RobRod

My experience contradicts the other responses to this question.
I mistakenly sent a document with a copy of the original signature. When I discovered this, I waited until I had my NOA-1 receipt number, then sent in the document with the original signature. In the cover letter, I referenced the Date of the NOA-1 and the receipt number, provided a brief explanation of what the document was, asked the officer to interfile the document with the previous petition, and overnighted the package to the Dallas Lockbox facility.
You might direct your attorney to do this for you at no charge since it was their error. After they do that, then have a discussion with them about their future employment with you.

Kkk 1 as an advocate for victims of domestic violence over 20years I can tell your advise is so WRONG. Victims of DV should not talk and warn the abuser, they MUST call the cops,and not to wait to see if it will happen again.
Please please next time that you hear/read someone asking advice about DV,advice the person to call the cops immediately, and to leave immediately the abuser without ANY talk or warn,the person should seek some shelter in a safe place .
Advising a victim of DV to talk to the abuser is a wrong advice.Later on the couple may talk after he attends therapy for at least 6months,attend anger management classes,then yes she can talk to him. The victim safety is more important than saving her marriage.

I think that it would look like fraud if HE sent money to YOU... like he paid you to get into States.
But you have the opposite situation, also you are going to sign an affidavit for him which already implies some kind of your financial support (if I am not mistaken).

Was that the bone of contention we gnawed on recently ? I remember calling you out on the way you started out one of your comments,
which was something like : " Here we go once again...no one is addressing this and that "....But the problem was with your choice of condescending words.
You then said sorry, that you didn't mean to be rude and when you explained why you can't just address the OP's emotional drama but feel the need to be technical and specific I even told you "Fair enough". But you came off as though you were the only one with a correct response and were scolding
everyone who commented to OP's personal issues.
My point is that it's not always what is said but in what attitude it is said, some comments come off as condescending and I still believe the way you
put it was out of line. It was defused by your apology.
In regards to the person that inspired you to write this thread, well she didn't like to hear the truth in a particular thread and the generalizations
and stereotyping is what I and many others pointed out to her.
Stereotyping Nationalities like puppy dogs is absurd. People are all individuals and the OP was not helped with stereotypical and untrue statements.
That is my 2 cents.

I agree with Jawaree about the whole bias thing. I've seen people helping some from European countries circumvent the immigration wait time by coming over on the visa waiver and no one went all " It's ILLEGAL BLAH BLAH" but someone asking something fairly legal from a South Asian country, people were all like " IT'S ILLEGAL BLAH BLAH". Seriously? And the moderators did nothing.
Also, information isn't all that "accurate". I was given a nasty reply about some A number issue from a so called "old timer" but all she did was repeat what was fed to her on this site over and over again and not that she actually "KNEW" from experience or knowledge that what she said was true. She routinely would attack people from South Asia and give them wrong information and turn around and say something completely different on another thread.
That should make people wary because people come on here to either a) vent or b) actually ask for legitimate immigration questions. Thanks to that VJ person, I who was pregnant and vomiting, was even more stressed out. Thanks for nothing. It all worked out but whatever.

My case is pretty straightforward, so I can't deny I sometimes come here just to read others' drama and be thankful. There definitely is a "Jerry Springer" aspect to some of posts. Those are the most interesting, and also the ones that seem to draw out the most passionate and opinionated. But some people forget that whatever the story is, we're usually only getting one side of it, and even then likely only a small view of the entire picture. Regardless, instead of just answering the questions, the foolish responders among us start applying their own assumptions, jumping to emotional conclusions, going off on tangents, or offering judgmental advice that hasn't been solicited...all based on nothing but speculation.
But that's the nature of forums (and the internet in general), for better or for worse. There is a lot of good information here, and I just think like everything else online, you have to learn to take the good with the bad, filter what you need, and disregard the rest.

