Vashezzo

12 hours ago, Ontarkie said:

~~One post removed for posting an outside link. Please do not post such links on the forums.~~

Is this a new policy? I don't see anything forbidding links in the website ToS. It even has multiple sections describing outside content. ("Third-party content may appear on VisaJourney Websites and Services or may be accessible via links from VisaJourney."; "The VisaJourney Websites and Services contain links to third party web sites that are maintained by others. ")

15 hours ago, carmel34 said:

Look into Utah marriage via Zoom and go with CR-1.  So many advantages vs. K-1.

Should ask what their priorities are before blanket recommending a Zoom marriage and CR-1 - there are tradeoffs.

Some people care more about time together than cost or time-to-greencard.

K-1 processing has improved immensely in recent months, it's probably down to ~12-15 months total for recent filers. CR-1 can have long delays for the NVC and embassy stages, especially for certain countries.

In terms of entry to the US, using VJ data:

I'd certainly want to know which group someone was in before pushing one visa over another on them.

I think a lot of couples have one visit the other and stay at their place - no hotel records at all. You should be fine with boarding passes and passport dates to show that they're in your city. If you want to be extra super safe take some pictures together holding something like a newspaper to show the current date.

2 minutes ago, Rocio0010 said:

Have you considered making your own forum with your own rules, and moderating it?

Saying "if you don't like it, leave" supports my argument - that's what many of us are doing.

Again, it's up to the site owner to decide if that's what he wants.

24 minutes ago, Rocio0010 said:

Again, context. This is a about a shooter that happened to be trans. In their comment, Dashinka says that "mentally unstable people tend to do bad things", to which TBone replies that "they" (referring to mentally unstable people) should be institutionalized, not trans people! Do we not agree that mentally unstable people can be a danger to themselves and others, and should be institutionalized, precisely for that reason?

And yeah, I am very active on the K1 forum. @Boiler and @Redro can attest to that.

Direct quotes from that thread, in order:

"Normal people -- an oppressed minority -- to whom we owe love and respect."

"Starting to see a pattern "
"Yes, mentally unstable people sometimes do bad things. "
"These people are insane and should be institutionalized. "

The word "people" here is referring explicitly to trans people, the "oppressed minority" from the original post. Trying to claim otherwise is tone-deaf at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst.

7 minutes ago, Redro said:

I really think you should make your own post about this. It is a totally separate topic to "respectful replies". 

Everyone (regardless of their political views) can go through the immigration process (if they have a basis for petition). 

Everyone (regardless of their political views) can apply for a student visa, j1 visa, tourist visa- they might not get it but they are allowed to apply. 

VisaJourney for whatever reason has kept CEHST up. If people don't report threads, how are mods supposed to know there is an issue? 

If people decide they don't want to engage but they'll keep to certain forums and avoid other forums and avoid certain topics and posts. That is a choice they've made. They can't then complain that certain posts are still up and "why haven't the mods done something?"

If you don't complain about what you don't like- mods will never know.  

 

I feel like I have replied as much as I can in the thread given the initial complaint. 

Good luck to everyone in their immigration journeys and see you in some other threads! 

You're asking us to report posts to the people posting them. The most likely outcome of that is the classic "we've investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing" meme. The whole argument that we should report behavior we find problematic to the mods breaks down when the mods themselves are the problematic users.

7 minutes ago, Rocio0010 said:

Yet VJ is a public forum.

 

Off- topic means "not immigration related". Therefore, politics is allowed in there. Please, don't take me wrong, sometimes the intent comes across as rude in written messages. But my question is, is someone forcing you to read the off- topic threads? Why is it so hard to just ignore the threads you don't like in VJ? Again, it is the off- topic thread, and people have the right to post whatever they want to in there. It's called freedom of speech, and it is one of the principles in the US Constitution.

 

How am I supposed to convey emphasis? You know, when people talk, they use tone and pitch to convey emphasis. I do it, you do it, your mom does it, the Presiden does, everyone does. I don't have that possibility when the message is written. How am I supposed to convey emphasis? Are we really getting upset and nitpicking on one word that is bolded for emphasis? Again, what happened to free speech?

 

Also, in the snapshot you share someone calls people that have different opinions "boomers". Free speech, fine. But is it not disrespectful to label people like that? Or is it only disrespectful when someone else does it to you? 

Unless VJ receives taxpayer dollars, it is privately owned and operated by private individuals who have the right to set their own policies.

