PetraPerson101

Oh, just someone deciding to use me to get in the country. That's all ; same old immigration horror story - though she thought that the restrictions were 5 years, not 2 ... why, I don't know. My fault for not noticing the signs, though (I, and anyone else, should always keep eyes peeled for signs of any type.) I should have tossed my rose-colored-glasses in the trash 15 years ago. Trust me, though - I've ripped them off & stomped on them.

( On a side note, I've become a far more cynical, distant, and un-trusting person - assuming the worst of every person I run into. : ( The experience hasn't done any good to my having any type of meaningful relationships. It really stinks.

Literally 5 years to the day - she did a 180 in attitude, took my son, ran off + made horrible accusations against me. I'm not looking back ; not doting ; and hanging on to every tidbit of information for the eventual day when my son asks "What happened?"

I'm glad I have proof ready for that day. : )

Removing conditions was the start of my nightmare. Hope nobody goes through what I went through.

You'd be shocked at what stereotypes about Arabs can do to a guy here in the USA. : \

I think you apply for a learner's permit at DMV or AAA (depending).

I got no clue - other than my sister has one. :\

This whole "learner's permit" thing - is new to me, at least. We didn't have paranoid old geezers on the road back when I was a kid... or they didn't complain as much as the "baby boomers" do.

Tragic...

Consider making donations in her name, or a fund even, particularly for - things that keep on giving. Like educational materials to a local Islamic center, school, needy kids or such.

A good deed in her name that keeps on giving - is a very good thing.

I want to point something out for a second here.

2.72 million dollars.

We have Palestinians and Iraqis suffering - and 2.72 million dollars on a camel?

Then when these same "Arab Leaders" are questioned on the situation in the Middle East - they point the finger at Israel.

The ARAB LEADERS are the problem in the region - that - in my opinion, is sorry leadership and corruption at its finest.

It's a disgrace.

That guy should be overthrown. That guy and every so-called monarch throughout the region. They're all dirt.

[ EDIT : This post here, is one of the reasons I love America. Why? Well, I don't have the guts to say the same things to any of the people I know in Jordan. :\ After all, I'm a citizen there - and - I sort of value my freedom. ]

I applaud you for practicing your amendment rights,

And that is why things wont change over there, what do you think would happen if a news reporter in uae said what you said??????????

I know what would happen. It's the same reason why I don't speak my mind to my fellow Jordanians when I'm in Jordan.

That reporter would be shut up real quick.

Maybe share a nice concrete "coffin" with some rats and roaches for a while, and - some occasional free-time for a good flogging, until said reporter rethinks their views.

When you're over there in one of those monarchies - you just toss a portrait of the current tyrant up on the wall, and be happy you eat daily.

Welcome to the United States of America.

Read the Bill of Rights, you'll know more about our great country than many people who were born here.

People are so clueless when it comes to the workings of the machine.

Bush, is nothing.

Proof:

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization...inst_Terrorists

House : On September 14, 2001 bill House Joint Resolution 64 passed in the House. The totals in the House of Representatives were: 420 Ayes, 1 Nay and 10 Not Voting (the Nay was Barbara Lee - D-CA).

Senate: On September 14, 2001 Senate Joint Resolution 23 passed in the Senate by roll call vote. The totals in the Senate were: 98 Ayes, 0 Nays, 2 Present/Not Voting (Senators Larry Craig - R and Jesse Helms - R).

2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act

# Passed the House on October 24, 2001 (Yeas: 357; Nays: 66)

# Passed the Senate on October 25, 2001 (Yeas: 98; Nays: 1)

Your precious Democrats are 50% responsible for all of the problems "Bush started", all of the money "Bush wasted", and all of the economic problems "Bush caused".

If they really wanted to, they could have stood up and done something ... but look at that - did they? Nope. Nothing.

3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization...olution_of_2002

Now they woke up, a little. We've still got 1/3 of them sleeping at the switch - or should I say - with their heads up their a**es.

