Pat&Ana
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Posts posted by Pat&Ana
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I went in with Adobe Pro and made every field modifiable and then went back and reviewed the document. There are simply too many fields to fill in with N/A such as "Apartment" or for persons who may be filling out the form on your behalf - when you're self filing.
The ability to fill in a field shouldn't have anything to do with whether to fill in a field. You're going to have to read the form and for some areas which there may be more confusion if you leave it blank - put in an N/A
But by no means would each and every blank field need an N/A or None
-- P
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On 11/29/2017 at 9:32 PM, Tasha Smith said:
Thank you very much. You have explained more detail then the reps at the USCIS who seem absolutely clueless and more info than the lawyer that I haven’t heard from in over 3 months. Thank you so much
Welcome to the US system of Government. The folks who administer the laws and regulations are not expected to understand them. This is why we have a large class of lawyers to help interpret and fight for what we want at times as well.
When in doubt, after trying to figure it out yourself, consult a 3rd party instead of relying upon the interpretation of the Government.
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9 hours ago, Cristina24 said:
I have a question if anyone knows. My fiance (in the US) wants to quit his job because it is very stressful and effecting his life negatively. He wants to keep pushing through until i get my visa but that could be 2-3 months away, who knows. Ive past the 6 week stage of waiting for NVC for some news. Does he NEED to be currently working for me to be accepted and live with him?
If the job sucks, the job sucks and that stuff kills people.
In order to prove income, you can have an employment letter printed out - or you can just submit the last couple of years tax returns. I don't think that the USCIS is going to require that you have a job "right this second" if you have a track record of being able to earn a good living.
But if quitting the job at this time would put the income qualifications at risk (and we're talking about 2 more weeks until the end of the year), don't do it. If he has a dubious track record of income (close to the poverty level, or has fallen below it previously) then don't do it.
If he's a consultant, and pulls a six-figure income, working 3-6 months a year when it's good weather, and takes winters off - that would be very easy to explain during the interview process!
-- P
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Anyone have a scan or know what to look for via the USPS digest of delivered mail? Are we stuck waiting on a paper document (discounting our ability to pick up a phone)?
-- P
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Check the timing of the B2 visa as well. If that thing is about to expire, I'd renew that so you can continue to have her visit. There's a chance that if you apply for the K1, and she tries for the B1/B2, she may be denied and it may reflect poorly. Someone may think that she, once the K1 is underway, try to come to the US and overstay that visa!
Count yourself lucky though, with the price of airfare to mainland China, and direct flights out of LAX, you're in a much better position than many that you can visit and spend time with your SO.
One visit is enough to start the K1 paperwork, you have more than that!
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The app (or more specifically, the web site) was fairly up to date. Our NOA2 was dated on Dec 5th, while the I saw the app update on Dec 6th. The USPS digital delivery / alert came in on roughly Dec 7th with the physical letter coming in on December 9th.
-- P
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21 hours ago, DA91450 said:
Hi Everyone! THey cashed the check today!! Still waiting for a text/emaiil with a case number!! any estimations on this?
From what I've read, that information can also be had on the back of the check.
Yeah, we know the angst of "where do we stand" but the time from NOA1 to NOA2 is literally months. And you may not get a text / email when you hit NOA2. Ours was in the 190+ day (without any RFEs either!) range.
You did sign up for the email / text alerts, right? We got those before being able to see the check clear, and that did contain the WAC.
-- P
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7 minutes ago, Marion said:
BTW, a friend of mine who is in California said he’s working on Monday and that California doesn’t celebrate this holiday. Maybe Cali Center people will work after all? (I could be wrong)
Many in California (and in the US) don't celebrate this day. It's a Federal Holiday though, so you may see things like the Federal Reserve Bank and US bond markets closed as well (though the stock market will be open).
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Just now, Shoegum said:
I sent the procedure to someone who wanted to do this for July. Hopefully you'll see them run it soon.
Could you throw the script up on GitHub? The problem I see (basically with the IP lockout problem) is having to scrape all of the data to identify the I-129 portions. The regular expression to grep the specific case status (and then further down for the date) should be trivial. If you do place it into a git repository, you can use the built in versioning to identify the case status changes as well.
Benefits: You get open source credit, you can cross collaborate on the I-129 records (eliminating all the rest), the built-in diffs, and can really open up what you've done.