I will probably never check the off-topic threads again, but they still make the forum less welcoming to me. Would you want to spend your time in a community where many of the most prolific members ardently disagree with your core values?

Respect is earned and mutual. I am comfortable disrespecting the views of people who disrespect mine. Is it particularly healthy? Of course not. But it's exactly why I think culture war topics don't belong here.

57 minutes ago, Rocio0010 said:

But we have to understand that people HAVE THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT to free thinking. Democracy at its core. Democracy, and respect towards people that have different opinions. I am a teacher too, and I am surprised that other teachers don't understand this.

People do have the right to freedom of thought and freedom of speech. But private forums also have the right to enforce content guidelines, and I want to make sure that @steve is aware of the effects his content policy has on the perception of his forum. If he would rather keep that content on the site and lose some users, that's totally within his rights.

56 minutes ago, Redro said:

 

 

 

While moderators cannot and do not read every post in this forum, we will action reports sent to us, and we will apply the TOS to posts the same as any other forum.

 

This does not address the portion of my post pointing out that TBoneTX is not applying the ToS, and is directly contradicting it in other places on this forum.

52 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

I think it is TOTALLY inappropriate to bring politics into this thread.    

I honestly think it's totally inappropriate to bring non-immigration politics into this site in general, which is my point. The way you feel when reading my post is the way many of us feel when we see the off-topic discussions on VJ.

To further my point - I will share a snippet from an immigration Slack I am in.

Again, it's not my place to tell @steve what he should or should not do, but it is a fact that VJ as it currently exists is alienating a non-negligible portion of the people who try to use it. This thread is a symptom of that, and funnily enough the reply to my post trying to language harpy me by focusing on the word "replies" in the title is just another example of the kind of behavior that makes this website unenjoyable to use.

6 hours ago, steve said:

 

@AndiB +1 on this.  This is a core principal.  Respect each other :)!  We all have our own perspectives, biases and good+bad days... however we have to try our best to respect and support each other.  It's what a community and family does -- and what VJ should be all about!

 

Thinking on the mod side.  If I go back to the early days of VJ, my moderation strategy was always to gently guide things back on course as a first reaction rather than heavy handed "rubber stamps".  I also tried to lead by example and set the 'right' tone.  I think it was helpful and wonder if this is an area we can work on collectively?

6 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Perhaps, but also perhaps not.  Context is important.

Again, the crucial step is to report anything that seems to violate the Terms of Service.

I originally wasn't going to post in this thread, but after seeing this post from TboneTX and clicking his profile I felt like I had to say something. The request is that users trust the mod team to handle issues with respect and to support each other, but what do I see when I click the name of the most active user I've noticed on this site?


I see a smorgasbord of very political, very polarizing topics. In a single screenshot I see satirical pro-gun content (which as a teacher really isn't funny to me). I see misogyny. I see a 13-page thread of far right links (many of which have questionable veracity) where the mod talks the president I voted for. I see anti-climate posting. I see anti-vax/anti-covid posting. In essence, half of the potential user base for this site would be immediately turned off.

From the Terms of Service for the site, users agree to not:

Publish, post, upload, distribute, disseminate or offer to disseminate any inappropriate, offensive, defamatory, infringing, obscene or unlawful/illegal material, information or content.   I speak for myself in saying that I find many of the posts I saw to be inappropriate, offensive, and defamatory. How can I trust the mod team to enforce a ToS if they won't follow it themselves?   I looked at the off-topic forum in general to see if there was any more balance to the discussion and saw this:     It's entirely right-wing, and some of the threads fit solidly into the far right. I live in a "blue city", my mother is immuno-compromised and has spent years worrying about catching covid from an anti-vaxxer. This is not a welcoming place for me. I know I'm not alone either - I've seen several people talk about the "politics" of VJ as being unwelcoming to them. (I'm thinking in particular about trans individuals who feel like the mods here quite literally would prefer that they did not exist.) But this is my first time checking it for myself, and it's way worse than I thought. I seriously wonder if the non-immigration-related forums are doing any good for this site.         Also, to move to a new topic, I'll give another example from yesterday - the ToS explicitly states: In the discussion forums you may discuss or recommend third-party Web sites, goods or services, so long as you have no financial interest in and receive no direct or indirect benefit from such Web sites, products or services, or the recommendation of such. The VisaJourney Websites and Services contain links to third party web sites that are maintained by others. These links are provided solely as a convenience to you and not as an endorsement by VisaJourney of the contents on such third-party Web sites. VisaJourney is not responsible for the content of linked third-party sites and does not make any representations regarding the content or accuracy of materials on such third-party Web sites. If you decide to access linked third-party Web sites, you do so at your own risk. Yet this mod claims that outside links are forbidden.   Why would I trust the mods to enforce the ToS if they directly contradict it in their posting? Anyway, this whole experience has disgusted me, and I certainly won't be recommending VJ the same way I used to.

