CanadiCAN

are they going to make u pay again to refile?????????

sara

Yes that seems to be the case.

We have considered going the Canadian route, we're just trying to get all of our options clear to us. I think our next step will be to consult with an immigration attorney and see what they say our best option would be. Thank you everyone for your advice and help.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I appreciate the help. Our next step will be to consult an immigration attorney and find out what our options are, and make sure that we do everything by the book. I in no way want to do anything illegal and mess up our chances of ever being together. Thanks again!

You can get married, but maybe you want to contact the Dept. of Homeland Security Ombudsman, and try to find the petition. and maybe not. Are you prepared to stay here in the US until you complete the AOS? If you are, then go for it! Good Luck, Mike & Yizhen

[/quote

Just so I understand correctly, you're saying that based on my situation I WOULD be able to get married and stay in the U.S and adjust status from here.

I'm completely prepared to wait it out here. I don't want to be apart anymore, it's been 10 long months apart and I'm sick of it. I don't think there's much to salvage by contacting the ombudsman, but thank you for that suggestion.

Unfortunately with our case I don't think there's anything to salvage at this point. I don't really want to wait another 3 months to hear that they can't do anything for us. We already tried to contact them to help us before we went for our infopass appointment and they never got back to us. Thank you for the suggestion though. I'm just so lost. I don't know what to do. I suppose the best option would be to speak to an Immigration attorney and explain our situation and see what they say is our best and safest bet.

Oh no no. When I came into the U.S to visit in January we were still waiting to hear about our K1. We just had our infopass appointment yesterday and found out that they basically lost our petition. The guy looked in the computer and the only information that was there was the petitioners name and address. I (the beneficiary) wasn't even in the computer. I haven't left the U.S since january, so when I came in I didn't have ANY intentions to get married on this visit as that would have nullified my K1 petition. I do not want to do anything illegal, I'm just trying to figure out who and what situation is considered acceptable for getting married and staying in the U.S and adjusting status from here.

You can come to the US to visit, get married and stay here while your petitions are being processed but planning it before it happens is considered fraud. using a tourist visa or any other visa to enter the US with the whole purpose to adjust status here in the US is considered fraud. Now, some people have pulled it off and have lied to the USCIS to get approval but you will need to be ready to answer any questions they may have, especially since you had already filed for a K1.

Diana

Yes, he said that it has been lost and that there is very minimal information in our file. He said "it looks as though someone started to input your information and just stopped"

Our K1 petition was sent out in May of 2008 and now after 10 months of waiting, we find out they lost our petition. I am the beneficiary, and I am currently in the U.S. I know that if someone entered the U.S on say, a student visa or a work visa and got married to a U.S citizen that they could file for AOS and stay in the U.S while doing so. I've also heard of a few people who just came in on visitor visas that can do the same. Basically I would like to know if this option would be possible for us. When I entered the U.S I did not have any intentions of getting married on this visit, as we were awaiting our K1 visa. Now we would like to get married and adjust status. I'm just not sure if this is an option for me. I in no way want to do something that is illegal, I am just trying to figure out our options as we don't want to be apart anymore. We've spent the last 10 months apart and don't want to have to go through that all over again. Any help, advice or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, I've lost faith in them. At this point I feel like no matter what we do we're going to get screwed over.

They just kept saying that they would look into it and send out our NOA1. Then they told us that if we didn't hear anything in 3 motnhs to contact a senator. Instead we made an infopass appointment to hear from someone face to face what was really going on, and he informed us that they basically had no information on us. So we're out $450, and 10 months of time together.

Well, I in no way want to do anything illegal. The thing is we never received any noticeof receipt for our petition. We made several calls to the customer service center over the course of these 10 months and they could never tell us anything so we went to an infopass appointment and the guy there told us that all he had "on file" for us is the petitioners name and address, and that's it, nothing about me. He said that it looked like someone started to input our information and stopped. He said that it's basically like it never existed. He also said that it would not affect any other visa we applied for. I guess I just want to know what our best option would be at this point. We're sick of being apart as everyone going through this process is.

