Pablomanga

You can go to whoismyrepresentative.com and enter your ZIP code then you'll get the list. Go to their websites and look for contact info and you can call them up and ask for help with a federal agency re: immigration. With VJ you know tons and will be able to get help!

Ahh!!! Congratulations!!! Woohooo!

Did your congressman do anything (to your knowledge)? Did he say anything to you about it, or you just submitted a request??

Well, I don't think my congressman's office did anything, because I just gave them the privacy release on Friday and then received my approval on Monday. I left a message today to tell them that it got approved last night, so not to open an inquiry if they haven't already.

My senator's office *may* have done something, but I faxed off my privacy release the day before I left for Europe to visit my fiance for 10 days, so if they called me to follow up I wouldn't have gotten the call (and my SIM card was out of my phone so they might not have been able to leave voicemails...not sure how that works).

For the sake of everyone else on VJ, I did call my senator's office today and left a voicemail with the immigration staffer to ask about whether they had filed an inquiry or not. If they have, I will certainly let you guys know. If they haven't, I will tell them not to at this point!

I will say that my experience with both offices was surprisingly easy and nice. They had staffers who picked up the phone on the first ring and were very happy to help even though they sounded like college students who weren't quite sure what I was blathering on about. When I went in person to the congressman's office, I got to chat with the immigration staffer about my fiance, our relationship, the wedding, and so on. I hoped that it might give her more encouragement to advocate for us

I did not mention VJ or the discrepancy between service centers to either office. I thought if I made it about "fairness" then they might immediately tune me out...there are a lot of things in government that aren't fair and I was afraid they'd see me more as an activist than as a person who wants to get married. I'm not saying that that's the only way to go but just wanted to share my strategy and experience.

Then again...this may all be a coincidence! Both my fiance and I have last names at the beginning of the alphabet so maybe our background checks just came back early?? It's a crapshoot! D: D:

ETA: Thanks for your congratulations, too! It means a lot!!

I can hardly believe it but we got approved!!! NOA1 was 10/16/14 and got my NOA2 last night by email at 1:01 am and text at 1:04 am EST. We waited 165 days total. I have no idea how we got approved, except I did go to my congressman's office on Friday and I submitted a request for an inquiry to my senator two weeks before. I doubt they made it happen so fast but who knows.

Thanks so much for your support in the last few months even when I was lurking instead of posting. Best of luck to everyone here--I hope the end of this wait comes soon for everyone!

Wow! Kristin which number do you mean--the one listed with case status for calling if you don't receive your notice?

Did they say anything about their expectation of how long it would take to get approved?

Actually- I'm just going to leave this thread because apparently trying to help is something not appreciated. Good

luck with your journeys.

I actually thought your post was a great thing to hear--I went to my congressman's office in person this morning and filled out the paperwork for them to file an inquiry as well. I'm an October filer so chances are it won't make a difference overall, but if it DOES, I'll be so glad I went. Thanks for your story and your encouragement!!

Oh no, that's terrible news! What was the reason?

I agree April though I bet we are seeing just a tiny fraction of actual approvals here. I was tinkering around with USCIS site and it seems like they get hundreds to thousands of petitions per day, so I imagine it like each approval we see actually represents many more. It may be 99% wishful thinking but that's what's gotten me through the wait so far so I'm sticking to it, haha

There have been a couple of September NOA2s tonight per the August and September boards.....I'm SO EXCITED! The end of this godawful wait is near!! We're so close

I'm also really glad to hear he had a smooth trip in! I know how stressful that can be!! Hope you have a great time together

Just took a look at Igors list for TSC K1's today and saw a couple August and September people who got NOA2 without evidence of special status!! That's given me some wind in my sails that they're marching on through and our time will come!

We booked a venue for the end of August. Originally I added everything up for the maximum estimates on the VJ guide and added a couple of months...so my fingers are crossed that things go smoothly otherwise I don't know what the heck we're going to do!

No birthdays during that time, and we want to be truthful. But I feel like a wedding is a more solid reason regardless. I feel like just visiting would be more of a cause for suspicion.

Fair enough, I totally get what you mean! I just meant to say that I think you'll be alright best of luck!

Thank all of you guys for the advice! We're happy to have renewed hope!

Really? Only $75? That's a really good idea, but I'd just be worried that it'll end up costing more money to change it! We typically just book with whatever is the cheapest, but I'd be worried that it would cost a few hundred extra to change his flight. Any ideas on how to keep the cost to switch from changing dramatically? The only thing for us is- we'd want him to come in March to help us with her bridal festivities and then stay through the wedding at least, which comes to about a month and a half. If they wanted to see the invitation, they'd see it was in April, so if we tried to get like a plane ticket for a few weeks in March, it wouldn't make sense, lol! Do you guys think a month and a half is considered too much time? He stayed for 2 months the first time, and they didn't ask him any questions about it.

I seriously doubt they would ask to see the printed invitation. Could he say he was visting because you had vacation time, or a birthday to celebrate, or whatever? They don't need to know about the wedding.

Long-time lurker on this board, first time posting--just wanted to give my 2 cents about the amount of grilling you might get at POE when arriving on VWP. The short version: you will get more scrutiny for a longer stay.

The long version: My fiance visited for the first time this spring (before engagement) with a round-trip ticket for an 89-day stay. He arrived in Philadelphia and got grilled big time, taken to a separate room, good cop/bad cop interrogation for a half hour, the whole shebang. Partly it was the length of time here and partly it was because he had brought some tools that could have been used for his particular line of work (though they were not!). BP was not interested in his various documents of proof of intent to return. We met some other people traveling on VWP who had 90-day round-trip tickets and they also got grilled thoroughly at various POE's where they landed.

The second time he visited here (still not engaged yet), he had a round-trip ticket for just 2 weeks' stay. He landed in Boston and answered a couple of questions (why he was here, who he was visiting, when he was leaving). The BP looked at the letter I had emailed to my fiance to bring, which explained who I was, where I lived, and that he'd be staying with me for his visit. Then he got a stamp and strolled on through with approval of 90 days on VWP even though he had planned to return much sooner. He ended up canceling his return flight and staying for another couple of months once we got engaged. There were no problems with that, though I've heard it's really important to actually cancel the original return flight if you're not taking it, as opposed to just not showing up, because otherwise your immigration records can get messed up.

In summary I think it's better to book tickets for a shorter stay, and then if you decide to lengthen it just cancel and re-book the return flight! Short stays don't seem to get a lot of attention at POE.