7 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

 

Pretty easy for me to understand:

 

K-1 
  More expensive than CR-1
  Requires Adjustment of Status after marriage (expensive and requires a lot of paperwork)
  Spouse can not leave the US until she/he receives approved Advance Parole (approx 6-8 months) 
  Spouse can not work until she/he receives EAD (approx 6-8 months) 
  Some people have had problems with driver licenses, Social Security cards, leases, bank account during this period 
  Spouse will not receive Green Card for many months after Adjustment of Status is filed.
  A K-1 might be a better choice when 18-21 year old children are immigrating also
  In some situations, marriage can affect certain Home country benefits, making a K-1 a better choice 
  A denied K-1 is sent back to USCIS to expire
  K-1 entrant cannot file for citizenship until after having Green Card for 3 years.

CR-1
  Less expensive than K-1 
  No Adjustment of Status(I-485, I-131, I-765) required. 
  Spouse can immediately travel outside the US 
  Spouse is authorized to work immediately upon arrival. 
  Spouse receives Social Security Card and Green Card within 2 or 3 weeks after entering the US 
  Opening a bank account, getting a driver's license, etc. are very easily accomplished with GC, SS card, and passport.
  Spouse has legal permanent Resident status IMMEDIATELY upon entry to US.
  The clock for citizenship filing starts immediately upon entry to the US.
  

I think your numbers are out of date for AP and EAD.

Last column is most recent, both are below 6 months on average now. As I said in my post above (if you had read the entire thing), there are countries whose filers wait 6+ months longer to enter the US. These filers would be able to start working sooner off a K-1 entry than from a CR-1 entry.

1 minute ago, Mike E said:

K-1: https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/stats.php?history=90 

590 days to interview.

 

CR-1:

https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/irstats.php?history=90

537 days to interview.

 

CR-1 is faster.

 

Long gone are the days when K-1 was faster to get the beneficiary to the U.S. 

 

And I have never heard of a single K-1 become anything but depressed over the lengthy I-485, I-131, and I-765 process. Except for ones whose process took 90 days less. 

K-1:

IR-1/CR-1:

K-1 is faster.

K-1 is *much* faster (6 months+) for certain countries.

On 7/19/2023 at 4:49 PM, Dashinka said:

First of all, the Utah Zoom Online Marriage is not a proxy marriage.  It is in fact a legal US marriage ceremony with a valid marriage certificate.  The only issue it causes with respect to immigration is that the couple being married must be physically present together either during or at some point after the ceremony before you can submit the I130.  If you are together during the ceremony, you can file the I130 as soon as you get the marriage certificate via email.  You can also get married as soon as you can set it up while you are in the US and she is in the Philippines, and then when you go to visit next you can file the I130 immediately when you are together.  I tend toward being together for the ceremony, but that is up to you.

Correction - Zoom marriages are by definition proxy marriages - "a wedding in which one or both of the individuals being united are not in the physical presence of the officiant."

However, the USCIS’ internal rules, found in the USICS Policy Manual, state:

"USCIS does not recognize the following relationships as marriages: … Relationships where one party is not present during the marriage ceremony (proxy marriages) unless the marriage has been consummated."

1 hour ago, Gawain said:

 

6. Probably.  You need to do more homework.  Many Russians are now getting Schengen visas from Norway and going through Norway, then on to their final destinations from there.  Do more research.  I've been through this and you have to research a little bit every day.  Although there is great information in this forum, you will learn new and helpful information from the US embassies.  My advice is to communicate with them more.  I have found that in an email, I get a response if I keep the questions to a minimum (maybe 1 or 2 questions) and be brief.  After you get a reply, then you can hit them with another email.  And so on...

 

Good luck.

Do you have a source for this? The Norwegian government website says "If you plan to visit Norway as a tourist, you will normally not be granted a visa." when you specify being a Russian citizen.