I submitted by N-400 in November and was given a date of May 22 for my interview. 2pm.
I showed up at 1:20pm and was told at the check-in to come back at 1:45pm, so I sat in the waiting area with my book. At 1:45 I walked up to the counter and there were already about 4-5 applicants. By the time I got to the counter there weren't more than 15 applicants, presumably all given the 2pm slot. They checked everyone in in a couple of minutes. They asked only the applicants to wait in line at the counter.
I sat in the waiting area and almost exactly at 2pm they started calling in people one by one. Even here they seemed to restrict the entry into the rooms to only the applicant.
I should clarify though that my interview was very smooth. I have read only scary stories here (I assume people with smooth interviews don't catalog their experience because it's "boring"). So I wanted to catalog an experience from the other side of the spectrum.
I interviewed with a very friendly Filipino lady. She herself was an immigrant so her demeanor was relatively friendly. Out of the 45 mins I spent in her office, official business was only 2-3 mins. The rest of the time she was chatting about a bunch of personal stuff. It was very relaxing. Later on she told me that the paperwork was very organized and it made her job easier. It was a relatively straightforward application.
As for the official conversation - she asked me to read and write a sentence each. She asked six questions - "Why are there 13 stripes on the flag", "What ocean is on the west coast" , "Who signs bills into laws". Don't remember the rest.
She stamped "Approved" on the package about 20 mins in but spent a lot of time marking up the form. I'd made two mistakes on the form and amazingly enough she zeroed in on them pretty quickly - one was my phone number and the other was my daughter's name (I'd written my wife's name by accident).
She said it was done and told me that oath ceremony will be on June 24th and "Congrats!".
Feel free to ask any questions.

Before we spend a lot of electrons beating up the OP, let's remember a few things:
1) The US as well as many other great countries grant citizenship to anyone born within its borders-- legal immigrants, tourists, undocumented folks, and so forth
2) If you were not a USC, and you had the chance for your kids to be US citizens I wager that every single person on this board would take advantage of that opportunity
3) Taking advantage of whatever benefits the government provides to legal immigrants, tourists, and undocumented folks-- US, CA, or whatever -- is not against the law
4) You may not agree with some facets of any law, but if it is legal, it is legal
Now to the OP -- he offered to repay MediCal -- certainly not something most folks would do. But let's get someone from CA to answer the question -- does MediCal provide benefits to undocumented folks or not. And to the OP -- was your wife legally in the country at the time.