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1 hour ago, LabOz said:
You have put a lot of thought into this
I used to work for the Gov't ...
-- P
- JayMar2019 and LabOz
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Not to be cynical about the process, but if I were trying to game the system as a Gov't employee...
I'd go through my "box" of cases and organize them by ease/difficulty. On good days, I'd tackle all of the ones that would take more than an hour to go through. This would be the immigration and employment applications, in addition to the expedited ones.
For the ones that are easier (e.g. K1's that supposedly take <15 min to process, including the RFE's) I'd place them onto a pile on the side.
By doing so, I could manage 8-12 a day. If I wanted to skip out early on a Friday (or right before a long weekend) I'd process my "quick" pile and keep the same number of cases that I was averaging before.
As a supervisor, how would I catch this? I'd have to look at the percentages of K1's (easy / quick) versus harder ones (DACA, H1B, etc.) and see if there is a trend that falls outside of the normal distribution. E.g. Bob does more H1B's on Mon-Wed, and most of his K1's processed fall on a Friday.
Why would this matter? It would mean that all of the easy cases would be backlogged until right before a 150 day (or whatever) limit. And that my employees would be able to handle more work, but were simply sand bagging.
One day, code up a script to see if the distribution of cases (and approvals) rise or falls during different times of the week, and if somehow "productivity" increases right before the weekend.
Sigh. I just back from a 5 day vacay with my SO and I'm already missing spending time together
-- P
/gripe off
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1 minute ago, bcoakley06 said:
No one know true reasin for uscis back log. We all can assume but the none know. If you look back the wait times have been loke this before. I know people last year that waited 6 months with no RFEs and some 2 months. Both females where sisters and took one 4 months to come to the us and the other 10 months. Still dont know why it worked that way but my uncle and his friend both filled same time and both been married and kids. Just depends on how fast they push one through.
In the US, there was a shooting in San Bernadino which included the spouse and wife who came to the US under a K1 Visa.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-k1-visas-20151208-story.html
The CSC that many wonder about is located in Laguna Niguel which is 60mi / 100km from San Bernardino. A very close distance! As such, there have been many calls since then to increase the scrutiny of those applying (petitioner and beneficiary) to bring people from certain countries / backgrounds under those types of Visas.
In addition, imagine being the employee who approved that Visa. No doubt that individual would be double checking whatever they legally could, and as would their nearby co-workers. The supervisor would be under additional pressures and there would be a shift of resources to further "check" the work being done.
This means more work, more processing and longer times for Visas such as this. This doesn't even begin to talk about the increased scrutiny going into the H1B (and associated Visas) process!
The US Government may not work quickly, but they do ultimately respond to situations such as this.
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21 minutes ago, Murph4865 said:
Sure leave politics out of it how do you do that when the previous @potus created this mess cause he did it illegally and the current one is creating more enforcement which is not cleaning it up but adding to the problem, cause uscis are confused on which way to go and then the freeze on federal hiring caused a major backlog not enough people to process apps.
Leaving the politics aside... Let's start
Pt 1. Basic Civics
The US Government is formed of three co-equal branches of Government, with the foundation being a Constitution. Many think that the US is a Democracy, but at the Federal level that is very far from the truth. The people of the US get the ability to cast a vote for a representative and as such, we can call the US a "Constitutional Republic" which means the Constitution serves as the foundation, and the Representation of the people creates the Republic.
The third branch of Government is the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States). This branch of Government, along with lesser courts (Federal appeals courts) rule in the matters of law pertaining to Federal laws, and the Constitution. If a law is passed by, it can be challenged because it directly contradicts that which is in the Constitution. The same can be said of Executive actions by the first branch.
The second branch of the Government is the COTUS (Congress of the United States). This branch has two bodies, the Senate and the House. Both need to agree in order to create legislation, and both are drawn from representatives sent to Washington DC (the US seat of power). When both bodies agree to create a law, that law is sent to the President for ratification, and that ratification can be challenged (veto by the President) and subsequently over ruled by the COTUS. In the case of Immigration, laws were passed in the 1950's called the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) which limits immigration and grants the President powers to further restrict immigration as well.