Our K1 petition was sent out in May of 2008 and now after 10 months of waiting, we find out they lost our petition. I am the beneficiary, and I am currently in the U.S. I know that if someone entered the U.S on say, a student visa or a work visa and got married to a U.S citizen that they could file for AOS and stay in the U.S while doing so. I've also heard of a few people who just came in on visitor visas that can do the same. Basically I would like to know if this option would be possible for us. When I entered the U.S I did not have any intentions of getting married on this visit, as we were awaiting our K1 visa. Now we would like to get married and adjust status. I'm just not sure if this is an option for me. I in no way want to do something that is illegal, I am just trying to figure out our options as we don't want to be apart anymore. We've spent the last 10 months apart and don't want to have to go through that all over again. Any help, advice or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not entirely sure, but I would imagine that it would be a from a few months after you filed, but they said that by the end of June 98% of all cases pending more than 30 days will be cleared, so you know that its been AT LEAST 30 days.

Well, I should have joined this group a long time ago. It's been 9 months and counting. The way our case has been handled is completely ridiculous as all of you are very familiar. I'm sad to join this group, and I'm sad that this group even exists, but I come bearing what I hope is good news, and maybe will brighten some of your days. Here's a link to a report that may be exciting news for some who are stuck in background checks, if you haven't already seen it.

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...0004718190aRCRD

This made me feel a tiny bit of hope like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully it does the same for those of you who are waiting on background checks. So hello everyone, hopefully we all make it out of this group very soon!

Here is a link to an official government website that may help with the birth certificate issue.

https://www.orgforms.gov.on.ca/eForms/start.do

Hopefully that helps!

Thanks for the help and suggestions. I'll follow all the great advice you've given me and hopefully all goes well!

I (beneficiary) will be flying to visit my fiance (USC) in a few days, for 2 weeks. As this is the first time I've gone through customs alone, and the first time I've gone through customs at the airport (usually drive through) I was just wondering what to say. I know to only answer the questions asked, but if I need to, do I use the term "fiance" "boyfriend" "friend" I don't want to lie, I just don't want to raise any unnecessary red flags. Is there a huge difference between airport customs and land crossings? I don't have much in the way of proof of ties. I still haven't received my NOA1 and we filed on April 25th, I don't rent, and I don't have a mortgage. I do have a letter from my employer and a return ticket. Will this be sufficient?

Any suggestions would be great, I'm kind of stressed about this.

Thanks!

I'm sorry to hear that. I grew up in Quebec as well so I know all the bureaucracy and ####### that goes on in that province.

Keep inquiring though, you may find that even though it is not accredited, that your credits may be transferrable to a US college and there may be a refresher course of some kind that can enable you to take your exam.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone for responding so quickly!

A little more about us well, the short version would be that we met online in October of 2003 and continued to speak regularly. He was in the Seattle area and I was in the Montreal area at the time. I was 17 at the time that we met and therefore was still living with my parents. They decided to move to Vancouver in April of 2004. In may of 2004 We met in person. Because we were both so close to the border we had a very fun border relationship for the 2 and a half years that I was there. My parents (who move A LOT) decided they now wanted to live in Ontario. Off I went, and my hubby (to be) decided to come with me. We lived here in Ottawa from 2005 until January of this year. He left to go back to Washington and I stayed here so that we could save up as much money as possible. So in a nutshell, that's our story!

This process already feels long because we originally had plans of starting it before we moved over to Ontario, but never got around to it. In some ways I'm happy that we waited this long because, at the beginning of our relationship I think it would have been much harder to go through this, mainly due to our age, but now we've been together for a long time, and Id like to think we know each other very well. I'm happy with the progression our relationship has taken, I just wish that this process allowed us to be together while waiting for the approval. It must be so hard for couples who haven't had the chance to spend a lot of time together and really get to know each other. Or on the other hand, they can't miss what they don't know lol. Sorry if that sounds mean, just trying the whole "glass half full" thing.