If you want to point a finger at someone who authorized Operation World Police & blew our taxes on pork & cronies - *cough* congress. They write the laws. The legislative = lawmakers. Bush just signs - really - he's not all that important. Remember, the United States has 3 EQUAL POWERED BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT: The Judicial, The Legislative, and The Executive.

Two branches failed miserably. One was just hopeless. You, as a citizen, have a good deal of control over WHO represents you in the Legislative branch. You vote for your representative. Here in New Britain, we had a Bush cronie as a rep - guess what happened to her? We tossed her out. We knew she was a good-for-nothing pile of trash - and she got put in her place, out on the curb. Too often - people are looking the wrong way when they point the blame. Bush is a screw-up, given - but Congress was twice as bad - they empowered him.

Know how your country works. This is why things are going to hell here. Too many people are sleeping ... wake them all up. Vote. Seriously ... vote in EVERY election - we all saw what happens when people don't vote. It'll keep on happening if you stay home.

On voting day - staying home is your personal approval of the problems we face.

I want to point something out for a second here.

2.72 million dollars.

We have Palestinians and Iraqis suffering - and 2.72 million dollars on a camel?

Then when these same "Arab Leaders" are questioned on the situation in the Middle East - they point the finger at Israel.

The ARAB LEADERS are the problem in the region - that - in my opinion, is sorry leadership and corruption at its finest.

It's a disgrace.

That guy should be overthrown. That guy and every so-called monarch throughout the region. They're all dirt.

[ EDIT : This post here, is one of the reasons I love America. Why? Well, I don't have the guts to say the same things to any of the people I know in Jordan. :\ After all, I'm a citizen there - and - I sort of value my freedom. ]

My fiance had his interview on May 7th and the interviewer told him that they'd call in 1-2 weeks. I know they say this a lot, but she assured him of this. I decided to call the DOS this morning to check the status of his visa. She told me that our case is at the Embassy and I can call them. Has anyone else had this experience or know what this means? I'm thinking that he is done with AP and we're just waiting on Casa, but I'm not sure. Thanks for your help and suggestions.

Means exactly what they said. The Embassy has your file and you need to e-mail or call them. DOS can't do anything stateside at this point with your case - as they no longer have it in their hands.

halal chinese food (made by pakistanis/indians usually) oh man it's delicious

Or just plain Pakistani food. They fry the rice and stuff, it's surprisingly similar to Chinese if you inspect it & consider the cooking style.

Better love hot if you try it. ( I do )

Then she went on and said okay (again she did not keep this either). Then the last question she asked him was what was the last movie I saw and he said he was confused and said Transformers.

Oh man ... the last movie you saw.

If I were asked that, I'd say what I think about movies today - and it isn't good.

( last movie I watched part of: Apocalypse Now: Redux. Yeah, it's like, as old as I am - but it's pretty good. There's barely anything that's worth watching. I don't know what the Hollywood piracy problem is all about - most of these movies are so bad lately, they're not even worth watching if they were free [or stolen] )

---

But - from the sounds of what happened (and the situation), there's no questions that can really be asked. They've got no excuse to drag their heels - except for caseload - and no excuse to deny.

I've accosted family for eating American food while in Jordan.

See, a long time ago, in 1988 - I had this Hamburger in Amman. Erm ... "hamburger" I mean. I can remember it.

It was ... uh ... um ... memorable.

So, these days my position on food is - we live in the USA. We eat American food 365 days a year. You're in Jordan. Enjoy Jordanian food. Leave the American food to the Jordanians. If you've got a screaming kid who demands the McD's - grab a happy meal - then go get some real food.

When my friend in Amman asked if I wanted to go to McD's - I said - "No way! I can eat that stuff any day in the USA - I don't want it here."

We went to a kebab place instead.

Heck - the meat's so fresh the lamb's still hanging over the grill.