Blather

Blather

Blather

Hi, we are Dylan and Claudia from California and Nicaragua and we just picked up our approved visa today after only 3 months of waiting! The K1 visa process can be very long and confusing so we wanted to outline our experience and offer the chance to answer any questions, especially for those dealing with the embassy in Managua.
We began working on the initial I-129f application in late January and mailed the completed package to the USCIS Dallas Lockbox Facility on February 6th. On February 10th we received an email from the USCIS providing a receipt number to check our case status online. On February 27th our case status was updated to inform us that our application had been approved. About a week later we received our first notice of action letter from the USCIS verifying the application approval. Afterwards we had to wait until mid March until we received the second notice of action letter from the Visa Center providing a case number and stating that the application would be forwarded to US embassy in Managua.
Pre-interview
On March 25th we received an email from the Managua Consular with a Spanish package of instructions in preparation for the visa interview. At this point you need to be very careful, since there have been several incidents of interviewees being denied for missing documents and the requirements are vague in the instructions (and contacting the embassy may result in conflicting information).
Here is a list of the documents that they actually requested at the interview:
Medical examination envelope: the price of the exam is dependent on your age and medical condition. If you need extra exams or tests, it can be well over $200, but as a young, healthy 23 year old it only costed $170 (including vaccinations) with Dr. Matilde Reyes. After calling to make an appointment we were able to schedule one for the following day. Including x-rays, blood tests, and the physical examination it took 3-4 hours on a single day. The Dr. also asked for four 2x2 photos (separate from the photos that you bring to the embassy!). The instructions are outdated since Dr. Matilde Reyes was available on Thursdays.
Police records: If you haven't lived in another country for more than a year then you only need a single unauthenticated police record from Nicaragua. Claudia obtained hers from SERVIGOB, 1.5 blocks away from Plaza Inter. Since she lived in Honduras for more than 1 year she had to take a trip to Tegucigalpa where she obtained a police record from the 'Corte Suprema de Justicia' located near Chiminike. The police record is authenticated by the 'Corte Suprema de Justicia' and then by 'Relaciones Exteriores' which is a few blocks away. This will take 3-4 days, but if you gently push the employees then you might be able to get it sooner. Any police record originating from another country must be authenticated.
Birth certificate: Go to the address that is listed in the instructions. Since Claudia's birth certificate read "Libro de: reposicion de nacimiento" under the "Datos de la inscripcion" section, she had to get a unique certificate (Certificado unico) which took a couple of additional hours to process. They asked for both the regular and unique certificates during the interview, so bring both.
Affidavit of support I-134: Dylan sent the original signed forms by mail (we received contradicting information on whether it needed to be an original copy or not). The instructions say that they request the I-864 form but at the interview they asked for this one instead, so it was a good thing that Claudia had both.
Evidence: We worked on collecting as much evidence of our relationship as we could, which included: emails, call logs, chat logs, video call screenshots, photos and what we call a 'Relationship Diary' which is a google document that we have been keeping where we type out things and events that we experience together... It is full of romantic silliness so we thought that it would be good as evidence of our legitimate relationship.
DS-160: There is a link in the instructions to an online application. In order to complete it you will need to create an online account using your USCIS case number and an invoice number. Since this invoice number was not mentioned in any of the letters that we received, we had to call the National Visa Center using the number listed in the instructions. After completion, print out the confirmation page to bring with you. The instructions referred to it as the DS-260, but it is actually the DS-160.
Second notice of action letter: They requested this so that they could get our case number in order to retrieve the original I-129f application.
Bring four 2x2 photos of the applicant to the interview (separate from the photos that you gave the Dr. during the medical exam!)
Finally, here are other documents that Claudia brought to the interview but that they didn't ask for at all: the petitioner's copy of birth certificate and passport, proof of employment, pay stubs, previous year’s tax return, letter of intent, affidavit of support I-864 and the payment confirmation for the interview fee. You may still want to bring this stuff just in case.
Scheduling the interview
In order to schedule the interview you'll need to create an account at http://www.ustraveldocs.com/. Here we paid the $265 interview fee online with a credit card. On Friday, May 1st we scheduled the interview for Tuesday, May 5th. Claudia printed out and brought a copy of the appointment confirmation with her to the interview.
Interview
Claudia arrived at 7:10am for her interview scheduled at 8:00am. Tell the guard that you're here for a K1 interview and you can skip the line of people applying for regular tourist visas. You'll have to go through two security checkpoints. At the first security checkpoint they took Claudia's phone and anything else that they considered dangerous (e.g. a bottle of hand sanitizer in her purse). The second security checkpoint is basically the same except they don't take anything else from you (they don't have anything else to take!). Then they let her into a small room where a receptionist asked for her passport but couldn't find the appointment in the system so she had to scan the barcode on the confirmation page to find it. Claudia received a number and waited for about two hours to be called to the first of two interviews. A Nicaraguan official collected her documents and used the case number from the second notice of action letter to reference the initial I-129f application (which is presumably why they did not ask for Dylan's birth certificate or passport photocopy). Then he asked Claudia how we met, how many times we had seen each other, how we keep in contact, and if she had any evidence with her. That's when she gave him a binder with all of our evidence (the same that we submitted with the first application). He then told her that she was going to be interviewed by the consul and asked her to wait to be called again. After about 10-15 minutes she was called by name to a different window where the American consul asked her if she could speak English, to which she said yes, so the interview was entirely in English. This one was less than 5 minutes. He took her fingerprints and then asked her how we met, what we both do for a living, how long we have been dating and that's it! He had her sign some documents and told her that the visa had been approved. They will retain your passport in order to issue the visa.
After 6 business days the visa was ready to be picked up at the location selected on ustraveldocs.com. Overall it took us a few days over 3 months to receive the visa after sending in the initial application, and it would have taken at least 3 weeks less if not for some mishaps with obtaining the Honduran police record.
And now some advice for the application process that we developed after countless hours of research and reading other visajourney stories:
Quadruple check all forms. It is easy to miss a field and the smallest mistakes can cost you months in delays. We were very cautious, so luckily we did not encounter any issues with our paperwork.
Front load the initial I-129f with all proof of relationship evidence that you can find. Officially you only need enough evidence to prove that you have met at least once within the past two years, but this application will eventually be forwarded to the embassy in Managua and reviewed by your interviewers. This is your opportunity to show off your photos, chat and call logs, etc. before the interview even begins. It is better if you suffocate them with evidence so that they don't have any reason to question your relationship. A helpful tip is to caption all of your evidence with a brief description and date.
For the proof that we had met within the past two years we included a copy of the flight itinerary email, a copy of the immigration stamp on Dylan’s passport, a copy of Dylan’s bank statement where we outlined transactions that he made during the visit, a copy of Claudia’s bank statement where we outlined the payment for two of our hotel rooms, and a booking confirmation for one of the hotel rooms. Once again, it is always better to provide too much evidence rather than not enough.
For any documents or evidence included in the I-129f application that are written in Spanish or any other language, provide a second translated copy with a signed statement by the translator at the bottom (either applicant can serve as the translator, no need to hire a professional one).
In general, it is safer to have original copies of any signed documents (so mailing documents with “wet” signatures may be necessary).
Unless you’re allergic to paperwork, hiring a lawyer is definitely not necessary and in some cases may even hurt your chances since there seem to be a lot of stories of inept lawyers who improperly fill out forms.
Be prepared for fees: $340 for the initial I-129f application, $170 (or more) for the medical exam, $265 for the interview, and many more fees to come during the naturalization process. You do NOT need to pay a post-interview USCIS fee online nor at the airport for the K1 visa.
We hope that this helped, we will be happy to answer any questions.
With love,
Dylan and Claudia

