cwhetstine

Hello again, Vjers Wow, a lot of great replies and comments. Me and Renu read through all of them, and just wanted to say thank you for all the positive encouragement and the informative advice. It's so refreshing to have a outlet where you can vent on a bad experience and receive invaluable advice from people in similar situations or who had past experiences. Even if your all strangers to us, you have uplifted our spirits, which we greatly needed, both having been depressed all week. We tried to maintain a positive outlook (it's been especially hard on my wife) and sure enough on Saturday we received our RFE from the Fairfax immigration office here in Virginia. That was relatively quick turnaround and I believe that's at least good news, as not having no information and being in limbo would have been a lot more stressful for us. From the IO's last statement, he made it seem like it would be months before we would hear anything back from them. I'll write a more thorough follow up post regarding the RFE that we just received in the mail. Although a lot what they are requesting was already brought to the interview or submitted in the original AOS package, this particular person seems to want more. I'll do whatever it takes, however, to keep them satisfied and hopefully saturate them with some much evidence that have no choice but to approve us so that we can put this awful experience behind us and plan for our future life here in America. (Hopefully) I do wanted to apologize about the spelling errors and name calling directed towards the IO on my original post. I wrote that first post being emotionally distraught but that was no excuse for the name calling. However, after the way that particular IO treated us I do not have respect for him. Living close to D.C. and having a lot of friends in the Federal Government I now realize what kind of people become Immigration Officers. It takes a certain type of person to have a job like that. To judge the vitality of a couples relationship and have totally control of their future simple because one is foreign takes a certain individual. Understandably, I know there's probably a lot of fraudulent marriages but there is no need for a government official to lose your professionalism or sensitivity. Now I didn't expect him to give a hug and say "Welcome to America!" with red,white and blue confetti falling from the ceiling but he at least could have showed some common level of human decency to us. That didn't happen. After further reviewing of this particular Immigration Office I've seen many similar complaints. ( A quick google search of "Bad interview, adjustment of status - Fairfax comes up.) maybe it's the standard operating procedure of this office. (Their sensitivity training manual must have gotten sent to a wrong office awaiting approval -HA!) As far as my military service is concerned, like many posters said, that should have no bearing on whether my marriage to Renu is legitimate. Even if I served 2, 3, 4 or 8 1/3 years of active duty, I proudly served my country with honor and distinction and for him to question the integrity of that is appalling. My DD214 clearly states "Honorably discharged." Now I realize these IO's don't have our best interest at heart and are probably more worried about letting the wrong people get approval on their watch and likely losing losing their jobs in the process. (In light of recent events in the news) I get that now. I also can't fault anybody else for this experience or blame luck. I chose to marry a foreigner and bring her here to America and have the American Dream. If this is the process so be it. i'll do whatever it takes or be mistreated however they want as long as the outcome is in our favor. Thanks again guys for all the informative posts, me and Renu really appreciate it. I have a new fond respect for those of you who both immigrated here. I'm a American citizen applying for a green card for my wife and the whole process is stressful and convoluted, I can only imagine how complicated it is for couples who where both born aboard and English not being your native language. Me and my wife want to learn from this experience and eventually help fellow VJers who get into a similar situation. I'll have followup post shortly regarding the RFE and its requirements. - Thanks