And man, it was good. So good - that I demand that we find out where that place was ... ( QAIA <-> AMMAN Desert Highway. It's on the southbound side, maybe midway between Amman & QAIA. Damned if I could remember the name or anything - it was like 11:00pm, and we were on the way back from AQABA & PETRA [Wife and I *walked* to the monastery & 3/4 the way back. ... we gave out in the Siq - literally, I didn't think my legs would make it out - and got a cart the rest of the way. ]- needless to say, I was completely out of it. )

Well the lawyer said the acco fastners worked wonders and I really think they do. My case with all its ups and downs boogied compared to some and I think it was the way he indexed in and the exhibits. I will definitely use acco fastners when I remove conditions. My time even with issues was shorter at USCIS than some and I credit the organization done by him. To this day , I think those acco fastners really helped

I tell you - when you've got a mess of papers documenting will *ALWAYS* help. You can't go wrong with that - at the least - even if you've got a lot of work, your reviewer will appreciate that you already took care of half of their work. (sorting, figuring out what the papers are, labeling)

( Heh, I'm more of a binder clip person btw - I've got hundreds around the office. I buy em in bulk. But, for the CIS/NVC packets - I used staples & paper clips ... only because I didn't want to use a UPS box when I sent my papers in - binder clips don't really like the UPS legal mailer. )

Back to the topic ... Hmm, if I were from a third world country huh.... let's see...

Well, I don't think I'd want to come to the US.

I'd have:

- Electrocuted myself

- Burned myself to death

- Blown myself up

- Or some other gruesome thing would have happened to me.

I do stupid stuff sometimes. ( Like the time I wanted to find out what Iron-Out smelled like. I think I was coughing up lung for 2 months straight. )

What the hell were you doing sniffing Iron out.. hahhahhhaha?

Cleaning some rust off a metal thing - I think it was some real old coin that I found in the cellar of my grandmother's built-in-1750 revolutionary war era house. I got some details showing on the thing, but lost it eventually. (doh?)

:\

I've got a bad habit of smelling things. Comes in real handy when you've got an allergy to mold - then take a good deep whiff of some moldy stuff. ( read: swollen eyes, sneezing, stuffed nose, closed throat ... ouch. ) And then the cleaning stuff -lmao- these days I read the label before opening stuff... and try to keep away from the chemicals.

Back to the topic ... Hmm, if I were from a third world country huh.... let's see...

Well, I don't think I'd want to come to the US.

I'd have:

- Electrocuted myself

- Burned myself to death

- Blown myself up

- Or some other gruesome thing would have happened to me.

I do stupid stuff sometimes. ( Like the time I wanted to find out what Iron-Out smelled like. I think I was coughing up lung for 2 months straight. )

A lot of interesting information.... am curious about more.

Also was interested in that if a Jordanian woman married a foreigner, Jordan citizenship can not be passed onto the children. And if Jordanian man married a foreign, must go through all kinds of procedures (with the husband's permission) to get Jordanian citizen for the wife and the children.

Interesting, to say at the least.

There is an absurd law - the Citizenship law - in Jordan that women who marry foreigners cannot pass the Jordanian citizenship on to their children. Most reside in Jordan, these are Jordanian women, with, for all intents and purposes, Jordanian kids who were born on this soil and have probably lived here their entire lives. Yet, just like a foreigner, they need to renew their residency permits every year.

( ???? )

Where does this information come from?

I was born in the US, my father's Jordanian, and I'm a citizen.

Unless this is new.

Imagine,,,being in a tent,,,cramping, no coffee or Midol,,,confined with other women that are sleeping with your husband. Chaos.

jackie

sounds like this place in west texas.

NOW THAT WAS FUNNY AS HELL CHARLES LOLOLOLOLOLOL

I LOL'd too. I'd post a LOLCAT & LOL'd Owl - but I don't have imagehosting at the moment.