Again thank you all so much for responding, sorry for the short novel!

Well, we finally sent our petition out today! We're officially in the CSC lineup woohoo! Well once we get our NOA1 it will be official, but still. I am so excited, it seems like it has taken so long to get to this point I'm just so relieved to finally have the process started. I know it won't be easy, and I DEFINATELY know it won't be fast, but it's the beginning of the end of this chapter of my life, and I can't wait to start a new one, with the man I love.

I'm new here, so I just felt the need to share my excitement and anticipation with people who can relate to this whole process. Those not going through it don't understand the difficulty involved, in more ways than one, and that in itself can be stressful. I can tell that I will be on here every day for the next 7, 8, 9, etc months obsessively checking the lists and driving myself crazy. Luckily for us we managed to geographically situate ourselves in the worst parts of our countries possible, resulting in CSC, and MTL consulate lol

Anyway, hello everyone, and I'm sure you'll be seeing some more of me!

Wow, that's great to hear! Any way that I can save money is a plus. Were you already covered by Blue Cross beforehand, or did you just call them up and ask that of them? That would be great because I have to get the Gardasil, which I'm sure they won't cover but it's about $600 in total. I wonder though if they agreed to cover you because you had no other options, they'd probably tell me to suck it up and pay the $250 lol.

Thanks for all the replies!

I'm nowhere near close to needing to have my medical but I was just wondering if you can have it done in a different province than the one you live in. I'm in Ottawa and the medical here is $250 but in Montreal it's only $180. Would it be possible to do this?

Well I'm still a little foggy on the definition of an overstay. If it's staying longer than 6 months less 1 day at one given time then definately not. If it's 6 months less a day spread through out the whole year, then I suppose there is a possibility. I used to visit for a couple of weeks at a time every month or so plus spent 3 months in one visit. So in that respect I'm not sure that's why I was hoping that if I had an overstay I would have been informed this last time I cross the border. (2 weeks ago) Before my last visit with my SO I hadn't been to the US in over 2 years.

Agh this is so stressful!

Thank you for the quick help!

That's the main thing that I'm worried about is that we won't have enough primary evidence. I suppose I'll just send in the primary evidence that I do have, and send some photos of other visits as secondary evidence. As for an RFE I meant to ask if they will accept ANY evidence at all from visits made during the process. It's so frustrating because had we known we would have TOO much primary evidence since we've been together for 4 years and lived very close to each, and being able to see each other very often for 3 of those.

also, I just though of another question lol, if you have and overstay, are you aware of it, would they deny you entry, or tell you when you try to cross the border?

Hi everyone,

I've spent some time browsing on here in the past few weeks while preparing our petition. (I am the beneficiary, my SO is the USC). I just have a couple of questions that I was hoping to get some answers to so that we can finish up our petition and send it off ( and start the nice long wait with CSC! lol)

First off, can the petitioner use a P.O box, and if so which forms does he put his physical address, and which does he put his P.O box?

Secondly, will our having met initially online have any negative effect on our petiton being approved ( do they investigate more thoroughly, and require more proof of relationship because of this, in anyone's experience)?

Lastly, we never really had looked into all of the requirements for this visa such as needing boarding passes, itineraries, etc. We have met in person in the last 2 years, but have no documentary proof, except from my last trip down there in February. However, all I have from that particular trip is my barding passes, a receipt from a purchase I made with my credit card in his hometown, and that's it. We didn't take any pictures because the occasion never came about, and we didn't know that we would need these specifically from this trip. The other problem that arrises when trying to prove our relationship is that when I flew to see him this last time I flew Domestic (within Canada) and then drove across the border. Being Canadian I don't ever get a passport stamp, so Im not able to use this as evidence either. Basically what I'm wondering is if I can use photos from other occassions within the past 2 years as secondary evidence, and my boarding passes and the receipt as primary evidence? Also, if you receive and RFE for additional proof can you use pictures from visits you've had SINCE you applied?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!