3 minutes ago, ZRomper said:

You do not go to the police to get this certificate, they will send you away. It will be something like a ministry of criminal justice informational bureau. They hand out these papers to all residents. It's hard to believe they would say this since imagine hypothetically a resident legally residing in Serbia commits some crime for instance, what they're saying is that they wouldn't have a record of that?!
My wife and daughter are in Poland on a temporary residence permit through a humanitarian visa and they even let me stay here as her husband. They gave us all the documents we requested and even gave us a Polish social security number (PESEL) for all processing. If your wife has a legal temporary residence card from Serbia, they can't turn you away for a police certificate. I would definitely ask your Serbian lawyer about this.
 

In Serbia the "police" are the same as the ministry of the interior - at least according to the US website. It says to go to "the Ministry for Internal Affairs (MUP - Ministarstvo unutrasnjih poslova), also known as the police". It could have been a language issue, since my fiancee doesn't speak Serbian, and the people she spoke to at the police didn't speak great English. We'll work it out, we have time.

I did just notice that the state department reciprocity page for Russian documents (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Visa-Reciprocity-and-Civil-Documents-by-Country/RussianFederation.html) has a section that says to upload the police certificate to the NVC. (See below) I wonder if this applies for K1, I don't see the note on other countries' pages...

53 minutes ago, ZRomper said:

My wife is from Belarus and she and I have lived in Poland for a year and a half now since we moved in 2022 to Warsaw. She and my daughter are getting their IR1 and IR2 visas. She was asked for both certificates at NVC a Belarusian one and a Polish one. They accepted the Belarusian one even though it was from beginning of 2022 with no complaints since they realize we've been living in Warsaw for over a year. They shouldn't ask you for  a new Russian certificate if you can show that you and her have been living in Serbia for the past X months/years.

However my wife just reminded me that the 2 year rule does apply. Ours will be 2 yr old only in March 2024. 

If they make you get a new one, even Belarus lets you do this online now. Russia should have something similar. You can appeal that she doesn't want to go back there because of the political situation in the country. Another thing she can do is issue the power of attorney to one of her relatives/friends in Russia, you just need to find out what the process involves in Serbia. In Poland we just went to a notary public and drafted a power of attorney which specifically states all the state institutions we needed etc etc, you can find samples online. Then we had to go to a local regional court here in Warsaw and waited 3 days for the notary's signature to be confirmed, after that we got an official apostille at another office and that's it, they accepted it in Belarus. We did this here in Poland. This way they'll be able to get it for you and mail it or pass it to you in Serbia somehow.

Russia has the ability to request their police certificate through the Russian embassy in Belgrade, so she's in line to get an appointment with them to request it. It sounded fairly routine, as she said they had a section on their website specifically to request the document.

34 minutes ago, ZRomper said:

Also, you shouldn't have any issues getting a Serbian police certificate. In Poland it was very easy, you just pay 30 zloty ($6) and go to the criminal justice bureau office and there we filled out a simple application and got the police certificate in 10 minutes. The important question here is on what grounds is your wife staying in Serbia? If it's official, then she shouldn't have any issues. I just did a quick google search for "справка о несудимости в сербии" (police certificate in Serbia) and got a bunch of videos online on how to get one in Serbia.

Also it's very important that you guys check what is required to be filled out on the Serbian form for the police certificate. For Poland, we had to check all 3 boxes of the form, even one that said "Juvenile criminal records". These instructions are country specific and will be located on the Serbian US embassy website concerning police certificates. They even tell you how to fill it out.

She tried going to the police in Serbia to request one, but they sent her away since apparently it's only for citizens. We're working with a lawyer in Serbia who advised us to try to get the Serbian police certificate via the Russian embassy, so that's what we're trying next. Thankfully if we don't need them for the NVC phase we have a good 6 months to figure it all out.

3 minutes ago, powerpuff said:

During my process, I honestly found the info on state dept and consulate pages - regarding K1 process specifically - unhelpful and, as you mentioned, contradictory, largely due to them just pooling K1s together with immigrant visas.

What has really gotten me through so far, and I had my AOS approved a while ago, is searching the VJ using the search bar specifically on the laptop/desktop and putting key words in (mobile version doesn’t search well). Almost all my questions and uncertainties were answered that way, it was/is a life saver.

 

Correct 

Yeah - I tried searching for info on police certificates, but I couldn't find anything about submitting them to the NVC in specific, just for the interviews. I guess this explains why 😅

Thank you!