On a k1 petition I think that would be sufficient. All I know is my cr1 petition was over 60 pages. The indexing and punch holes helped immensely

Aw man 60 pages ouch!

I'm sure the officer looked at that and thought "Holy ... it's a phone book... hey guys look at this!" ( Whole office laughs at their misery, donate advil & coffee. )

Yeah, definitely you want to note. It's an excellent idea. For anyone who hasn't seen my previous post of this sort - I mentioned a while back - about people who review papers. Auditors and such with the Gov't. They usually have a stack of papers that all look the same. They need to sit through each one, read, bore themselves to death, drink coffee, bore themselves to death, then read some more while the guy in the next cubicle has a mental meltdown.

Now, from my parent - who worked with the Gov't for 20 years - she had a comments about "perfect cases". More often than not, these were submitted by lawyers - but - she did say that everyone in her office always appreciated a well prepared document. It went so far they'd always get done first... because they were always the easiest ones to work on - and the worker's productivity would go up. It's a sort of "unwritten guideline" to get your forms on a fast track to getting done quick. The less work they need to do, the quicker they finish your forms. ( Really - even if it takes long to reach their desk. )

- Clean papers.. ( Yes, clean as in no coffee rings, food, dirt, or wrinkles. Make your work look, smell, and feel PROFESSIONAL. { Yep, I've heard stories ... } A paper with food/dirt on it will be greeted with a frown, then tossed off to the side somewhere while the person goes to wash their hands. )

- Legible writing. Type, or write VERY CLEAR. Don't use chicken-scratch or bubbly handwriting. Your writing should be sort of like the Arial or Tahoma font in windows - clean & easy to read. When typing documents use a Sans-Serif or Roman font (like Arial, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Garamond. Nice crisp fonts. )

- Stapled/bound pages. But, don't make the binding so complex where they can't take it apart to make copies. They've got a huge stack of papers there - don't let yours be the one that makes them swear.

- Noted exhibits. If you're presenting evidence, tell them what it is easily. Here's how you should note - use a square post-it note with a piece of removable tape to secure it. Why? Because if it helps your case, they'll staple it. If it doesn't help your case - they'll pull it off. Note here - that this is also a reason why you don't use complex binding - it will prevent stuff like this from happening. I don't think an index page is really necessary. And most important of all - DO NOT WRITE NOTES ON THE DOCUMENTS YOU SEND IN. Can't stress that enough. Attach your notes to the pages so they can be removed easily if they need to be. The only thing that should be written in pen on your documents is your case number. See the next note for more info as to why you might need notes taken off -

- Don't send more information than you need to. If they don't ask for it, don't send it. ( Hehe, 60 pages more than likely was too much. ) Sometimes too much info can cause you delays & harm. If you don't need to say it - then don't say it. If you did your case nice, and have it easy for the reviewer to follow, if they see a sticky note that might cause you problems, guess what? They'll take it off for you. They'll like the effort you put in to make their job easier.

- Send your papers in a big, sturdy express envelope. Like those FedEx or UPS Legal mailers. If you can, stick a piece of (clean) cardboard in there to keep your papers nice & crisp. (You can take a UPS or FedEx express box, and cut a piece of it to the shape of the express mailer. It's quick & free.) After all the preparation you did - you don't want your file looking bad.

I followed this TWICE - and the second time around, it got done even *faster* than the first. If it weren't for my bungling with NVC -(yeah, I caused delays. I followed the wrong instructions)- I'd have finished my case 2 months earlier. It took me maybe a total of 4 hours of work to prepare the CIS & NVC documents. Shouldn't be a big project - if you feel like it's taking you too long to do, then it probably is.

Awesome. Congrats to you - that's unbelievable.

Really - if you do the forms yourself, take some time on them, prepare your work carefully - there's absolutely NO reason why your forms should have any problems.

The CIS & NVC forms aren't all that hard to fill out. Very simple stuff.

Congrats!