The first branch of Government, the POTUS (President of the United States) is changed every 4 years, but a President can serve two terms. The election of the President isn't by the people (hence the failure to understand the US isn't a Democracy) but by the Electoral College. One of the responsibilities of the President is the "dutifully and faithfully execute the laws of the land"
Knowing that, the INA was passed by the COTUS and affirmed by the POTUS. The POTUS has a constitutional duty to enforce the law, and deferment of the enforcement of the law is a violation of the duties and responsibilities of the POTUS. The SCOTUS could have as easily been asked to challenged DACA, or the actions of the POTUS, but they haven't - meaning that the actions by the POTUS are still legal.
Pt 2. Contributory Belief in why the President was Elected
Many in the US believe that the Federal Government is far too large, and the current administration froze hiring at the beginning of the year across the board. This was changed in April. This included areas such as DHS which includes USCIS as well. This would cause a problem with applications, time off, and back filling individuals - for if you don't have enough personnel coming in to replace people, or to deal with the ever increasing demand to immigrate to the US, then the backlog will continue to increase.
Pt 3. Funding Sources
Funding for the USCIS comes from application fees (e.g. K1) and from the Federal Government itself (to pay for the DHS employees, background checks, computer systems, and coffee). The US has increased it's national debt to $20T which causes many concern, as a larger percentage of what the Federal Government pays for isn't operational cost of the Government, but interest on the debt and social service programs.
Pt 4. Additional demands for resources
In addition, there is more demand for the US to take immigrants. These can be refugees from Haiti, Australia, or even Syria. These are life changing and potentially time-based changes that need to be looked at ... quickly. Someone of a certain religious group in Syria can be at risk, as can someone in Iraq who helped US troops. If they don't get their application looked at quickly - there may not be someone there to come to the US.
More and more people want to the come the US. In the past, it was much easier to overstay a Visa, reducing pressures, but by some accounts there are now over 20M illegal immigrants to the US. This increases demand on enforcement (DHS) to identify and apprehend those who are here, but also to prioritize deportation procedures against those who commit felonious crimes with victims (e.g. Kate Steinle).
Summary
After all is said and done, it's not the diktat of one man, but the problems of past which have compounded into the current situation.
-- P
PS. Of course this may be off base, I only took like 10 min to write it
PPS. And unless people want to see a lot more of my writing ... can we leave politics aside?
Let's focus on status, updates, prayers, drinking and plans for what we will do when they get here!!!!
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2 minutes ago, Murph4865 said:
It is the United States government never expect anything fast with immigration now since trump is president.
Maybe we could leave politics out of the discussion?
One could argue that DACA was not only wrong, but a usurpation of the powers (legislative) of the US Congress. The prior administration admitted that it was wrong (and they didn't have the power), but decided to defer enforcement of a legally and constitutionally passed law.
This has created a problem for the past and current administration - and increased the work load on USCIS and DHS as they need to vet the additional 800,000 applications, every few years.
Cleaning up a mess is never easy, and we have millions, including several on this thread, that want to come to the US. Allowing them to formulate their own opinions, views and beliefs would be best. Of course in my own opinion.
-- P
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4 hours ago, pmeyer1229 said:
Oh shoot, I just looked at the calendar for October and see there is a federal holiday on the 9th. Most government offices close for this holiday (Columbus Day). Is it my imagination or has there been fewer approvals in general this week?...AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Sorry, just had to yell a bit, I feel better now
Need to do Yoga tonight...
Wouldn't worry too much about Federal Holidays. There's a huge backlog of USCIS applications and I'm sure that OT is an option for many. Showing up on a holiday may not just get the DHS employee OT, but potentially comp-time as well!
When we submitted our K-1 application, it was over a three day weekend and we received notice over that same weekend... Submitted by the weekend, and logged that weekend!
-- P
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6 minutes ago, bcoakley06 said:
So a tier 2 officer told me if i wanted better info then i should go to a uscis office for my state and they can tell me what is going on. Has anyone tried to do that yet? I am 15 mins from the office and did not know if it do any good.
I wonder if I made the trip to CSC, bought lunch for the office if that would help speed things along... still makes me ponder about a quick flight down there (need more hours) to see if I could shake things up...
-- P
- bcoakley06 and Hey Jude
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4 hours ago, K&N2609 said:
Hey everyone, i know this question has been asked many times but I was wondering if anyone one knew off the top of their heads on whats the best way to get in contact with tier 2? Phone mumber and numbers to press to get to a person quickly. Thank you very much and it looks like we they should be getting into may files soon! 😏
Call the regular USCIS number and ask?