9 minutes ago, Chancy said:

 

K1 cases do not upload any documents for NVC review.  The original police certificates must be presented to the consulate staff at the visa interview.

 

7 minutes ago, powerpuff said:

Have you researched the K1 process? K1 applicants do not submit or upload any documents to NVC. There’s pretty much no interaction with NVC apart from them holding your case until the consulate requests it. The police certificates are to be brought to the interview by the beneficiary.

I've been following the steps listed on this page: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/the-immigrant-visa-process/step-8-scan-collected-documents.html

Does this not apply for K-1 visas? The information online has been confusing and contradictory. For example, the state department K1 page references form DS-160 but the embassy page references form DS-260. I've been told mixed things on when to treat a K-1 as "immigrant" vs "non-immigrant", since it's considered a "nonimmigrant visa with immigrant intent"

If I'm understanding you correctly, for a K-1 I will not submit any forms to the NVC, and instead the embassy handles everything?

I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I find this new web page so disappointing compared to the old spreadsheet. You have to manually add up approvals/rejections to get a daily number, there's no way to get daily average case processing by week, it's much harder to see the % completion of past months, the daily average processed cases by month excludes the current month, etc. There's just overall so much less information, and what is there is harder to read.

My fiancee is a Russian citizen who's been living in Serbia for over a year. We know that we need to get both police certificates (Russia and Serbia), but we're not sure what the expiry is for them.

She has not been back to Russia since leaving, so that certificate will be valid forever, correct?

The Serbian certificate has a 90 day validity on the document - does it need to be uploaded to the NVC during those 90 days, or does the 2-year expiration policy from the State department take precedence?

We're mainly asking because we have literally no clue how long it'll take to obtain the Serbian one, as there's no instructions online for how a non-Serbian-Citizen living inside of Serbia can obtain one. It could be difficult to obtain a facially valid certificate for the NVC without causing a delay for our case.

(We're aware of the official reciprocity schedule, but it only has sections for citizens, "non-citizens who once resided in Serbia, and are now in their native country", and "Non-citizens who once resided in Serbia, and are in a third country now".)

Thank you!

22 minutes ago, Obllak said:

What is very interesting regarding this is the fact, that they used to reject more cases per month than deny, but they switched since February this year, when they started processing drastically higher numbers of cases (when USCIS got many new workers). Concerning? 

Doesn't sound immediately concerning to me - has the ratio of approvals to denials increased appreciably? It's not surprising to see a higher raw frequency of denials as they process cases faster, but rejections should stay about the same unless the number of new cases filed also increases.

34 minutes ago, PakistaniRussian said:

I have a Russian fiance' (she has a Turkish Resident Permit for 2 years now). NVC is about to create our case. I heard horribly backlog stories about Ankara, so we are thinking about moving our case to Almaty, KZ or Belgrade, Serbia if possible. I'll keep you all posted if either accepts us. Otherwise, we are either stuck with Warsaw, Poland or Ankara. Not sure which one has a larger backlog

Don't take this as gospel, but according to VJ statistics Ankara isn't bad at all for K-1 filers. You can check here, just search for "Ankara" https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/stats.php?cfl=

63 day average for K1 vs 322 days for an IR1 or CR1

18 minutes ago, easyeddie said:

I'm exactly one month before you with my NOA1. Are you telling me we could hear something by mid July? 🙏

I'm also August 2022 and I'm anticipating approvals to start coming around then, hoping I get approved by mid-August and can avoid the stress of being in the tail.

1 minute ago, AndiB said:

It varies by state, a majority don't allow you to have a drivers workout documents showing your legally there. You can drive on your i-94 for k1 but that expires in 90 days and after that you have nothing showing legal status until EAD/GC.

 

Driving on a foreign licence is usually for tourists/non-residents. It's very easy to become considered a resident and you basically can't avoid it if you're trying to obtain proof of life together for AOS (eg shared bank, bills, rent etc). So between k1 and aos I can't drive on a foreign licence but also can't obtain an American license. Some states have removed proof of legal status to get a license but its 50% or less I think so chances are most of yalls states have same restrictions.

Gotcha, that's crazy! How do they expect you to start working when you get EAD if you have no license? It's not like the US is famed for its public transit..

I'm guessing I never heard about this because my state is one of the 17 that allows people to get a license without documents.