Don't forget to pack some real food for the plane ride, and a nice pair of isolation headphones.

Ugh ... plane ride. I got one coming up on the ... 23rd. ( hehe, I'm happy too - over here ... that is. )

BTW , same reaction I had when I found out about our case finished- I couldn't believe it was true. I was out cold - my sister comes along - "Hey, she got her visa!"

I replied: "Yeah, sure ... I'll tell you all about it when I wake up. zzzzz....."

The more people there are though, the less appetizing it becomes.

We'll be taking my family to visit his family in Morocco and I don't think my family is going to be amenable to the communal plate.

I wonder if people get sick more often in Morocco than they do here because of all the sharing. Or if they're more resistant because of it.

Who knows. But don't look at me on food sharing.

I'm the kind of person who drops something on the floor in the house "Aww man ... but it's so good ... "

*looks one way*

*looks the other*

*shrug*

*gulp*

[ edit : we don't wear shoes in the house, so it's 50% less gross. ]

Here's how our family does it - everyone who's here in the US - ( uncles, aunts, cousins, etc )

Prep the big meal - get the sedr (36-40" platter) out - set it up. Plop it down in the middle of the table.

Everyone gets their own plate, fork, spoon, and bread. Toss a serving spoon on the plate - and grab your food. Use your own plate - and eat with your bare hands if you want to.

Seems like the same thing they do in Amman and stuff - so - it's carried.

---

People there don't backwash into the cup- it's like spitting in food.

I think the water cup sharing is from tradition - old custom. It's desert there in ME - so - there's like ... no water.

Bedouins would carry around a water-hide - and a cup or two - and share sparingly. ( Why drag around a dozen cups and a huge water thing, when you got no water? )

Notice how when we serve tea- everyone gets their own cup.

Congrats. If you could make it over to my place I'd fire up the espresso machine & grill - whip up a double shot cappuccino that can't be matched - with a nice cut-a-beef that couldn't be matched by anyplace round these parts.

With a grilled potato.

Just need to watch out for the bugs ... and ticks ... and wild animals out in the woods (snakes, coyotes, bears, huge birds that look like they could carry off a kid ) ... :|

When I had a problem - I spoke to an attorney here in the US.

The legal system here - would have worked to divorce like you have done in your case. I could have had a full divorce, or an annulment, my choice.

I, actually, chose to sign a POA form & have the divorce handled by a relative in Jordan. Worked out fine.

But, you should be able to do that in a different country - the legality of a marriage carries across national boundaries. Like someone said in another post - you don't get magically unmarried when you go on vacation abroad.

Once you sign the marriage contract - you're (technically) married.

Though you don't ... uh ... um ... do much until it's finalized. It's basically "Hey, now you're married & you can go running around with your girl now.* Go have fun." (*and her brothers, fathers, & uncles won't kill you. ) It's usually a short trial period depending on how the local culture or situation is - then it's done with.

There's usually a separation clause in there if it's broken apart BEFORE consummation. (Usually a percentage of the divorce or whatever. It depends on what's written.)

Last off, we've got our chopped salad thing. I got no clue what it's called.

Couple cucumbers (2-3)

Couple tomatoes (2-3 nice big ones)

- Fresh FLAT parsley ( maybe a quarter cup? The more the better - this is the main flavor. Mince it. It's got to be FRESH - if it's not fresh, it won't taste good. )

- Lemon juice ( - preferably squeezed, season to taste )

- Salt , to taste

- Pepper , to taste

- Olive oil, to taste

It's dirt easy & tastes great. The cucumbers should be minced up to about 1/4" size, Tomatoes about the same (a bit bigger, or they won't be tomatoes anymore) Extremely quick and simple - toss everything into a bowl and stir it up.

You can toss some lettuce (shredded) in there too, if you like.

We do it all the time here - and it never lasts. Almost like pico-de-gallo - but without the jalepenos & cilantro.