IIRC (from reading other threads including some from the USCIS folks) the regular folks you (and everyone else) calls into are your typical outsourced help desk personnel. There are a series of default answers that they will work with and it's going to basically be the same thing unless you're over the 150 day limit or have some other extenuating circumstances.
The Tier 2 person is an actual DHS employee who can gather more information about your case.
When people say "they are looking at the same screens you are" it's not that far from the truth, they just know how to give better answers IMO because they've given the same answers several times already that week and have a feeling for what works.
Lawyers wouldn't have an inside track either as they'd probably have LESS than a vested interest than you do in figuring out what the current status is (e.g. They're not going to check the current thread count on VJ, look up case scans or monitor the change in timelines out of USCIS or the embassies)... unless they're billing you by the hour.
So what I'm doing (it works for me and YMMV) is just counting down the days from 150, and being distracted with side trips. When (not IF, staying positive), we get approved before 150, that will be great! In the mean time, just keep working the "bonafide relationship" angle with communication, documentation and support for one another.
Stay positive! You'll have plenty of time left in your lives to aggravate each other
-- P
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Stay positive!
Most service centers can require their employees to work up to 35 hours of overtime, which can be why we do often see notices and updates coming in over the weekend and over holidays!
The CSC isn't in the path of the hurricane bearing down on the United States, it's obviously in CA and the biggest event of the past few weeks has been a rather large fire.
This means that if your adjudicator wanted to pick up a few hours by coming in over the weekend, it's entirely possible for them to knock out a box or two of cases!
California does have a very high number of illegal aliens (exceeding 1M) and IIRC, 200,000 of those were DACA filers. The current administration is stating that DACA is on the way out with only a 6 month reprieve. If those folks who are benefiting from DACA have an option, it would behoove them to apply for some sort of Visa - which would increase the work load of the adjudicators in the future.
But for May filers, I would anticipate no impact.
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Prior planning?
Usually planning ahead by 2+ weeks helps, and if you're buying a ticket with <2 weeks of notice, you're going to start to pay through the nose - be sure to use sites like Kayak. The next big cost for many is the rental car - avoid. Next then would be the hotel (use Trivago for the cheapest rates), I usually try to aim for something with free breakfast as that helps shave off a few bucks, plus it's motivation to actually get up and out of the room by 10AM even if you'd rather stay in and ... snuggle.
There are several "hubs" that can offer good choices in terms of destinations. For example, my fiancee is based off of GOJ and flying into MOW can leave me options for DME or SVO airports. Coming from the west coast, I can fly out of SJC, OAK or SFO (usually prefer SJC because of the shorter customs lines).
That said, a big hurdle is the time it takes to fly literally around the world! You're trading $$$ for time and nothing in aviation is cheap!
- SJC -> FRA -> MOW -> GOJ was about a 22 hour flight, running about $1300, with the hotel being $60/night. No car needed due to it being a home town. But cost more due to less than two weeks notice!
- SFO -> NRT -> SGN for a 14 hour flight cost $600, and the hotel room was $50/night! Her cost was about $600. No car needed and food is especially cheap so going out was great!
- SJC -> SJD runs me $455 but for her GOJ -> MOW -> HAV -> MEX -> SJD was $800+, and the room was $79/night. No car for the 1st weekend, but got one for the second which cost about $50/day. That's pricey just to make my flight ~2 hours. She wound up with a 36 hour flight and horrible travel experience. Not sure if I'd do this again!
- SJC -> PVG was a straight shot at 12 hours, and cost me $572. Hotel was $79/night but with her flight being GOJ -> MOW -> PVG was $800 and we both landed at the same time at our home airports. No car needed due to the metro.
- SFO -> HEL -> MOW is about $735 with a 16 hour flight, and $80/night for the hotel. The train cost is minor for her, but can be about $100 if she wants to fly.
So you have to play the options and remember that it may be easier to fly to an intermediate country, or an airport. If you value time, there are going to be trade-offs between fiance and fiancee.
Lessons learned:
- Meeting halfway can be a win if you're both able to travel to countries with easy entry requirements
- Visa requirements for US citizens can be easy in some locations (Mexico, Vietnam) and harder in others (Cuba, China) whereas the other person may have it easier
- Trading time for $$$ can be a factor, as can making one person travel longer to save the other time
- Hotels can vary, as can quality. Especially in touristy areas, expect to pay $$$. You can go somewhere away from the tourists and find even cheaper places!
