a result of discrepancies between what was provided by the petitioner and what was read in the actual chats and emails when the account was opened by DHS. So it's best to be honest and error on the side of caution because if they log into your account and read about you discussing imbra or anything visa related they will check to see if it lines up with your actual petition. So just check yes and go with it. If your clean the worst thing that could happen is that it gets tied up in Administrative Review or sent back to the US to be vetted by DHS. Eventually you will get approved.

Or you could keep question 34a simple & say you met online, provide the dates in 2-3 sentences & check no for 35. When its addressed at the interview you could just state you were unsure about the law so you checked no to avoid complicating matters. I don't know what happens from there. The prior links submitted by Ebonuowula clearly indicate that the site you met on is IMBRA.

I personally think you should just check yes. This is to big a decision to gamble with. I don't think the visa officer will automatically view you in a negative light because of where you met. Most important thing is to be 100% truthful throughout the entire process.

Ohhhhhhhhhh please don't frontload. When we get a great big fat frontloaded case, my first thought is, "This is either going to be really good or really bad." Some people frontload because they really do have tons of genuine evidence and want to share it, and others frontload because the relationship isn't bona fide and they want to smother us in paper so we won't notice. (Also, notarized letters from other people attesting to the veracity of the relationship are not useful at all. I can make you a really nice-looking one in about 15 minutes right now, including a "stamp" from a "notary." )

We are much more concerned with the beneficiary's ability to credibly discuss the relationship than we are in the documents.

That said, for people reading this who have already frontloaded, don't worry, we won't hold it against you. We will just make sad muttering sounds about trees being killed before we call you to the window.

http://www.nairaland.com/1359935/u.s-consular-officer-ask-me/47

I have read many recommendations to keep this response short and sweet and that the size of the space provided is indicative of the response they expect to receive. However I'm assuming the burden or proof is stronger regarding Ghana, so I'm frontloading with an attached narrative of our relationship explaining how we met online, the name of the website where we met, our shared interests, how we've evolved into falling in love and when I proposed.

I personally would rather keep it simple and write just two or three sentences and just say see attached chats, emails, phone logs, etc. but I have a feeling Ghana is expecting more. What is the consensus regarding stating the details of how we met online and putting an emotional response into this letter when dealing with a difficult consulate? Could this be causing more harm than good?

I have took into consideration everyones suggestions and refined my approach. I'm going to submit screen shots instead of skype & google chats copied into word format. I'm unable to get time stamps enabled on the Yahoo messenger so I will have to copy & paste those into word. I also feel that I need to illustrate a timeline & narrative to identify the relationship is bonafide, maybe I'm over thinking and possibly setting myself up for more problems by sending 50-75 chat conversations. I know there are no definitive answers on this topic other than make sure to send bonafide proof of meeting in 2 years. I'm assuming more is better than less and that is kind of what I gathered from the K-1 guidelines when referencing this quote Many high risk consulates approach cases with a skeptical eye and providing this information early on in the original I-129F package will help them in their preliminary review of your case. Thanks VJ, and please keep this conversation going if you feel you have any further suggestions.

did you copying them into text form or print them out from yahoo? I'm condsidering buying this http://www.wackyb.co.nz/yahoo/archive_viewer/ for the yahoo messenger and doing the whole process over again because it sounds like they wont accept chats in word format?

I used the snipping tool from windows 7 to take a screenshot that showed the chat as well as the logo. the problem I was reading is that anyone can just type a conversation. they needed proof. also I take screenshots as well showing the 2 of us on skype or google to show us on cam together. some are picky with what you send.

Problem with yahoo archives is that you can't access a watermark in the chat history so you can only use text.

I'm submitting over 100 chat sessions in by copying them out of skype, google chat & yahoo and pasting them into text form. Will they even recognize this without the logo watermarks on the chat logs?

I'm about to send in the G-325a for my foreign fiance. She will be changing her PO box information on the form for her address. Do I have to pay for her to mail me the new forms ($100+) or send it in as is and call the USCIS and have them change the information after mailing it in?

Also I have to use a PO box for my fiance because where she lives there are no street addresses.

I will be leaving my apartment in the next few months. I read that you can't change addresses during the K-1 process which seems pretty extreme but this was emphasized in a NOLA Fiance Visa ebook. I don't want to wait until my lease ends to file because that will be at the end of January. I can't imagine that it will be too difficult to notify someone and get my change of address registered in the system. Anyone have any experience or knowledge on this topic? Thanks VJ!

I'm in the tedious stage of indexing my chat logs to submit for the K-1 form. The approach to collecting google chats is miserable and you cant copy and paste them into word w/ pictures so it looks like you typed the conversation yourself.

We spend the majority of our time talking on Tango because of the quality of the call (and my fiance has windows 8 and she can't figure out how to download skype w/ the update). Tango is a complete disaster and I recommend nobody make the same mistake I made. You can only screen shot a weeks worth of calls, after that it deletes the history and there is no way of retrieving later records. So if you must use Tango, screen shot regularly otherwise all you call records will be lost.

