bashar26

Just wanted to give everyone hope inshallah: my husband's visa was issued! Syrian, banned, he was given a waiver after 4 months in administrative processing. He will come to the US inshallah next week. Keep pushing anyone around you that you can for support. This is the only way. Be respectful to embassy staff but follow up over email at least once a month. Talk to your senators and representatives. Get anyone who can to make an inquiry on your case! I have a feeling we were only successful because of sustained pressure over time, from media as well if you can! I wrote a personal essay and last week when things were being spoken about in the news again, I posted it on FB and I believe this had some part in it.

Just wanted to give everyone hope inshallah: my husband's visa was issued! After 4 months in administrative processing. He will come to the US inshallah next week. Keep pushing anyone around you that you can for support. This is the only way. Be respectful to embassy staff but follow up over email at least once a month. Talk to your senators and representatives. Get anyone who can to make an inquiry on your case! I have a feeling we were only successful because of sustained pressure over time, from media as well if you can! I wrote a personal essay and last week when things were being spoken about in the news again, I posted it on FB and I believe this had some part in it.

Just wanted to give everyone hope inshallah: my husband's visa was issued! After 4 months in administrative processing. He will come to the US inshallah next week. Keep pushing anyone around you that you can for support. This is the only way. Be respectful to embassy staff but follow up over email at least once a month. Talk to your senators and representatives. Get anyone who can to make an inquiry on your case! I have a feeling we were only successful because of sustained pressure over time, from media as well if you can! I wrote a personal essay and last week when things were being spoken about in the news again, I posted it on FB and I believe this had some part in it.

Hello everyone, This is Kat speaking (Bashar's wife). As I have been involved in this community over the last 2 years and especially over the last 4 months with my husband over AP, I've been thinking of ways we can bring our voices and experiences together in a strong and impactful way. I currently work for a company for NaTakallam, which hires refugees and displaced people for language sessions and translation services. I work in their marketing department, and I've realized the power that making videos can provide in this media age for people who are not usually featured speaking for themselves. Was thinking I could spearhead the creation of a short video that shares all of our stories. Would you be interested in participating? I would ask you all for selfie-style videos explaining your love story and visa story and I would edit them all together and pitch it to news outlets for publication. I have a master's degree in Journalism and Middle Eastern Studies from New York University and experience in making videos for news media (you can see a previous project of mine that was nominated for a large festival SXSW in the US here: http://whatishome.nyc/#cuba) Let me know if you all think this would be a good project to start... Wishing you all strength and good news soon, Kat

No updates here. My case is updated often though at least once a week, sometimes many days in a row. But this has been happening since I was put on AP 4 months ago...

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-richardson-travel-ban-20190122-story.html Recent Op-Ed on travel ban by former consular officer

Hey Salhasl! Would you mind sharing some more information about the people from Syria who have gotten waivers in 2018? I love all this statistical work you're doing. thank you so much.

Just wanted to check in. Anyone have any luck getting a waiver, or heard of someone who has? I've been in AP for 3.5 months - Syrian - Ankara embassy. Have contacted 2 senators (both got generic replies back). Have asked Columbia University to reach out on my behalf (I will be attending once I get this visa inshallah). Don't know what else I or my wife can do...

I apoligize if this has already been discussed but this thread is quite long. Is anyone in this group from a country affected by the travel ban? I am from Syria and had to complete the DS-5535 form at my interview 3.5 months ago. I have been in AP since. My wife is American and now living in New York while we wait for AP to finish (she moved ahead of me to establish domicile) Any help or links to resources appreciated! I have only heard of one person from a travel ban country (yemen) getting his visa so far...

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html monthly visa issuance statistics by country available at this link

thank you for sharing your good news, it means so much to us! Besides your husband's clean travel record, did you make any extra efforts on his behalf? like contacting congresspeople, submitting additional documents for waiver consideration.... any details can help us. were you in contact with the embassy frequently? thank you!

This group is sometimes useful https://www.facebook.com/groups/580057072441088/ someone today said they called the Norway embassy and they said average AP time is 6 months.

Thank you for reading it makes me so happy when someone can relate to this experience. together we can be strong. Here's a list of the immigration FB groups I am a part of: US EMBASSY ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS & Form DS-5535 Visa Filers from Turkey to the U.S. Visa Journey I-130 filers Immigration Visa Group. That's it I think. Visa Filer from Turkey might be of interest to you, even though you are not applying from Turkey, because the administrators there are very intelligent and they keep up to date with immigration news. Hope this can help, and I'm wishing all the best for you and your husband to be living together as soon as possible.

Hello, In the spirit of sharing the experience, I wanted to share with you a personal essay I wrote about my experience in AP. Feel free to share it if it resonates with you. https://ne-ma.net/2018/12/05/maybe-tomorrow-maybe-next-year/

What is the name of this lawyer? Can we find him on facebook?