- Exchange rates help, as can the price of your destination. USD to VN is $1 to 22,700. Some places take USD and you won't have to convert (e.g. SJD at 20 or 17 to 1)
- Food can reduce costs, as an example a bowl of Pho in Saigon costs 39,000 and dinner cost us 78,000 - very inexpensive!
- If you think you're going to a far away land that's exotic and going to "eat in", you won't. SJD simply offered too many good options.
- Cars ... you really don't need them. But Uber / Lyft isn't available everywhere!
- The longer the flight and more connections, the greater the chance for missing luggage (or items simply walking away!)
- Stringing together legs or multiple-one-way tickets used to work, but these days of "hacker fares" which do it for you make it easier to simply ignore this
- Flights to a smaller city (e.g. MOW to GOJ) can be ignored when searching because they do limit results and increase prices
- Don't forget trains! They can serve as great connectors for large metropolitan airports to smaller cities.
- A foreigner may not be able to transit through the US without a 'transit visa' so be very careful on this one!
- Flying out on a Thursday seems to offer the best rates, and coming back on a Tuesday. But check Wed to Mon as you can get some nice combinations.
Airports:
- SJC = San Jose (USA)
- SFO = San Francisco (USA)
- FRA = Frankfurt (Germany)
- MOW = Moscow (Russia)
- GOJ = Nizhny (Russia)
- NRT = Tokyo (Japan)
- SGN = Saigon (Vietnam)
- PVG = Shanghai (China)
- SJD = Cabo San Lucas (Mexico)
- HEL = Helsinki (Finland)
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When I got my Visa from SF, it was through ILS. It may take a longer to get it, but you should still be able to get Visa's to travel to Russia!
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Met about a month before I filed - I flew to Russia for a five day vacation.
Then we went to Vietnam. Then we went to Cabo (twice). We then have a trip scheduled for China next week.
The way I looked at it is that a US citizen is asking permission of his Government to allow a woman to apply for a Visa to come to the US.
Unless there is some ulterior motive, and when it comes time for her to apply for a Visa, we should be fine as proof if an ongoing relationship should be easy enough to prove
-- P
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At the beginning of the year, one of the first Executive Orders signed by the President was the freezing of the hiring of Federal Employees.
The USCIS falls under the DHS and unless they contract out looking at the confidential information of citizens, it'll be done by Federal employees (and they're hiring in the CA center for $60,000 a year...)
The hiring freeze was lifted for many agencies by April. But if there was attrition or retirement, it would mean several months of work piling up with limited staff.
-- P
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3 hours ago, Scandi said:
$265 for a K-1
$325 for an immigrant visahttps://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/fees/fees-visa-services.html
Would you know the options
- cash (USD or RUB)
- check (personal on a US bank like when submitting the initial I-129, or USPS money order)
- charge (AMEX or Visa / MC)
I get airline miles if it's AMEX ... and the total, including the medicall ($200 + $265 + $325) is a lot of walking-around-money if it's a cash-and-carry operation!
--P
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34 minutes ago, AnaMolina said:
Guys, I'm getting everything ready for the interview (i know it can take a few months lol), but I was reading online and I saw that they will need my fiancees divorce certificate cause he was married before, and thats ok cause we sent a copy to uscis, but... they say they need the original one??!
It's risky for my fiancee to mail the original certificate to me, isnt it? and then when I will have it back?! Cause they keep the docs we take to the interview, right?
I'm so confused, help :c
Usually legal paperwork is filed with a court or county clerk. You can obtain a copy with a proper signature and seal for a few dollars.
That way, you can keep a few copies around (or know that you can get another copy just in case)
-- P
Will self-employment deductions affect our decision??
in National Visa Center (Dept of State)
Posted · Edited by Pat&Ana
This sounds exactly correct - the USCIS wants to make sure the individual coming to the US will be sufficiently sponsored and not wind up a burden
This does NOT sound like it would it would qualify and someone coming into the US would be expected to "live" on that additional income ... or a few someone's?
The DHS employees are not tax employees. The best solution is to find a co-sponsor or demonstrate that the sponsor can actually afford to bring someone in from another country.
-- P