As for skype, trying to load a years worth of chats bogs down the computer and take at least a half an hour to prepare. I purchased Kudos chat which indexs the chats to Excel form where I then copy and paste into word. The end result has no Skype signature and looks no different than if I went into word and typed all of the messages myself

I'm going through a high fraud consulate so I'm really disappointed that I will be submitting word documents that look like I typed the conversations myself.

If you use yahoo messenger, enable it to save your chat history and it will index all your conversation by day and they are easy to access. You can also screen shot the list of days to make for an easier chronology of chats. If I had stuck with Yahoo messenger from the start. This process right now would not be so frustrating.

Just though I would post my frustrations and give some tips to others so they don't make the same mistakes I have made.

If anyone has any suggestions about Skype, Tango and Google Chat I'd really appreciate it! Thanks

I used Kudos Chat search for a mac. Its not free but gives you a free trial. it also exports the chats into excel format. This is something I'm struggling with too. I copied and pasted my chats from excel into text format.

http://kudoschatsearch.com/

Here is an article I found while researching what an actual long form birth certificate looks like. Maybe this can be of assistance to others who are confused on the issue as well. At least I didn't know what it looked like and had to look it up so I thought I could save someone else the extra effort.

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/what-is/long-form-birth-certificate-5649302

Thanks for all the advice from my fellow Ghanian VJ members. Your insight is greatly appreciated and I have decided to file based on your response

I think photos are necessary but I think the only photos that require a size requirement are the passport photos. Photos are important to include but I'm going to need passport stamps, bank receipts from trip, plane ticket (not itinerary). I'm also using a software program called batch photo to extract the meta data to include time stamp on photos. I'm writing details on the back of where they were taken & spreading them out over a course of several different days, most likely 25 photos.

I can't figure out what to do about my Tango calls either. It seems like it deletes them after a couple of days. I would recommend using another app like skype, yahoo or google in the future. Thats what I'm going to start doing unless someone can help me learn how to retrieve my past call logs.

The ceremony would be her parents, close friends, and my mother on webcam. To all formally agree to the wedding. I was thinking of taking pictures of the two of us with the ring w receipt. I have copied & pasted skype chat into word format & was planing on submitting 1 pg of chat per week. Not a lot of email & phone conversation because we talk on Tango. Which I haven't figured out how to index. I will save that for another post. You are making me think I'm ok to file.

I have gathered copies of stamped passports, flight itinerary, bank receipts of transactions while in Ghana, time stamped photos, signed letter of intent to marry from both me & fiance along w/ G-325a's, skype, google & yahoo chats charting correspondence over almost a year time frame and proof of meeting twice during this year.

However, Because I'm going through the Ghana consulate, I'm concerned that without an engagement ceremony included in the I-129f petition, I will get further interrogated from the consulate officer. The reviews have identified Ghana as a high fraud embassy and one of the hardest and most unpredictable embassies to go through.

I don't want to take any half measures & I'm considering making a 3rd trip & conducting engagement ceremony and engagement ring presentation before applying. I think I should have a formal engagement ceremony before applying. At least it would give me peace of mind before applying. I know there are know guarantees regardless of how many times i visit.

Am I overreacting? I really want to file right now because I can't take being away from my fiance but I also don't want to act in haste & further complicate matters w/ a very difficult embassy. Should I file with out a formal engagement ceremony & ring presentation? Is two trips enough for Ghana? Thanks for the continued support, I appreciate it so much!

Great example of a cover letter. I will definitely follow your example but for my I-129f I'm submitting nothing regarding a wedding or even engagement ring receipts. I hope this isn't a problem. I also was thinking of submitting Google chat & been having trouble indexing them. Didn't think I could use screen shots. Good advice, thanks.

What is the Form G-1145? I'm filling in the next few weeks & did not fill out this form & I'm not submitting affidavit of support or recent taxes because I thought that information was to be submitted at the interview stage.

Does short, sweet & to the point apply to high fraud consulates too? It is recommended to front load for these embassies & I was going to write a more detailed account of how we met.

United States Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

[ADDRESS OF FILING LOCATION]

or when submitting for interview

USCIS
P.O. Box 660151
Dallas, TX 75266

Is this the right address to put in this area?

United States Department of State
United States Consulate, [name of country where Embassy is located] Ghana
[Embassy Address]

No. 19 Fifth Link Road

Cantonments
Accra, Ghana

Is this the correct way to address my foreign fiance's letter of intent from Ghana? Should this letter of intent be notarized while I'm here? Also should I get supporting Affidavits from my foreign fiance's parents? I know it is not included in the K-1 guidelines, but I have read in several posts that it is a good idea to prevent RFE's and helps support bonafide relationship besides the required, passport stamps, bank receipts, boarding pass & pictures. Ghana is a high fraud embassy that requires front loading the K-1 and extra-care before filing for the I129-F petition.

Thank you to all who replied to my question. I want to eliminate as many elements of uncertainty that I can before filing and I thank you all for your support.

I'm getting ready to file for the k1 visa application. I'm wondering whether I need to include a marriage date in the cover letter? Do we also need a formal engagement before filing, such as pictures & receipts of an engagement ring? We have met the basic guidelines listed in the K1 guidelines section. Is it a bad idea to submit the K1 application without formally presenting an engagement ring or making marriage plans?