I found that thread and found it to be all speculation with a simplistic theory with plenty of "exceptions" in East Asia and Africa.
And DV lottery fraud is different from visa fraud. The former are people claiming they can help you "win" the diversity visa lotto for a fee or a similar scam, while visa fraud is misrepresenting yourself or something along those lines.
Ha, well I suppose I can't argue with that. 3rd seems appropriate enough.

For those of you saying Ethiopia is a high fraud country, where are you getting your info from? Are you just making that assumption because it's in Africa? I searched "fraud Ethiopia" on VJ and this is the only thread that came up. There are also very, very few K-1 reviews for Ethiopia, and very few poor reviews (especially compared to Nigeria). There is another recent one from April. It sounds like to me the embassy has gotten a more "strict" CO recently.

great job! Follow the advice of the attorney! time is important, so get right on it.

she wouldn't be eligible for ESTA if she were denied for misrepresentation.

This advice is best given when a non complicated petitioner is asking if he should use an attorney to file a simple petition, this is not the case.
You are wrong to advice DIY to the OP. You do not understand this case, the OP barely does and needs an attorney. Period.
It's not all about a waiver, the matter is far too complex to sort through to even establish the eligibility for a waiver.
We get it yes, some people can file successful waivers without an attorney and that is irrelevant here. In THIS CASE an attorney is needed.

We don't know that. That's a guess.

With all due respect, cases of misrepresentation of material fact require at least a consult and will have a much better success rate with guidance from an attorney.
I would rather pay for expert advice than wing it and have a lifelong ban, what a gamble.
I don't think you understand the severity of misrepresentation and it's consequences.
OP can not interpret the consulate findings and does not know how to sort through and apply the research he has already done.
One can research until the cows come home, there comes a time when a lawyer is needed.

Thank you.

I'm just going to chime in here on something not related at all to the OP so please forgive me. I just want to say how thrilled I am to be reading about the progress of same sex couples. Two and a half years ago when i started coming here to prepare for my visa journey this type of thread wasn't even happening as far as I know.
So I just want to say how happy I am for all those same sex couples out there who are able to start this journey. I hope a lot of couples on the board happen to see this though I doubt they will as it is a bit of a random post in a random place.
For those of us who think WE waited a long time to be with our loved ones (I'm not one... I got lucky and was fast) there are so many other couples who have been together for years and simply had no option just because they were of the same sex. So congrats to all of you who are finally able to be together!!!!

Actually, my attorney drafted the cover letter and sent the package to the lockbox facility. I don't know why. I could speculate, but it would be just that.
I never did get confirmation that the document arrived or was matched up with our file, but I did get the I-129F approval with no RFE.
Come to think of it. I tracked the package, and it was accepted at the lockbox. So I know that it arrived. I never got confirmation by USCIS though, other than the approval.

My experience contradicts the other responses to this question.
I mistakenly sent a document with a copy of the original signature. When I discovered this, I waited until I had my NOA-1 receipt number, then sent in the document with the original signature. In the cover letter, I referenced the Date of the NOA-1 and the receipt number, provided a brief explanation of what the document was, asked the officer to interfile the document with the previous petition, and overnighted the package to the Dallas Lockbox facility.
You might direct your attorney to do this for you at no charge since it was their error. After they do that, then have a discussion with them about their future employment with you.

Italy is a member nation of the visa waiver program. No special visa is required for tourism.

Italy is a member nation of the visa waiver program. No special visa is required for tourism.